Two years ago I studied abroad, and was matched up with a (native) student as part of a buddy program. The idea was to hang out a couple times and practice each other's language, but we became really good friends and hung out multiple times per week. She was effectively fluent in English anyway which made it easy.
When I say "really good friends", I mean that she seemed to open up to me pretty quickly. I remember one evening of being introduced to some of her friends. After 2-3 hours I had to get going, and she wound up leaving with me after providing some poor excuse to her friends on why she had to go. There were two other instances where we basically hung out and talked until 2-3am. The rest of the time we texted stupid shit at each other on a daily basis and went out to eat.
I left the country in 2016 but we continued to text almost on a daily basis through 2017 through 2018. She even initiated a phone call once or twice.
During this time I got a full-time job. I saved up some money and went back to visit the country to do some sight seeing. I let her know the dates I was visiting two months in advance. She was busy with business travel most of the time. But we nailed down a day to grab dinner and all seemed well.
That morning I sent her a couple pics of the town I was visiting. She made a comment about how I take good pictures, then dropped off the face of the earth. Like - that was it. No closure, no "sorry I am busy", no nothing. Just never sent another text again. Mid conversation. Gone.
Now, having been texting on a daily basis for nearly 14 months to disappearing, I was a little concerned, especially while I am in her freaking town. I called a few times, still nothing.
Needless to say after 2 days and the ability to use Facebook to contact me instead, I was pretty hurt.
And that's when it hit me. I have a feeling that, while looking at my Facebook pictures of my trip, she saw a post by someone on my page and assumed it was about her.
My friend made a comment on my page about me "visiting my wife" as a joke. He came up with this joke before I went the first time, assuming I was only going there to visit a secret wife I wasn't telling anyone about.
Since I've been hearing this joke for a long time, I commented that I left room in my luggage for a dead horse and it would be nice to bring it home to rest.
Now, you can be fluent in English but still not understand English idioms, especially when they're baked into they're own joke. So I think she:
1) Thought she was the "wife" in that context. 2) Thought I was referring to her as a dead horse
...despite the post being an inside joke and not referring to anyone.
Of course I can only assume this is why she stopped messaging me mid-conversation, as this Facebook post appeared under my photos that she was probably looking at while texting me.
I want to send her a final message that 1) Assumes this is the reason she stopped texting mid-convo and, if that's the reason 2) Allows her to rekindle the friendship without feeling guilty. Also 3) Doesn't make her feel stupid for assuming something.
Is this a good idea? I am kind of flying blind at this point.
(It's been nearly 2 months since I last heard from her).
TL;DR: After texting for nearly 1.5 years, foreign friend ghosted several hours before dinner. Haven't heard from them in months despite them being online on Facebook. I think they saw a post on my Facebook page and assumed it was about them, when in reality it was an inside joke and had nothing to do with anyone. I want to send them a final message that addresses this, but also doesn't make them feel guilty about it should they realize what it really was.
[link] [comments]
from Relationships https://ift.tt/2KJ95ZZ
No comments:
Post a Comment