sorry in advance, its a long one
im a 17yr old female, and ive been friends with this group since elementary school—lets call them cassie (17F), jason (17M), austin (18M), evelyn (17F), and lola (17F). weve all been friends since around 4th grade but evelyn and i have known eachother longer. austin is an online friend we met as kids and has stuck with us since then. i also have a newer friend, charlotte (17F), who i met in my sophomore year and introduced to the group. for context, cassie, jason, lola, charlotte, and i are the only ones that attend the same school.
during our junior year, everything started fine. i introduced charlotte to the group at school because they had a lot of classes together and overall thought they’d get along great. things started feeling off in october 2024 between me, cassie, and jason. it started off small: for cassies birthday, jason gave her a thoughtful and expensive gift. i couldn’t afford anything near what jason bought but i did what i could and i bought her a few of her favorite snacks—which she barely acknowledged. when it came to my birthday, neither gave me anything besides a simple “happy bday” text and ghosted for the rest of the day.
over time, the way they treated me started to feel very cold. at lunch, i felt like a lost puppy just following them around. they didnt talk to me, acknowledge me, and talked about things that i wasnt included in. they would go out of their way to exclude me from small things like offering food to everyone but me. lola was the only one who noticed the issue and agreed the behavior was weird.
in january of this year, i passed a multi part test that confirmed i was graduating with an honors diploma and received a medal and cord. out of pure excitement, i showed cassie in our science class, but she mocked the hell out of it—saying it was ugly, the size of the medal being embarrassingly big, not worth wearing, etc. it was such a hurtful and weird moment. from that moment forward, she stopped acknowledging me entirely, even in the class. she stopped greeting me, looking at me, talking to me, regardless of being shoulder partners.
around easter, cassie hosted a party and only invited jason. i only found out because everyone in the group shares locations. i didnt bring it up, but being excluded hurt. on the last day of school, which is a day my friends and i traditionally celebrate another year, cassie and jason went to our usual spot without telling me. i only found out after checking locations again. lola wasnt invited either but didnt care since she was out with her boyfriend anyway but was still upset for me. that day cassie started a group call and lola took that as an opportunity to bring up what happened. cassie give a super half-assed excuse saying “we didnt think shed want to come” to which lola responded, “how would you know if you didnt even ask” to which cassie said, “i thought we did ask oops”
since then, i pretty much ghosted cassie and jason. i later found out that they actually invited my friend charlotte to hang out without me twice, and posted about it knowing id see. the groupchat has been dead since school ended in may. evelyn tries to keep it alive, and i always respond because my issue isnt with her, she doesnt even go to our school and doesnt deserve to be in the middle. after i explained everything to her, she talked to cassie and jason herself and now is urging us to talk things out and says our stories “dont add up”
right now, cassie just texted the groupchat saying theres so much unspoken tension and we should say it if we have a problem, which in my opinion is an interesting choice of words. this is the first message we have gotten from her in months. jason on the other hand took a different approach and posted an indirect on instagram saying i just want to victimize myself. it really rubbed me the wrong way.
my question is, was i wrong to ghost them?should i respond to cassies text and talk it out or best to keep my distance? im not sure if this is important enough to say but i am struggling with severe depression, and i simply feel like these kinds of problems are the least of my worries right now. weve also had a similar problem before, and the outcome was just then invalidating every point i made. evelyn believes they genuinely didnt know how bad they hurt me, but i just dont see how one can be THAT socially ignorant, especially when so many things were obviously exclusionary. i dont know if its even worth fixing anymore, im just exhausted.
TL;DR:
im a 17yr old F, my longtime friends slowly started to exclude me and treated me like crap. i ghosted them after dealing with so much disrespect, and now theyre confronting me about tension and distancing. one of them posted about me wanting to victimize myself. should i bother responding, or is it better to keep my distance?
Comments
Don’t gaslight yourself. If this is what you’re feeling, don’t use them as a barometer for the validity of your feelings. They don’t want to feel like bad people, so they’re very unlikely to see things from your perspective- and you feel like shit when you’re around then anyway.
I’m so sorry you’re going through this. Friendship breakdowns at any age are rough but they’re a particularly huge deal as a teenager.
I don’t think your behaviour counts as ghosting – you’re responding to the people in your group chat who are addressing/including you. But giving up trailing after them at lunch when not speaking to you, or not inviting them out if they don’t invite you, seems reasonable. I’d count ghosting as you’re completely not responding (you are responding just not as much/enthusiastically) and it’s without any notice (they’ve had it flagged that their behaviour is upsetting).
I’d agree with your unstated conclusion that your relationship with Jason and Cassie can no longer be called a friendship. I agree it’s not worth trying to engage further there unless you see sincere and consistent attempts from their end. The tricky thing is what to do with the group dynamic.
In your position I’d want to sort of formally end things. It’s not really your job to teach them how to be basically kind humans. My response would be “Yes Cassie and Jason, I’ve had a few episodes where I’ve felt hurt by your statements when I expected support (making fun when I won a medal) and generally not valued (no birthday celebrations and no invites to parties you’ve thrown). I understand from other people you think these are simple oversights but it’s no longer the sort of friendship I want to put my time and energy into. I wish you the best and don’t really want to discuss it any further. Charlotte, Austin, Evelyn and Lola I hope this doesn’t change things between us”. Then leave the group chat.
There’s a royal with this that ongoing gossip and manipulation may force the rest of your group to choose sides and you may lose these friendships too. But I don’t think there’s any way to negotiate back into a good place with Cassie and Jason and while they’re playing the game of oops we forgot to invite her or ugh she’s being the victim again, there’s scope to be sent down a rabbit hole that loses you a lot of time, energy, and mental health. Prioritise looking after yourself and your mental health. Focus on the graduation with honours (congratulations this is a huge deal!) and look to the future. These are not the only friends the world has planned for you and growing out of friendships is a normal but painful process.