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I worked for 3+ years at a company in the States. I’m in my mid-20s and mostly hung out with coworkers my age. We added each other on social media and hung out at lunchtime. After seeing the same people for more than 900 days straight, you’d think we were close. I thought so, anyway.
After I voluntarily left the company for family reasons (moving to Europe!), I reached out to a few of them who’d sent me their personal emails to stay in touch. Zero replied. INCLUDING my old boss, who had cried the day I left. Now she’s fallen off the radar and doesn’t even acknowledge me.
What’s weirder, I noticed two coworkers completely deleted me from their social media profiles. One even went so far as to block me out of the blue. I hadn’t spoken to that person since I’d left the company, so I have no idea what caused this.
I am a shy person by nature, and I always try to be nice to people for fear of rocking the boat. I’d genuinely thought these people were my friends. I feel sort of sliced open right now. I’d included a bunch of them on my farewell company email, and had put a lot of thought into it, and this is what I get. Lol.
Maybe someone more experienced can shed advice and commiserate?
I worked for 3+ years at a company in the States. I’m in my mid-20s and mostly hung out with coworkers my age. We added each other on social media and hung out at lunchtime. After seeing the same people for more than 900 days straight, you’d think we were close. I thought so, anyway.
After I voluntarily left the company for family reasons (moving to Europe!), I reached out to a few of them who’d sent me their personal emails to stay in touch. Zero replied. INCLUDING my old boss, who had cried the day I left. Now she’s fallen off the radar and doesn’t even acknowledge me.
What’s weirder, I noticed two coworkers completely deleted me from their social media profiles. One even went so far as to block me out of the blue. I hadn’t spoken to that person since I’d left the company, so I have no idea what caused this.
I am a shy person by nature, and I always try to be nice to people for fear of rocking the boat. I’d genuinely thought these people were my friends. I feel sort of sliced open right now. I’d included a bunch of them on my farewell company email, and had put a lot of thought into it, and this is what I get. Lol.
Maybe someone more experienced can shed advice and commiserate?
Sorry this happened.
So you only hung out during work hours, not outside of work.
Not replying at all is rude. Sounds like they just viewed you as a coworker and in the context of work, and once that ended they didn't want to extend the effort of continuing contact.
This is common. People in a particular situation, school, work, the service, tend to bond with each other. For the most part they are "foxhole buddies" who don't continue friendships once you leave. I found it out when I graduated from grammar school, from high school and from college. Those friendships can't be sustained with a letter or an email, especially if you move away. I found this out when I changed companies years ago. All the friendships I had developed in 7 years completely evaporated. I saw it again when I retired. A couple of people I had been close friends with for more than a decade completely ghosted me. On the other hand, I still keep in touch weekly by email and phone with one person I met on the job 40 years ago, so it is possible in the future to develop a friendship like that.
Did you post something controversial on social media?
No, I rarely use social media. I have maybe 40 followers, a tiny amount to begin with, which is the only reason I noticed the reduction.
Quote:
I found it out when I graduated from grammar school, from high school and from college. Those friendships can't be sustained with a letter or an email, especially if you move away.
Facebook, Instagram, and all those social media sites try to tout how they're good for keeping in touch long-distance, but I think it's exactly like what you said about emails and letters. The occasional "likes" from colleagues you haven't spoken to in years makes it seem as if you're still connected, but the connection is thin. Which also goes back to why I don't use social media much.
What I find strange (unfortunately, the rudeness of not responding to your emails wasn't strange; it's all too common these days), is that your boss cried when you left. I have no idea what to make of that.
Overall, I think you should consider yourself lucky, that you got along so well with your coworkers, that you hung out together at lunch everyday. That, in itself, is unusual. A worker may find one or two coworkers they get along with, maybe one to have some level of friendship with, but a whole group, of whatever size, is unusual. Count your blessings and move on at this point; that's all you can do.
I'm sorry you didn't get the responses you were hoping for from them. That's about all the commiseration I can give you, but I think their lack of response is normal since you have moved overseas and moved on out of their lives.
Remember this: Absence does NOT make the heart grow fonder - and - Out of sight, out of mind. You may not like it, but that's the way it is. Three years of acquaintanceship with those co-workers is not a long enough time to have established really firm, long lasting relationships anyway. And online long distance relationships are artificial relationships, they have no real substance to them.
Things have changed and you need to focus on starting a new life for yourself and on making new friends and relationships in the new place where you live and work now. Leave the past behind you, let go of those people and leave them behind you so you can be in the present with the people who are there with you in the flesh.
You've become irrelevant. Look forward, don't look back. You were really only "work friends" only, and that's the way it should be: don't ever befriend people with whom you work. It's not a good idea.
I worked for 3+ years at a company in the States. I’m in my mid-20s and mostly hung out with coworkers my age. We added each other on social media and hung out at lunchtime. After seeing the same people for more than 900 days straight, you’d think we were close. I thought so, anyway.
After I voluntarily left the company for family reasons (moving to Europe!), I reached out to a few of them who’d sent me their personal emails to stay in touch. Zero replied. INCLUDING my old boss, who had cried the day I left. Now she’s fallen off the radar and doesn’t even acknowledge me.
What’s weirder, I noticed two coworkers completely deleted me from their social media profiles. One even went so far as to block me out of the blue. I hadn’t spoken to that person since I’d left the company, so I have no idea what caused this.
I am a shy person by nature, and I always try to be nice to people for fear of rocking the boat. I’d genuinely thought these people were my friends. I feel sort of sliced open right now. I’d included a bunch of them on my farewell company email, and had put a lot of thought into it, and this is what I get. Lol.
Maybe someone more experienced can shed advice and commiserate?
I learned a long time ago that coworkers are just coworkers. When you leave, you cut the cord that bound you.
A lot of relationships are circumstantial. Most people are in your life for a season (maybe a few) and when their lives become busy or you just grow apart, they're not there anymore. My advice, find new friends or stay to yourself. I chose the latter.
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