On this occasion, when the person did get back to her, the person explained that they had been going through a lot with the family so hadn’t had a chance to reply and apologized for the radio silence.
So my friend had spent a lot of time unnecessarily upsetting herself, thinking there she had done something wrong.
I know how easy this is to do. I made a mistake recently, accidentally posting something to the wrong social media channel. I corrected it quickly and apologized to those involved. One of the people didn’t respond. My initial reaction was “Oh no, they are upset with me” and then I caught myself and thought, “Maybe she’s busy”. I caught up with her later and she was fine so I saved myself some agony.
These days, people lead busy lives and we don’t really know what is going on so why in the meantime make up any stories? If we really are concerned, we can always ask the person directly and address the situation when we know more.
Have you been making up any stories?