James and George
I was contacted by the folks at National Public Radio a few months back about a story they were putting together. They reached out to me as an expert in Avoidant Personality to give them a peer review of their story. We have changed their real names to protect their privacy.
Their story was about a guy named George. who was ghosted by their friend James.
James and George met in college and became very good friends. They hung out all the time, studied together, and supported each other throughout a very difficult college experience.
After they both graduated, James was going to move back home to Oregon, while George decided to go back to his home in New York. Both were going to put their degrees to work and begin their lives.
Before they left, they exchanged contact info and swore they would continue the friendship. They texted back and forth for a while, but slowly the communication began to taper off. Eventually, James stopped texting George completely.
George was hurt because he thought he was being ghosted by James. Month after month passed by and still George heard nothing from James. George texted every now and then to ask about life, but didn’t want to seem like a pest.
Months turned into years. George figured James must have moved on and just didn’t want to say anything because he didn’t want to hurt George. George thought this was normal, but that did not make it hurt any less. After all, they had been so close in college and had sworn they would remain so forever,
But George missed his friend terribly and decided that he did not want to give up trying to re-establish contact. Good friendships are better than gold, George thought. So after 3 years of silence, George decided to search for James’s family, in hopes of finding his friend.
George found James’s sister Jennifer on Facebook and messaged her. After a week, George finally got a response. Jennifer told George that she had some very bad news: James had committed suicide.
She went on to say that James suffered from something called Avoidant Personality and just could not handle life anymore. George was shocked. He told Jennifer that he’d been trying to text James for years, but never got any response so he decided that James had ghosted him.
Jennifer told George that James had told her about this. She encouraged James to reply, but he said he could not, though he really wanted to. He was afraid that George would reject him.
If you are interested in hearing the podcast from National Public Radio, you can find it here.