Disturbingly, I've had two close female friends "ghost" me in five months. I've known each for 15 years. (They don't know each other, and one lives out of state.) I've tried repeatedly to contact each, asking "Did I do anything to hurt or offend you?" No response. I just want the truth so I can move on.

--Baffled

There comes a time when you wish someone would treat you with a little more kindness, like by screaming out all the reasons you deserve to be left for dead and have your face eaten off by raccoons.

Even more painful than being dumped by a friend is being dumped by a friend and having no idea why. Lingering questions we can't answer are mental weevils. Their fave food is our peace of mind, which they gnaw through at random moments. Psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik found that when we have unfinished business, the mind remains in a "state of tension" until we get closure.

Questions that are both unanswered and unanswerable eat away at us because of the way our memory is engineered. Psychologist Robert Bjork explains that we encode information into memory by first taking it in, then taking a break from it, and later going back and retrieving it. Each "retrieval" is a "learning event," burnishing the info more deeply into memory. So, each time you pull up this unanswerable question, "Why did these friends ditch me?" you move it a seat or two closer to the front row of your consciousness.

To shove it back to the crappier seats, consider the apparent function of nagging questions: pushing us to figure things out. (We can't learn from our mistakes unless we know what they were.) Though "Why did they ditch me?" will likely remain a mystery, there are constructive questions you can answer, like, "Am I generally a good friend? Are there ways I fell short?"

Also consider whether you have shared values. We like to believe this is the basis of our friendships. However, I love the finding by psychologist Mitja Back that we tend to form friendships through "mere proximity" -- like being next-door neighbors -- though we'll congratulate ourselves for "choosing" so wisely...well, until we find out who they voted for.

Another way to cut the spin cycle is imagining a plausible reason each disappeared on you (like clashing values) and accepting it as THE reason. Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus finds that recalling an event we were told about but didn't actually experience can implant it in memory, turning it into an experience we swear we had. So, the more you reflect on the plausible reason, the more it might pass for the actual one.

Finally, you could try to make peace with the mystery. When "Why did they ditch me?" swings around, have a stock answer at the ready: "Hey, self, remember I've decided to accept that I just can't know, and I'm good with that." Comforting as it would be to finally get answers, sometimes the kindest thing you can do for yourself is not only give up hope but crush it, burn it in a trash can, and then flush its ashes down the toilet.

For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.