Your Friend Disappeared—Now What? Advice for Handling Friendship Breakups

Let’s be real: Friendship breakups can hurt more than romantic ones, yet we rarely talk about them. The emotional vampires, the friends who only call when they need something, the ones who make you feel invisible, or worse—the ones who ghost without explanation. Everyone has mourned a friendship in adulthood, sometimes in silence. What’s hard about a friendship ending is the loss of your chosen family. But here’s the uncomfy truth: On the road to finding peace, sometimes letting go is the healthiest thing you can do. 

Violet Benson, host of Almost Adulting, doesn’t hold back when it comes to friendship breakups. “Sometimes, disappearing is the most honest thing you can do,” she shares, speaking from her own experience and hard-earned wisdom.

On a recent episode, Benson sits down with her friends, Alexa Losey and Chloe Madison from the Unbothered Podcast, to dole out some realness about friendship endings. It’s equal parts therapeutic and slightly even cringe-inducing, which is exactly what you need if you’re nursing a friendship wound.

Is ghosting friends ever okay?

Losely thinks ghosting a deep connection is unfair. If you’re not feeling it anymore or offended by someone, you need to hash it out. She had a friend of 10 years, who felt like family, randomly ghost her one day: “No explanation. Nothing. I begged for an explanation, like ‘If I hurt you, let me know.”

Even if it’s uncomfortable, communication is key. Losely says, “We can take space for a little bit of time. Then revisit it. I might not want to be in your life anymore, but I’m not completely out. If you want closure, I’m here for it.”

Madison agrees that you shouldn’t ghost a longtime friend without explanation. But she has limits: If you have been communicating your feelings without seeing change, she suggests having “a come-to-Jesus moment.” She says, “I tell them, ‘I’m at the end of what I can provide here, and you are not listening to what I’m saying,’ and it’s not received well, then I’m going to cut them off. Because then you’re impeding my peace.”

Benson, on the other hand, thinks ghosting is permissible when someone repeatedly ignores your needs despite clear communication. She says, “I was in a friendship where I was constantly communicating what I needed to be loved, but it was falling on deaf ears. I was just done with it.” 

Learning to spot emotional vampires

Some friendships end not with a bang but with a slow, energy-draining whimper. Benson recently ended a friendship with what she calls an “emotional vampire”—someone who depleted her completely. 

“This girl was frustrating me. I was having three-hour conversations with ChatGPT every single day to understand why she was triggering me. I tried to figure out what am I supposed to learn from this?” Benson says. 

Despite being a nice person, this former friend sucked all of Benson’s energy. The red flag: a lack of emotional depth. “Whenever I would speak, she wouldn’t listen. It’s hard for me to share with people. When I do share, I expect people to listen because I do the same. I’ve asked her a million times to just listen to me, and she would constantly say sorry…but the actions never changed.” 

What to do without closure

Madison knows the particular sting of being ghosted. Her childhood best friend—someone who had been in her life since birth—completely disappeared when Madison moved to Los Angeles at 15 years old. After she booked a big acting gig, she never heard from her again. 

“I had never experienced death before. I had never grieved someone… and it was awful. After that, I became someone who wanted to over-communicate to avoid making someone else feel that way. But as I have gotten older, I’ve also learned there is a limit to how much you can give to someone who doesn’t show up. It’s a really fine line to walk,” Madison says. 

Why do so many friendship breakups lack closure? “It’s so easy to walk away from something you destroy,” Losey explains. “It’s easy to ignore the harm you’ve caused people. It’s hard to apologize for something and know that the person might not forgive you.”

Sometimes, apologizing doesn’t make everything better. When you don’t get the closure you need, Losely says, “You have to forgive yourself, and you have to learn to live with…It’s the forgiveness in yourself to know, ‘I’m a different person, and I’d never do that again.”

When a friendship ends because someone stops pretending

Not all friendship breakups are the result of something drastic. Sometimes, the vibes just change. You stop celebrating each other’s wins. Plans never sync up. So at what point do you stop performing for someone who’s not clapping for you? If a friendship is not serving you or you have grown apart, it’s okay to go separate ways. If a friendship does not give you peace, it’s okay to move on. 

“When we get older, we only have so much time to spend with our friends. I think we just start prioritizing proximity and ease, and how much we actually have in common,” Losely explains. 

Madison puts it simply: “Saying, ‘I don’t feel loved here,’ is reason enough to walk away.”

Losely agrees: “If you leave hanging out with somebody not feeling equally as good as you did when you walked in or better, that’s not a good friendship to be in. If you constantly see someone and you feel ick, there are plenty of other places where you can feel amazing.” 

Tips for dealing with a friendship breakup 

If you are going through a friendship breakup, the best advice is to leave it off social media. Madison regrets a lot of oversharing about friendship endings online. It doesn’t mean you can’t unfollow or block someone. 

“Let’s not subtweet. Let’s not post songs about each other. Let’s not talk a bunch of sh*t. Work through why you don’t want them in your life anymore. The cattiness can really affect people in a negative way. Just grow from it and let it go,” she says.

Benson says friendship endings are an opportunity to level up. Here’s her ultimate reverse strategy: “If you really want to hurt someone, walk away. Live a good life. Life fully. Be a good person and do kind things.”