What are the signs that people no longer like you?

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When they're making plans and credible death threats against you, their family is witnessing these threats, contacting you, suggesting it may be quite advisable to get a restraining order against them and watch your back, and that they're quite willing to go to court with you as witness to the threats. Oh, ... wait, those are the signs their mental health has gone really bad and it's time to definitively move them to the ex-friend category, stay the heck away, and watch one's back ... and that they also no longer like you.

Signs people no longer like you. I often find it difficult to distinguish, but (most?) commonly:

• They never return your calls, emails, texts, etc., and they're not dead or otherwise quite unable to do so. The "tricky" part is (half?) knowing why - are they really or rather unable to, or do they just not care to?
• You get lots of the brush-off - from most anything you say, do, suggest, ask, etc.
• They beat you up, bully you, seriously put you down, "call you out" to fight you, and do other mean nasty stuff to you, particularly on a regular basis. Okay, so that's mostly like kids, but sometimes adults will do relatively similar.
• You repeatedly invite, etc., they never (or no longer) at all take you up on such or show any interest, or show only feigned interest (is it that, or are they just not that interested?).
• They never invite you to anything - ever
• They generally avoid you - move away, don't talk to you or talk only as minimally as feasible.
• They only contact you when they need something from you - and you're like their last desperate resort - they only try you after they've tried everyone else - including those you know they quite don't like.
• They talk down everything you like, support, think, express, etc.
• They're always "busy" (the "brush-off"), never have/make time for you, yet they find/make time for those they like (more).
• They flat out won't come to significant events in your life, e.g. high school / college graduation, wedding, won't see kids you have that they've never even met, your funeral
• First signs? Not sure, but I think typically a distancing/removing, and responses negative and curt, or missing. Maybe other earlier signs too, but that I've missed?

Uninterested and don't like can be difficult to distinguish - sometimes they'll just become uninterested, and/or more interested in other person(s) or thing(s).

I feel some of these replies are very ASD, whereas what a lot of us need to know are the more subtle NT signs. Yes when we cut friendships, we do stop replying to texts. It's black and white for us. But when NTs want to cut friendships I find they often opt for the 'phase out plan'. They DO still reply to your texts / calls / messages, but the way they do becomes different - they might reply less often with shorter less interested replies than previously. They might ask to hang out at times when they know you are busy, so it looks like they're still trying, it's just 'unfortunate' that you couldn't find a mutually convenient time. They might suddenly become much busier than usual and yet still be finding time to meet up with other friends. They might stop telling you things about their lives like they used to, and they might not include you in celebrations like they used to (kids birthdays, days out etc).

I have this problem alot - sometimes it makes me sad that I can't tell. And I know that no matter how hard I try, in many situations I just won't be able to.

I do not notice regular signs, so a few times people have just completely betrayed me, one by then saying mean lies about me to common friends for no reason at all.
I was really pleasantly surpised no one believed those lies and they instead called her out and threw her out in the cold.
The other just said one day "We can't talk anymore. Also I can't be your mentor anymore, and I won't be helping you with your final internship either. I've asked Wally to fill in instead.".

Then it's being heavily disillusioned and depressed for a few weeks or months, looking very, very hard for what I could have done wrong.
Then realizing it's them and getting mad and bitter for a loooong time.

So I can't really help you with verbal or body language cues...
There where no signs of not returning calls or something like that, just one day: BAM!

This post is great, well said!!

The signs I tend to pick up on are

* They no longer answer texts, emails or IM's.
* They no longer invite you to things or accept invitations
* They avoid you in real life and on the internet
* They block and/or delete you on FB, Myspace or a chat program

With all that said it doesn't necessarily mean they don't like you, they could also be moving on in a different direction to you in life and therefore that could cause the friendship to die off too.

For example I had a friend who got married and had a child and I'm currently in relationship with no children, our friendship started to die off as we no longer had the same things in common like we did before she got married and had a child and I didn't take this very well at first and decided to cut her off however I have had a lot time to think about things since and the reality is we just moved in totally different directions in our lives.

If you get a friend who is sarcastic, condenscending, rude or just plain nasty then their role in your life is probably over and they're sick of the relationship...seriously would anyone want to hang onto a friendship like that??

S

I just realized I have done many of these things to many/all the people I know when I went into a long depressive period with social anxiety. No wonder I have no contact with anyone anymore, they all think I no longer like them... It's actually not so much anything I have done, as what I have not done. All the above listings are of things they no longer do, and as Callista mentions in the quote below, there can be many reasons for that.


Thanks, I needed to see that someone understands there are different reasons behind similar behaviour.

So very true and well said! And indeed, becoming "busy" is the first sign and also they stop sharing with you as much as before, especially vulnerabilities, dreams, hopes, secrets, new resolutions - they stop wanting to think aloud with you and seek your point of view, reassurance, etc. It's called killing the friendship by attrition. There's no substance, the friendship weakens and dies. In other words, they start boring you with an "everything's fine as usual, nothing new" attitude.

Nowadays I'm so used to getting this from everyone that at the first signs, rather than enduring the "phase out" months, I cut all contact with them by phasing them out a lot more quickly than they're phasing me out. I totally hate being phased out, I think it's terribly hurtful and unfair, much more than being told the truth to my face, and there's no reason whatsoever why I should put up with it and wait it out till the bitter end that most mention in this thread. Chances are, by not being able to detect the signs along the way, we endure so long that we end up being drastically cut off, and that's when we see what we think are the "first signs".