Worried about online friend who hasn't responded in a week

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Sorry you are going through this. It really sucks. I think it's fair to say that when really bad things happen, we all get distracted with analysis and questioning and regrets. This cycle can make it harder to take care of ourselves. For me, and I think most people, the things that work are a) practicing mindfulness, to gain more control over where our minds focus and b) when we find something else that grabs our focus.

It sounds like you find b) in other things in life, like when you're busy or with your family, so that's good. But when you're alone with your thoughts, the strongest, most "grabby" ones are about your lost friendship and the negative thoughts that follow from it.

I'd recommend maybe learning mindfulness techniques (I recently read a book Why Buddhism is True that explained mindfulness meditation super well, highly recommended) and working hard to find a new personal connection or new interest that you can focus on. If this friend comes back and starts being open and communicating, then great! You'll still have this old friend and be working on new things and new skills too, and if you have your thoughts and focus more under control, you may put a little less pressure on her and your relationship and on yourself in your interactions. If she doesn't re-open your relationship, then you will be working on things you need to get over really hard things like being let down the way you were, and tackle the perseverating thoughts that are keeping you up at night and holding you back from focusing up on things that are positive for you in the present and future.

It's not easy but working on this stuff is a win-win. It's hard to give up on the old habits and people that made us happy, but something amazing I've found in life that as much as we miss people who have moved on from our lives, there are always new people we are yet to meet and connect with who will fill those voids even more than we ever knew anyone could. If you keep working on your own life, both internal and external stuff, and like others have said, keep working strategically to meet new people (especially the neurodivergent IMO), you will find new connections, and one day, maybe you will find one who stays in your life for good. But most will move in and out of your life, and as much as it hurts, that's OK, meeting and making connections with people is a skill you can develop literally your whole life, no matter what level you're at now. This connection may have been unique to you so far, but you can take what you've learned from it about yourself and other people (heartbreak and longing for someone you can't have is pretty universal, and I bet you can learn a lot by studying your own patterns of feelings through this life challenge), and make new connections, with some focus and work. And keep asking questions on the forum and looking for help when you get stuck, getting un-stuck from tough situations like this is hard or impossible by yourself, you've got to share feelings and get new perspectives sometimes to get un-trapped by cycles of thoughts and obsessions that hold you back from seeing what you need to do for your own well being and success.

I personally rely a lot on other people when I perseverate on bad things that have happened, even when I "know" what to do (meditate to regain focus, buckle down and stop checking whatever I'm obsessed with on ny phone) I have trouble breaking the cycle without talking to someone about it. Therapists can be good for this sort of thing, if they know aspies/auties, these forums of course have a lot of people ready to listen and share perspectives too.

Ha no problem, I'm glad you liked my advice! It's a tough position you're in, but there are tried and true ways to take the best care of yourself. It sounds like your friend is taking care of herself.... the possibilities are limitless as to why she dropped off completely and changed her contact info, but one thing you can count on is, she was struggling with something and she this to take care of her own (perceived) needs.

I say perceived, because we all get mixed up about what's best for ourselves, and we find ourselves chasing short term easy fixes and solutions over long term stuff. It's easier to shut someone out (especially a distance relationship) sometimes than explain complex things we are feeling and dealing with and don't fully understand ourselves.... true for NTs and aspies/auties alike.

Sounds like you have a real need for closure. I don't blame you, when you have an emotional loss, but don't understand why, it's not fair to leave you wondering and less able to learn from this experience, than if you had answers.

But at the end of the day, life's not fair, and life seldom gives us the real explanations for bad things that happen to us. And likely as not, your friend doesn't fully get her own feelings that caused her to shut you out. If she did, she would probably have let you know, but maybe she knows that no explanation she can give will be simple and clear and not leave you wanting more, so it's easier just to not deal with it.

Of course, she could probably grow in some ways by trying, even if she failed to communicate anything coherent amd left yoy both disappointed. But she's not ready for this right now, maybe it's maturity, or maybe it's other stressors in her life that haven't left her the bandwidth to take this on right now.

My advice: Learn what you can about this about yourself and other people (there's a lot there, even without her answers). Learn to read and respect her wishes for herself (to be left alone right now) while at the same time stating (not forcing, not even pressuring, because she deserves to have full control over her own destiny) your own wishes and perspective... send a simple message like "Hey, I really miss you since you stopped writing back, and I wish I knew why. I want to respect whatever decision you've made to stop communicating, but also let you know that I would love to hear from you again in any capacity, whether to talk or even if it's just to let me know you've moved on from our friendship. Take care."

Basically, any message that says that you respect her decision to stop talking, and lets her know you are there if she wants to reach out again. After that, there's no more value in checking on her, and it's 100% on you to kick the habit of checking on her, and move on in your own life, taking care of your own needs.

UPDATE - She removed me on facebook a little while ago. I feel terrible right now.

UPDATE - She removed me on facebook a little while ago. I feel terrible right now.

I’m so sorry. That never stops hurting. Try not to beat yourself up, it really is her, not you. That’s not a way to treat someone you’ve been close friends with.

Time will help. In the meantime it’s fair to acknowledge your hurt.

It’s very very unlikely you’ve done anything at all.

I guess as you can’t change other people, and they do some truly awful things.

Upon finding out she had a new number & discord account through a forum, it really messed my head up, I couldn't think straight. Then yesterday removing me. I barely slept the last few days. I know that's probably overreacting but it sucked.

If she had the time to talk to other online friends, she had time to talk to me.

What she did further lowered my trust in people. It was already low.

As it would. I found the internet didn’t agree with me. People do it all the time. This person doesn’t seem considerate, from what you said, her behaviour is strange.

I even cried a bit the past few nights. That's how much it hurt. And I was planning on sending her something for valentines day. I'd rather find someone who will show equal care to me as I do for them. I highly doubt that'll ever happen as I tend to always be ignored & people quickly find that something is off with me.

She is indeed self centered & inconsiderate. A bit of a liar as well.

I know how you feel, I'm also ignored and people think something is off with me as well. I wonder if it might be an over-dependence of friendship that might be the problem? I am someone who cares a great deal about my friends too.

Yeah, apparently showing care is a problem. I seem to just get too emotionally attached to people I like.

I remember a post you had on here a few days ago before they were deleted and with some of the descriptions you said about yourself such as typing longer messages, etc. sound a bit like what I do.

Upon her removing me from facebook, I haven't made any attempt to contact her. I still have her on skype. If she ever wants to settle this, she knows where to find me. Though i don't think things will be as good as before.

In order to forget about her, I deleted everything relating to her, pictures, videos, letters, etc. Including a great picture i worked very hard to draw for her.

I'm terribly sorry about that, I guess in the middle of being hurt, angry, and really confused I might have let it get the better of me.

I would delete messages and conversations of past friends but I have to use those as a reference to mistakes and points where I succeeded in socializing.

For me getting emotionally attached is a problem as well. I don't think it's really that big of a problem, it's that for me since I have a hard time regulating emotions I might go a bit too far...

UPDATE - She removed me on facebook a little while ago. I feel terrible right now.

Yeah, as what tends to happen when really angry you know? I'm always told to be more open. My dad tells me to have "better interests" & that I'll find someone else. The same old stuff people are told. Why should I have to change for people to like me? I do feel like I have limited & weird interests at times.

I've deleted my texts with her, seeing as I deleted her number cause she changed it anyway. I do still have our discord interactions & even some picture proof that she lies about being busy, which kinda started me questioning her constantly & ramped up my anxiety. Which I feel like that alone ended our friendship.

A few months ago, She sent me 2 screenshots of a Role play with another online guy friend to show me some examples as we were going to RP that night (Nothing dirty, it was video game related, the guy is high school aged anyway so it would have been illegal if it was dirty). I then noticed the times & dates, they happened to be during times she told me she'd be "busy" & she'll "talk later" as she told me that morning.

IIRC, that didn't happen. She didn't talk to me until the next day (on both occasions) when I sent her a usual good morning message, as it would typically happen since she would never really start conversations.

That left me a bit hurt as I already was feeling terrible when she didnt talk to me that night before knowing she was really talking to someone else, wondering whether she *really* likes talking to me or that kid, etc.

I would constantly monitor whenever she got online, etc. Even asking her about it. Her excuse was that she leaves discord open on her phone so it makes it look like she is online as she assumes you don't get messages if it's closed.

What it instead looked like to me was she was having a back & forth conversation as she would get online for a bit as if she was typing, then get offline, then get back online to respond, etc. While not to my messages she won't until she got on her pc.

Long story short, I should have brought up those screenshots before to settle this with her.

I'm sorry that was long.

The excuse about discord could be true. I leave browsers open all the time on my phone and until recently I didn't know that if you did that anything you were doing was technically still going on(I'm not tech savvy what so ever)! I might have left pages open like on Wrongplanet still signed in thinking that when I minimize it, It wouldn't say I was online or anything after that point.

I started doing some of the same things you did myself when my anxiety went up. When I think about it now it would come across as creepy and weird but at the time I was doing it I didn't think about it. For me I might have obsessed over losing a friend I made, since it's so hard for me to make them and keep them, I get scared and nervous when ever I feel like I'm losing a friend.

I would've asked one of my family members for help on situations like that but I wanted to handle it myself so I could feel that I don't need help with everything in my life.

Maybe we both tried advancing a friendship too fast and screwed up. I can't even tell where you draw the line from friend, to acquaintance, to best friend, to being in love to...you get the point. That might be why I can call someone a friend or me saying being in love so easily as I don't truly understand those phrases and can't feel it out or whatever people do to tell these things apart.