Dear Mike Cares, how would you answer this Dear Abby?

DEAR ABBY: I'm a single man who has a close female friend who is also single. We live about a half-hour apart, so for the last 25 years, much of our relationship happened on the phone. We talked almost daily.

Two years ago, I noticed she had stopped calling me unless it was to make plans to get together. Then I noticed that when I called her, she'd let it go to voicemail and not return my call for days. About a year ago, she stopped returning my voice messages altogether. I tried reducing my calls drastically, but no dice. I also tried switching to texts, but she doesn't respond to those, either.

You might conclude that she's unfriending me, but that's not the case. We still get together often for dinner or a movie, usually at her suggestion via email, and she still acts like we are close friends and nothing is wrong. But not returning, or even acknowledging, my calls or texts sure feels wrong to me. I have tried asking her about it, but she brushes it off by saying she "didn't hear the phone." Or she's "bad at checking voicemail and texts."

Her latest excuse is, she's "just not good on the telephone." Abby, I know phone etiquette has changed and young people rarely use the phone these days. But we are in our 60s, and for 25 years our relationship was largely on the phone. It's one thing to want to cut back on that, or even to stop calling me. But ignoring my (now infrequent) calls or texts seems hurtful. Is this normal, and should I still consider such a person one of my closest friends? -- GHOSTED IN THE WEST

DEAR GHOSTED IN THE WEST: I can tell from the tone of your letter you are whining little man-bitch and quite obviously a fucking blabber mouth. 25 years of listening to you would send anyone over the deep end. I guess you should consider yourself lucky that she can even sit through a meal and a movie with you.

Why don’t you look back at your phone bill to see how long these blabber filled conversations lasted, add up all the minutes and you might see her point. Enough may be enough, but with you enough is way more than enough. She probably twitches at the very sound of her phone ringing or a text notification because of you. Unless you want to visit her in an insane asylum consider her ghosting a lesson well learned.

In the interim, do us all of favor, put your phone down, shut the fuck up for a while, and if you are really, really, lucky maybe your “closest friend” won’t want to blow her brains out at the thought of your incessant telephonic blabberfests.

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