When should I start to worry about a friend who’s MIA?
May 16, 2022 6:08 AM   Subscribe

One of my friends texted me last night wanting to chat on the phone. I agreed, had to finish something for about 10 mins, and then texted him back saying I was good to go for the call. He hasn’t responded since then (it’s been a full night and half a day), and I'm starting to worry, but I can't tell if that’s an overreaction. What would non-anxious people do next?

I have a history of trauma + anxiety, especially around accidents/missing friends/etc, so this situation is particularly triggering towards that fear. That's why I wanted to ask other people what a reasonable, non-intrusive response to this would be. Sorry if this is a strange question to ask, but I’m not sure what to do.

The things I know, just to give you a timeline:

—He was out last night with friends, but posted on his twitter a picture of him going home (at least, it looked like he was at the tram stop) at around 9pm. He texted me at around 9:45pm about wanting to chat on the phone. The message was casual and lighthearted.

—I said yes about 2 mins later, then said I'd be free in around 10 mins. No response, but after 10 mins I texted again saying I was good to go for the call. No response. Okay, maybe he ran into someone on the way home or took another call, no biggie.

—I'm up for another few hours ('til around 1am), so I text him saying goodnight and that we can chat tomorrow if he’s free, no worries. I go to bed at around 2:30am, still no reply. Maybe he fell asleep? That’s happened before, and it’s no problem.

—I got up this morning and still nothing. So I'm assuming he’s sleeping in, though I know that’s rare since he lives with his partner + a kid. Still, everyone has a right to not answer texts and I'm fine with that, so I wait a few more hours even though my fear is starting to build. 

—At around 3pm, I text him a quick "hey, no pressure at all, but I'm free today if you still want that phone call! No worries though, I know it's Monday" and, well, the message hasn’t been delivered. One gray tick on Whatsapp which means the reciever has no wifi or their phone's off. Maybe he ran out of battery or lost his phone. Seems like the most likely explanation.

—He hasn’t been active on any socials as far as I can tell. This also isn’t super normal behavior—if he misses a scheduled call, he usually lets me know afterwards and it’s no problem. I totally get that with a kid, things are super chaotic and difficult, so I never hold it against him if he’s out of touch for a while. Still, something feels weird but I might just be anxious.

—We  live in different countries, so stopping by his place isn’t really an option. Plus, I think that’d definitely be overkill so I wouldn’t do it anyway, at least not yet.

So, knowing all that, what would a non-anxious person's next steps be? I thought about waiting until around 8-9pm and if there’s no signs of activity, contacting my friend’s partner to ask if my friend is okay, but that feels a little bit too intense. I really don’t want to smother my friend here just because I'm catastrophizing. Should I wait it out until my friend (or their family member/partner) contacts me? Would waiting until tomorrow be bad? If something actually did happen to him, I don’t want it to seem like I didn’t care, either, so.

Any thoughts on what to do in the next few hours/days? All I see are the terrible outcomes here, but despite my anxiety I really want to act in a way that respects my friend's boundaries and right to privacy/space, and do not want to be too intrusive just because I keep thinking he got into some kind of emergency when he probably just lost his phone or something.

(Plus, if anyone has any gentle thoughts on how not to completely spiral with panic while I’m waiting that’d be great, but no worries if not. I mostly just want to know about the practical details of when/if to contact his loved ones or not.)

Thank you so much! I'll keep this thread updated once I get some news.
posted by anonymous to Human Relations (13 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Your anxiety is understandable and I feel you, but resolving your anxiety should not be a priority here. Either there is some mild inconvenience like a dead phone in which case your anxiety is misplaced or there is a genuine emergency, in which case you are not well-placed to help, being in a different country, and responding to you is one more thing your friend's partner would have to deal with at a time when they have too much to deal with.

Focus on how you can distract yourself from this issue and diminish your personal anxiety without involving your friend or his partner. Meditation, perhaps, or going out to run errands or calling a different friend for a chat.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:28 AM on May 16, 2022 [15 favorites]


As a step to calming yourself down a bit - make a list of benign reasons why your friend has not been in touch......such as they got side tracked last night and went to bed at some point, their phone died over night, making them late for work and they had to deal with all that as opposed to responding to you. They dropped their phone, perhaps in the toilet...

You've made your availability and your concern clear to them. They aren't really obliged to respond.

If their silence really is an indicator that they need help they have people locally who would also be waiting on responses ... you mention friends, a partner etc.
posted by koahiatamadl at 6:28 AM on May 16, 2022 [1 favorite]


Best answer: he lives with his partner + a kid.

I suspect your anxiety is a combination of 1) wanting to know he's ok and 2) not wanting to drop the ball and raise the alarm if something has happened.

For 1, I think you just have to wait it out. For 2, if something has happened, what information do you have that is helpful and not available to people who are in a position to do something?

He lives with someone. So if something has happened, there is already someone who will notice and raise the alarm, so you won't add anything there.

The only other information you really have that maybe his partner wouldn't automatically know (i.e. he had vague plans of going out and no definite time for returning home) is the information on social media. I'd assume his partner has access to that, so no additional information there if it was somehow relevant.

So to help with your anxiety I'd remind yourself that there are people on the ground who would notice he's missing/sick/whatever scenario pops in your head, so you aren't dropping the ball in anyway. And because there are people who would notice and raise the alarm, no news is likely good news (you aren't hearing anything because there is nothing).
posted by ghost phoneme at 6:31 AM on May 16, 2022 [27 favorites]


He lives with a partner and has local friends: he can't possibly be missing/hurt and you're the only one who knows something's amiss. And you're in a different country and can't help with any routine emergencies anyway. As a non-anxious person who nevertheless would also be feeling a little "...Friend? That phone call?" at this point, my space-respecting move would be to leave him be. I mean, you wouldn't even be worried if he hadn't wanted to chat, right? So unless the text indicated it was urgent, just imagine he meant it more like "some point soon" rather than "right now" and go back to living your life. If something is wrong, nobody's going to judge you for not caring just because you didn't launch into more intense efforts to contact him/them: if anything, it respects that they might have something they're focused on dealing with and aren't in a great space to update physically distant friends right at this moment.
posted by teremala at 6:32 AM on May 16, 2022 [3 favorites]


You are not your friend's sole tether to the universe and to safety. Your friend has a partner you say. Surely that person is going to notice if your friend is actually missing and be best placed to act in an emergency.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:33 AM on May 16, 2022 [3 favorites]


Is there anything to suggest this person might *not* be OK? I'm not seeing anything in your question. If the person was depressed, or lived in a really dangerous neighborhood, or had a heart condition, that's one thing. But if it's just a guy who went out one night and then had a chill day the next day, I would wait a couple of days at least.

And as for your anxiety: even if he were depressed, or in a dangerous neighborhood, or ill, how would knowing that change your behavior? If he's getting mugged, you can't fight off the muggers for him.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:35 AM on May 16, 2022 [3 favorites]


I can't add much more than others have except to say I'm sorry this is happening to you and you should stop with this stuff: "no worries" "no pressure", etc, in your messages.

"Hey Friend, you reached out asking for a call and then vanished. Is there an issue? I'm worried and the lack of confirmation you're okay is stressing me out."

Don't text again unless you hear back.

My sister once called me and said, "Come get me, they're going to kill me," and then gave me an address before someone yanked the phone out of her hands and said, "She's joking," and hung up. Unfortunately, I immediately forgot the address. 3 MONTHS later she called and had no recollection of the conversation. "Weird. I must have been high," she said. That was 45 years ago and I've never forgiven her and haven't spoken to her in 15 years.

Many people are flippant about contact and such and don't realize that their lack of checking in after expressing they would do so is an annoyance. If you don't make these people aware that you're worried, they won't know. Saying "No worries" is the opposite of the truth. If this person has a pattern of doing this and brushes off a message like the one I typed above, you should cut them out of your life. They're not worth the stress.
posted by dobbs at 6:53 AM on May 16, 2022 [4 favorites]


Best answer: This depends a lot on your friend’s history — if he has a history of mental health episodes or suicidal thoughts, there might be a small cause for concern, otherwise it’s really not a big deal.

Even in the former case, as others have pointed out, he has people he lives with who will be the first ones to notice if something’s wrong. You don’t need to carry this responsibility! It’s okay, he has a local support system who will look out for him.

I totally understand the anxiety — I am also an anxious person and tend to jump to the worst conclusions when I don’t hear from someone. But you’ve done everything that’s reasonable and now you just gotta wait it out.
posted by mekily at 7:06 AM on May 16, 2022 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Thank you for your answers so far, everyone! It really helps to hear from people outside of my fight/flight brain that things are probably okay, and even if they aren’t, that there are people better equipped to handle this since they’re closer by. Anxiety always feels like "I have to act *now* or else!" but in this case waiting it out 'til someone contacts me seems like the most reasonable, respectful option so that’s what I’m gonna do.

And dobbs, thank you for the concern that this is a hurtful pattern in my friend, but it really isn’t! He’s always been great at getting back to me since he also struggles with anxiety and would hate to make anyone worry. It’s the first time it’s happened, which is why it threw me off. I mostly texted him in that casual style to not burden him with my own anxiety and to act like everything's normal and fine, because it most likely is. Still, being more direct is something I need to work on anyway, so the reminder's good.

Also, if anyone’s wondering, I do have a therapist and luckily an appointment tomorrow, and I'm going to bring this up. I really can't keep living like all my friends are going to die all the time, so, gotta do some work around that.

Anyway, I won't threadsit, but I will keep this updated once I hear back from my friend. Thanks again!
posted by Anonymous at 7:20 AM on May 16, 2022


Best answer: Have you called your friend? I think you have only texted - have you called? Or emailed, or used the direct message feature of a social media app, or something? Because among me and my friends, we would probably assume somewhere in the process you describe that there was a technical issue with their app or their phone or something that had stopped them from seeing the sender's text messages.
—I said yes about 2 mins later, then said I'd be free in around 10 mins. No response, but after 10 mins I texted again
I would have called at this point, more just to stop the possible cycle of "good time for me so I will text to check" "just saw this, now is good for me" "just saw this, now is good for me" messages that sometimes happens. I think it is fine to initiate the call if the other person has said that they wanted to talk soon. And they can ignore it if they need to, or pick up and say actually it's not a good time, and nail down a good time and schedule it for later.
posted by brainwane at 8:27 AM on May 16, 2022 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Oh my god, I'm a dumbass, I forgot about other apps! I just texted him on instagram and he said he just woke up, he’d smashed his phone screen last night when he dropped it and everything’s fine. Thank you so much for the idea, brainwane!!

So, oops. Definitely freaked out over nothing. Sorry about that, y'all. Guess this is a strong sign that I really need to work on my anxiety! Thanks for all the great answers.
posted by Anonymous at 8:53 AM on May 16, 2022


Best answer: Glad this worked out! For future notice, and I say this totally sincerely: remember that this exact thing happened!

Also, if you're still open to suggestions on how to communicate about this differently, both to be available to talk to a friend and to help you manage your own stress:

I said yes about 2 mins later, then said I'd be free in around 10 mins. No response, but after 10 mins I texted again saying I was good to go for the call.
He texted once and you responded twice. Seems reasonable.

I'm up for another few hours ('til around 1am), so I text him saying goodnight and that we can chat tomorrow if he’s free, no worries.
So this is part where I think you might take a different approach. Because you were worried! It sounds like you were communicating your availability but not asking for any response. Is this an ask versus guess thing? In any case, I might say that, after you don't hear back from him originally, you could text back and say something like, "Hey friend, I'm a bit worried that I haven't heard back from you. It's okay if we don't talk tonight but I do want to make sure everything is okay."

At around 3pm, I text him a quick "hey, no pressure at all, but I'm free today if you still want that phone call! No worries though, I know it's Monday"
At this point, you were totally in a huge anxiety and fear spiral about your friend. So what's with the "no worries" thing? You aren't asking for a response from your friend with this, even though that's exactly what you wanted. I think you are so concerned about appearing not worried that you aren't communicating something important: you are concerned and would appreciate a response.

I can imagine a situation where I missed calling a friend (let's say someone else called me and we talked late and then I went to bed) and they were worried and sent me messages like yours. I'd hope I'd figure out that I should respond. But I might not! I might not realize they are wanting a response because they haven't asked for it directly.

With your friend, it sounds like his phone was messed up and he wouldn't have seen your messages anyway. But it occurs to me that some more direct communication from you might be what's needed in some situations. Please do not say "no worries" when you are drowning in worries! It's totally fine to reach out to a friend and say, "Hey, I'm a bit worried about you. Can you just let me know if everything is okay?"
posted by bluedaisy at 11:16 AM on May 16, 2022 [7 favorites]


Best answer: I'm late to this, but I'm glad your friend is okay! And I wanted to throw out a positive spin to your anxiety over the wellbeing of your friends (including this friend): in the end, it's a powerful sign that you love them. And it's a privilege to love others that much... to let yourself love others, despite knowing this world could snatch them from you in a flash. Many can't get close to people at all, because of a deep (at times even unconscious) fear of losing them. You may have fear—thanks anxiety!—but you also have the love. It's no small thing.
posted by gold bridges at 7:50 AM on May 18, 2022


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