Opinions wanted on former friend's behavior
I used to have a friend. Let's call him X. We met at university and I have known him for several years. He was in my innermost circle of friends both on and off campus together with another friend. (Let's call her Y.)
Then his thesis was due some time early in January. We met all met at Y's birthday party in the first days of January, still within the extended Christmas/New Year holidays. Nothing extraordinary happened - except that it was the last time we saw him before he disappeared from the face of the earth. We didn't hear from him again. He didn't answer his phone, neither cell nor landline, and didn't react to texts or mails. He missed his deadline and did not hand in his thesis which he claimed to have completed a few weeks earlier (not that that means much.) He didn't just abandon us and all the other students but he also simply disappeared from his student assistant job. In fact after three months his boss asked us whether we had heard from him because they couldn't reach him. Y needed information related to his job from him for a project. That means that she had both private and academic reasons to contact him.
After a while of being unable to reach him this seemed seriously strange to us. Of course we had no idea what happened to him. All we knew was that if he had been run over by a bus quite a while ago it would look exactly like that.
We found out the number of his parents who lived nearby. It turned out that he was there and the parents didn't seem to be aware that anything was amiss. Y briefly talked to him but he completely refused to acknowledge that he behaved strangely and did not volunteer any information. Shortly afterwards I called and got essentially the same reaction. That was many months ago by now.
Last week we heard that he had been sighted on campus and today Y and I finally were able to confront him. Well, now we know that he is back and writing a new thesis. Before that he apparently spent some (but by far not all) time abroad. He refuses do give any explanation for his behavior. The only way in which he acknowledged the whole affair was that he said that after all we know him and perhaps he is simply an ass. Other than that apparently he would like to go on as if this year never happened.
Y and I didn't really know what to expect today but we were still taken aback by his complete indifference.
Opinions? Comments?