Indifference to friend's pain

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Emor, the way she reacted is how I would've reacted at your age - fourteen. I would've stopped contacting that friend because I would've been embarrassed and not know what to say, death and grieving and the social etiquette of condolences being too alien subjects to me back then as an Aspie teenager. However, she's a woman of 50 with 35 years of excellent public relations at work behind her, and she's had to face giving condolences to bosses and colleagues before, I'm sure. She should've known what to say, how to behave, even if just out of etiquette to someone she considers a contact for job search networking. This is still very weird to me, I still don't see the whole puzzle.

The undeserving who have asked us for favors:
Sometimes before asking us, they ask people they know and get turned down. Let's say they talked to ten people they know for favors or referals and got nowhere. The last person they asked says "no" so they say, "I don't have anyone else. I've asked everyone I know and they all turned me down. I don't know what else to do."
The last person feels sorry for them and says "Are you sure you asked everyone. There isn't anyone else you can think of who can help you out?"
This is hypothetical, I use plural 'they' to represent everyone who has done this to us.
So, it's like the light bulb lights up and they say, "Hey, I know who I can ask, except last time I talked to her we argued. She might not appreciate me asking her for a favor now."
Instead of saying, "oh, better not ask her",
their advice is "Oh, that was so long ago, I'm sure she's forgotten all about it. You might as well try all she can do is say no."
So, they get goaded into asking when it might not be a good idea. They get talked into it by someone else who doesn't want to help them out either, for whatever reason.
That might be an explanation as to why they have the nerve to ask after they treated us badly.

I mean, I don't think she would've of contacted you full stop. I think it'd be incredibly awkward to do that and then talk to someone about a similar subject expecting empathy but for something less serious.
I wouldn't expect someone my age to do that, never mind a 50 year old.
I genuinely think your email didn't go though, she didn't check her email due to stress at work or it's in her spam folder.
EMZ=]

Years ago, I was taking an introductory philosophy class. The professor mentioned solipsism, the belief that you're the only conscious entity in the universe. Everybody else is an illusion, or a machine, or something like that.

"There's not much to say about this," he said, "Not much gets published on it, for obvious reasons."

"The thing with solipsism is," he went on, "There's very few people who seriously believe this, but a lot of people live as if they do."

Ana, that's another very good point, and one I hadn't thought about myself. And I love how you enacted it.

However, there's still a piece missing in the puzzle, and I sense it's the main one. Hey, not for nothing I'm (in?)famous everywhere for being so insightful - it's because I never give up until I have an answer that connects ALL the dots. And there are some dots here that are as yet not connected by the explanations we've come up with so far. The one that puzzles me the most right now is: Why was it so hard to just email a condolence word back?

Maybe she thought she should meet with me, offer me help, etc. and she didn't feel like it, so she kept postponing the call. Then a week later she got fired, and after that she was too wrapped up in her own hell to even remember about me.

That's what I think too. What did she expect? That I stop everything to give her emotional support and practical help? It makes me laugh! For God's sake, just 4 weeks ago she ignored my hardest times in life!

Btw, you probably missed one of my posts above where I said that she did get my email.

CanyonWind

She's not like that, though. She's very conscious about being correct to people. So is my brother.

Oh, sorry, just read.
The only thing I can think of was that she simply disregarded your email due to stress at work.
It's no exactly a moral thing to do, but that's all. Or she might have some sort of issue with death in general, or mothers dying.
Sorry for not reading fully, btw. I skim read(so I skipped out the brackets).
EMZ=]

I don't know the individuals involved, so this is all just speculation.

Suppose somebody knows how to manipulate people to accomplish their ends, like the way I know how to use a chain saw to cut wood, which I should be doing right now instead of hanging out on wrongplanet.

If a machine doesn't show promise of serving my ends, I don't bother about it. I don't care about it. It's just a machine.

But if I need it, I expect it to be there for me.

It sounds like inconsideration on her part. Why she was inconsiderate we can only conjecture. The fact remains she was and now I guess, all you can do, is decide if you want to continue to be friends with her knowing that she, most likely, won't be a reliable.
What I used to do is put up with this kind of treatment as long as possible (I could be described as patient and long suffering) until I thought enoughand couldn't deal with it any longer.
I guess it depends on if you want to put up with it or not and how easy it is to rationalize it. Lots of people rationalize (make excuses) because not being alone is the most important thing to them. They look at their friends thru rose colored glasses even if they aren't very good friends. She should have called and said "I'm sorry. What can I do to help?"

QFT

First time I've read about solipsism I was amazed how well it fitted so many people I've met.

My sister is very much like this. When she doesn't feel like doing something or sees it as too much of an effort, she postpones it indefinitely until it's too late to do it anyway. Then she finds a half-baked excuse (and buy some flowers or something if she thinks she waited too much) and expects everything to be fine. The reason for that is very simple: most of the times she gets away with it.

If she's called on it or somebody gets upset, she just thinks they're unreasonable and making a fuss. I've heard her quite a few times "(S)he makes a big deal out of nothing - so what? What can (s)he do to me?!" And most of the time she was right once again. Some people stopped calling or talking to her and that was it.

Only once I saw somebody biding their time and getting back to her and I never heard the end of that. First of all, my dear sister thought as totally unfair to hold a grudge for so long and couldn't even imagine the other one might have suffered all this time. Second, she thought she only made a small mistake in the first place, something that wouldn't justify in a million years the other person's reaction. For some people, the responsibility is never theirs, the consequences never their fault.

Anything people might need or ask of her is a great effort and a favour, everything others do for her is taken for granted.

So maybe your friend is just lazy and selfish like my sister. Maybe she just postponed an unpleasant task until it was too late. Maybe she thought "she'll make it up to you". People prioritize so strangely - they hurry up to suck up to their boss or show off in front of strangers and end up with no energy left for the friends and family.

See this from you "quite close acquaintance's" point of view: How can see help?

I am also quite passive in such situations. Because: How I can I help? Can I make a person again alive? No. If some ask me for concrete help, like telling him from my experience and knowledge which I authorities to involve or not to spend to much money for the funeral etc. I am the first one to help, but otherwise; At least I do not see here any point!

Unless your friend is an important politician with a global crisis on her hands, I highly doubt anything was happening at the time that could have prevented her from replying with at least a few words of condolences (dunno if that was spelled right). It is very fast and easy to write a short email message and click "send", and there's really no excuse for not doing so under those circumstances.

There is also no reason for doing so - it will not change anything.

It'd comfort the person. Comforting helps a lot for most people, imo.
It'd also show you acknowledge how they're feeling. When a close relative on mine died, I was glad I had parents and other relatives there to comfort me.
EMZ.