Why Do Friends Always Leave Me?

Why do friends always leave me?

Have you ever felt like you just simply cannot keep a stable group of friends? As if they always abandon and leave you? You may be able to talk and meet new friends, and for a while you might do things together.

But at some point, those new friends “leave” you. Whether it’s not responding to your text messages or not hanging out with you when you asked them, it can feel hurtful when it feels like they want nothing to do with you. In extreme cases, you might even get “ghosted” (i.e. when they suddenly disappear from you for good without warning).

If these things have happened to you, you are not alone. It happens to a lot of people, including myself. There are so many potential reasons why friends suddenly leave you. Some of it may be your fault, other times it’s out of your control. And today, I wanted to discuss this topic!

In this post, I’ll go over the question, “Why do friends always leave me?” I’ll go over the main things that can cause prospective friends to never see you again, and the actions you can take to keep these friends around. Overall, friendships can come and go. But with the right mindset, you can minimize the hurt it inflicts on you, and learn and move on from it.

Alright, let’s get started.

Sometimes it’s not you, it’s them.

Let’s start this article off on a positive note. I want to make it clear that when friends leave you, sometimes it’s truly not your fault. You have to understand that like many people, your friends are human. They can be emotional. They can be busy. And they can be irrational. No one is perfect, and this definitely applies in friendships.

So when you combine all these chaotic things together, you can be on the losing end of a friendship where you get ghosted. I myself have had this experience as well. There are times where I thought to myself what I did wrong for some friends to ditch me. But I could never figure it out (more on this later). Sometimes, it’s out of your control.

Here are some potential external factors that can make your friends leave you:

• They are going through hard personal times. Sometimes they don’t want to share the burden on you. So instead of letting you know their personal lives, they may decide to leave you as a friend.
• They’re simply too busy. Let’s face it; when you’re in your 30s and beyond, you usually don’t have as much spare time like you used to. So sometimes, it’s simply a matter of friends being too busy with their work and family lives to make time for you.
• They are too afraid to speak up. I feel like this is the main reason why people ghost others. It’s really hard to confront someone about what they did. It’s a lot easier to just simply “abandon” someone and never talk to them again, especially with online communication where it’s easy to block or ignore someone.

These are just a few examples of how friends can leave you, and it’s not your fault. Yeah it sucks because it’s out of your control, but what can you do?

Examine what happened.

The next thing you can do is ask yourself what you could have potentially done wrong with those friends. Maybe you acted a certain way or did certain things that pissed them off to not want them to hangout with you.

This may be difficult if you’ve never done much self-reflection. But trust me, it can help so much in figuring out how your friendships are doing.

Here are some things that can end a friendship. I talk more in detail about this in a previous post I made (click here to read why friendships end):

• Taking more than giving in the friendship. Put simply, friendship is a give and take relationship. But you want to always be in the position of giving. If you’re always taking things from the friendship (e.g. Talking more than listening, friends catering to you rather than the other way around), then it’s not surprising when friends leave or abandon you.
• Life changes. Again, everyone’s situation is different in their 30s. Stuff like having a new family, moving out of your local area and changing personalities can really affect friendships. These types of things can make friends leave you.
• Betrayal. I talk about betrayal in this post (click here to read it). But betrayal is one of the worst things a friend can do to each other. If you did something to betray your friend, then it can cause them to not want to do anything with you.

If any of these things occurred during your time with your friends that made them leave you, then now you know why.

However, if none of the above applied to you, then read the last point.

What you can do about it

If you find that you’re unable to figure out what happened, here’s what I recommend you do.

• Talk to someone who is knowledgeable with friendships. The way I got better with retaining friends is by learning from the best. I hung out with people who had amazing people skills, and they taught me a lot of things. And when I asked why my friends ditched or reacted negatively to me, they gave me harsh but honest answers with the mistakes I made. Sometimes you think you may know better, but it helps to ask for help with friendships.
• Learn to improve yourself as a person. People in general are attracted to others who are nice to be around. Stuff like being a good listener and having a more positive outlook are some examples. I’m not saying you have to be perfect. But learning self improvement can really attract more friends for you.
• Make new friends. Last but not least, you may not get the friends that left you back again. But you can always make new friends and move on. It’s all you can really do. There are tons of people in this world who are looking for new friends. 🙂

I hope you found this post helpful! If you have any questions or feedback, leave them in the comments below.