There's a fine line between a friend and an enemy, and it only takes one betrayal or one chilling secret to burn a wonderful friendship to the ground. These stories detail friendships that have gone SO wrong: the lies, the ghosting, the double-crossing. Buckle up, because it's going to be one messy ride.
1. No Fun
I dated my best friend for about three years. I thought it was like a dream come true but it turns out, it was actually a nightmare. About a year and a half in, her mom passed and she took it really hard. For several months, I was there for her every day helping her cope. It was difficult but we got through it together. A year later, I lost my dad to a sudden heart attack. I was heartbroken, but at least I still had her, right?
She broke up with me after two weeks. Her final words to me? "You're just not fun to be around anymore".
2. Almost Rock Bottom
One of my best friends was always a hard worker. Great student, smart, popular, all that. We were in the same class from second grade all through high school, but we weren't ever really friends until we both went to the same college and started dating people back in our hometown. We spent many long trips talking and became close. Eventually, she became the sister I never had.
Then, she got dumped by a guy she thought was going to propose, and a couple of weeks later, she started dating another guy who suddenly passed. It was awful—but she went off the deep end. She dealt with it by sleeping around with random dudes, each one sketchier than the last. Soon, she wouldn't even tell me about them, because she knew what I'd say.
We didn't live in the same town anymore, but we still kept in touch. Even from a distance, I could see that she had changed for the worse. Her spelling, grammar, and word choice were horrible whenever she'd text, which didn't make sense because she was always a very good writer. Then, she lost the job that she'd had for years. It wasn't long until her house was taken away from her and she was forced to couch surf.
At one point, it got so bad that she started squatting in an uninsulated shed with a sleeping bag and a Coleman lantern for heat and light. I knew she did substances from time to time, but what I didn't know was she was on prescription medications since college and had been keeping a pill habit under the radar for nearly a decade.
A few shakeups broke her balancing act and sent her tumbling. I didn't even invite her to my wedding when I got married because she was just...gone. But! The story does have a happy ending. She's almost three years sober now, engaged to a seemingly decent dude, and is due to have a baby in a few months. It was quite eye-opening to see someone close fall apart like that.
3. Cheating Was The Easy Part
We were together for six years, and we lived together for most of it. Only in the last year did we live apart from each other because we went to school in cities that were two hours apart. We had an argument the day after Thanksgiving, so I made a surprise drive to visit her that night. I walked inside and my stomach dropped. I caught her cheating on me, red-handed.
She swore up and down it was a misunderstanding, and since I loved her, I believed every word. But she hadn't even committed her worst betrayal yet. We spoke briefly for the next month because of finals, and she invited me over afterward. I drove two hours to see her, and when I got there, officers showed up minutes later and handed me a restraining order.
Months later, I finally found out why she did it: She didn't want me to find out she was already getting married to the guy she was cheating on me with.
4. The Butt Dial Reveal
I dated a girl all throughout high school, but when school ended, we started drifting apart because real life was coming at us fast. That's just the way things were. We didn't officially break up, but we became a lot less close than we had been. Then, one night, my phone rang at like 2:30 am and it was my best friend calling. I figured he needed a ride home from a party or something, so I answered to see what was up.
That's when I heard a sound that made my skin crawl. It was her. Well, it was him calling, but I could hear her in the background laughing, at which point he started laughing too. I was thoroughly confused and pretty much started yelling into the phone: "What the eff?! What is going on?!" But the worst was yet to come: I began to hear the unmistakable sound of bare skin slapping bare skin.
Yeah, she cheated on me with my best friend and they called me in the middle of it as a joke so I could hear them going at it via speakerphone. My relationship with her was instantly over, and so was my friendship with that dude. That was 16 years ago. I haven't spoken a word to either of them since and the few times I've seen him, I just breeze right past him as if he doesn't exist.
I've had trust problems with people ever since that night though. It would be one thing to have a relationship end or a friendship fall apart, but to have both of them, the two people I trusted most, that had been by my side for years, do that to me? Done.
5. The Scheming Son
I was friends with this guy for 16 years. We had a lot in common as we are both into the outdoors. We would hang out together with our spouses and we even traveled a little together. All was fine until he got me a job with him working for his parents. They were so kind and generous, and they treated me very well. He, on the other hand, was the total opposite.
He lied about everything to his parents—about being overwhelmed with work (which is why I was hired in the first place), about money (he pocketed their hard-earned cash any way he could), and so on. I tried telling his parents about it and it ruined my relationship with them. I think they had an idea about how he was, but they were in denial.
6. The Virgin Slayer
In college, I had a mad crush on one of my really good guy friends. One night, after having a few too many, we ended up admitting we had feelings for each other, sleeping together, and then he confessed to me that he had been a virgin. The very next day he got back together with his ex-girlfriend who was still in high school. I was devastated. Not only did he lie about feelings for me so that he could lose his virginity, but I had also lost a good friend.
He never looked me in the eye after that night. Devastated, I confided in my best friend and roommate (and only her). Fast forward to six months later and I had drifted some from that friend group because I was too uncomfortable being around the guy. I tried to pretend like everything was normal, but when one person addresses another and doesn't receive any kind of acknowledgment...it's pretty obvious there's tension, even within a group of people.
I started dating a really great guy. He was sweet and a really great boyfriend, but very nerdy and pretty obviously a virgin (whatever, a lot of people in college are virgins!). At the start of the next school term, I was helping a freshman find his way around campus and when I introduced myself he said, "Oh! You're the girl with the title!" Confused, I said "...title? what're you talking about?" He said, "You're the virgin slayer!"
I confronted my "best friend" about it and she said, "Ok yes I made up the title, but I didn't spread it around. I can tell you who did if you want". No apology. Five years later and I'll still meet people who will say "Ohhh! You're the virgin slayer, right?!" I've got to get out of this freaking town.
7. My Best Friend's Girl
When I was in high school, I had a best friend. We hung out every day, watched movies, went to parties, and basically just kicked it all the time. During this time I also had a girlfriend. Unbeknownst to me, this best friend of mine was incredibly jealous of the girl I was dating. One day seemingly out of nowhere, she broke up with me.
When I asked her why, her answer floored me. She told me she heard a bunch of rumors that I was gay and secretly hooking up with a gay friend of mine, which I wasn't. She wouldn’t tell me who she heard this from. A couple of weeks later, I was dating someone new and I started getting calls from her begging me to get back together. She told me that my friend had been the one who had been telling her those things.
She told me that he was always there as a shoulder to cry on while she was going through “all of that,” but, of course, as soon as she dumped me, he turned into a complete creep. I called him out and he owned up to it, saying that he was in love and couldn’t help it. I forgave him, considering I had a new, much less idiotic girlfriend and he was my best friend. That turned out to be a huge mistake.
About a month later, ON MY BIRTHDAY, he took my new girlfriend aside and tried to hammer the SAME nonsense into her head while I was doing birthday donuts in my friend's car. She told me immediately and I squared off with him right then and there. He punked out and ended up driving off. We no longer speak.
8. Cabin Fever
My friend said she wanted to throw me a birthday party at her cabin for my 16th. I was stoked. As I was getting ready for my mom to drive me over, I got a call from her saying, "Hey, I'm so sorry, but my parents told me they aren't cool with it after all". I thought it was pretty crummy of her to cancel last minute, but hey, parents are going to be parents. Except, she had been lying through her teeth.
I called a few other friends to let them know what happened and see if they wanted to come to my place for a movie instead. "What do you mean it got canceled? We're there right now". That's what the first person said when I called. I ended up alone on my birthday because nobody could get a ride to my place. The worst part in all of this: My friends still hung out with this chick afterward.
9. A Dangerous Man
I knew this cool, laid-back Brazilian guy from seventh grade. We all liked him, but he and his family missed living in Brazil, so they went back the following year. We stayed friends on Facebook and he'd post jiu-jitsu tournament pics every now and then. Then, years later, a schoolmate found a Brazilian news article about him hurting a woman for refusing to get intimate with him on a date.
He almost ended the poor girl. There was also a follow-up article about him having beaten his disabled brother for years.
10. Shower Trouble
I was in a pretty tight group of four friends (me and three others) during college, and we all met working as students on campus in the same office. As I tend to do with my friends, I went all in and bent over backward to be there for them, sometimes a little too much (I've since worked on my issues a little and I am less intense in my friendships now, meaning I don't put my life on hold for another's).
Anyway, 5h3cfirst one gets pregnant and the other two ladies plan her baby shower. I lived out of town at the time and I wasn't able to actually plan it, though I did help wherever I could and whenever I was asked. The second one got pregnant and they planned her baby shower. We'd been having a rough patch in our friendship due to other petty issues, so I wasn't asked to help plan, but I was still invited.
Then I got pregnant and ended up planning my own dang shower because I kept getting excuses and brush-offs from all three of them. I finally realized none of them were going to plan my party for me, even though they'd all been involved in planning each other's showers. I was really hurt, especially since I'd always felt like the outsider within the group, and that was basically proven right when it came down to it.
Bunch of petty, stupid crones. They've all since apologized, admitting later that most of the reason they were so rude to me during that time was that they were so unhappy in their relationships that it was too hard for them to be happy for me in mine. It was a very difficult thing to go through, but at the same time, it helped me recognize that I could be a little too intense in my friendships.
I was able to work on myself, and I realized I have more value than just what I can do for my friends.
11. Person Of Interest
This guy I know was always a little weird, but we got along well. But then, during a break from college, while I was at my parents' house, his mug shot showed up on the local news as a person of interest in a child exploitation case. I still remember my dad asking, "Isn't that a friend of yours?" The next day, I ran into a mutual friend who gave me a few revolting details about the case.
And then, it was like all of the weird stuff he did over the years immediately made sense in my head and I realized just how messed up the guy really was.
12. Put It All On Red
I had a friend of 10+ years, let's call him Matt. Matt and I were about as close as two dudes who are comfortable in their heterosexuality could be. We had each other's backs, we were each other's wingmen, we cleaned each other up when we'd partied too hard, etc. One day, while at work, I got an email that hit me like a gut punch. Out of the blue, he said it was time to end our friendship.
He said that we'd grown apart, that we were moving in different directions. He was particularly upset that I didn't go to his cousin's dad's funeral (I had been in a band with the cousin, and we weren't friends anymore, but that's another story). I was like what the heck man, why are you doing this? We had just been hanging out like two days before, and he had given no indication he was unhappy with me, nor had he addressed any issues.
He wouldn't say any more, and he just straight ghosted me. None of my friends would give me any more information. Either they didn't know or they weren't saying. A month or so later, I moved out of my apartment and in with my 88-year-old grandmother, who had just lost her husband of 50 or so years. I moved on with my life.
Maybe five years later, people started being OK with inviting Matt and his fiance to stuff that I was invited to as well. We had a ton of the same friends, and it had been awkward for everyone. That evening, I ended up on the porch after several drinks, and wouldn't you know it, Matt was doing the same. That night, he finally revealed why he betrayed me.
Long story short, he confirmed the story that he had ditched me as a friend because of a girl. I'd dated a woman, let's call her Red. Red was a feisty woman and a real firecracker. When you dated her, she was kind of like a crabby witch who always had to be right. I liked her, and she was very attractive, but I decided I couldn't handle the crazy. I broke up with her cleanly (which she DID NOT take kindly to, and she spread all sorts of interesting lies about me)
After I split up with her, he asked her out on the down-low. She said, "No friend of his will ever date me". So, that led to the email breakup. He went back to her and said, "OK, we're not friends anymore. Now can we date?" She said, "No, you're too fat. I am not into guys as heavy as you". So over the course of the next 18 months, he proceeded to lose 100 pounds.
He then went back and said, "OK, what about now?" She was like, "Yeah, okay". Apparently, they went on one or two dates, but she ghosted him, then moved to another state. We're still not friends. I've since learned that he's pretty much like that with everyone.
13. I Wrote Her Off After What She Did
I had a friend who knew I was an author. I used to do humor readings and stuff. She told me, "You HAVE to come to my party. You just HAVE to entertain my guests". She promised me a lift back home if I stayed late, so I agreed. I regret saying yes to this day. I had no car at the time, so I had to take two buses and a subway to get to her house. It was a two-and-a-half-hour trip and at the time cell phones weren’t a thing.
I ended up in an "artsy" suburban neighborhood with no street lights and lots and lots of trees. The street signs were black text on brown and almost impossible to read, and her directions were wrong. However, I used logic and finally found her house. I went to the front door and knocked. The door crept open. There was no one home.
I checked and rechecked the house number and street. I called out into the house and there was no answer. I stepped into the living room, and the place was a mess. There were candles still lit, and the radio was softly playing light rock, but no one was around. I got mad and left. I took a bus to the subway, but the last bus home didn’t show up.
I had to take a cab and had just enough to get a block away from my house. I couldn’t even tip the driver. Later, when I saw her, I asked her what happened. She said, "Oh. Well, the party got started and then someone said, ‘Let's all go have ice cream,’ so we all went out to Baskin Robbins, and then decided to see a movie. I forgot you were coming. Oh well".
14. Your Wedding? Not Worth It
My best friend of 12 years decided two weeks before my wedding that he didn't want to participate. The worst part? He was my best man. Apparently, on the wedding day, his awful girlfriend had planned a non-refundable trip for them to take. Even on the day of our fitting, after which I had planned a dinner for everyone as an early thanks, he came to get fitted and then blew us off for dinner because he had another party to go to instead.
His girlfriend knew it was my wedding day, as she was invited as well. She never liked me, but the feeling was mutual so it never bothered me. I ended up canceling their invite, and when the wedding day came, my brother-in-law stepped up and helped me. I'm still best friends with his brother, who later gave my friend an ultimatum as well: stay with his wife and kids and not have a brother, or leave her and they can still be family.
It was a no-brainer, I guess. I haven't seen the guy in eight years. His brother hasn't seen him in six.
15. A Changed Man
A guy who I knew was a thief, but he never took anything from me or my family. We had been best friends since we were 12. We even went to prom together. One time, I invited him over when we were 19 or 20 and he said he was going to use the bathroom, but I never heard the door close. I left the den and sneakily watched as he was looting through my backpack.
When our eyes locked, he walked into the bathroom. Neither of us mentioned it, and I didn’t see him again for like five years. We still hung out every day for a while, until he disappeared again. We are in our early 30s now and we have finally reconnected. He has a very successful career and he told me he’s changed. I hope it’s true because I freaking love that guy.
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16. I Don't Want To Play Anymore
In college, I was involved with the theatre department. I had never gotten over this one ex of mine, and one of my closest friends broke up with his girlfriend to get with her...right when I started talking to her again. That hurt, but it was nothing compared to what came next. He then wrote a play about it, set it in my apartment, got my roommate to direct it, and performed it in front of the entire department.
The play included my family's personal history, substance use, conversion to a different religion, and entire pages of conversation we'd had in real life, word for word. When I said how crummy the whole situation was, the vast majority of my friends essentially gaslit me and acted like I was being unreasonable.
17. Three’s Company, Four’s A Crowd
My boyfriend and I let my "best friend" move into our one-bedroom apartment for a summer between school years. She took the bedroom and our "bedroom" was the living room. When she got mono, we were the ones who took care of her for about a month. She had refused her parents' request that she fly out immediately before it got bad, so they could look after her.
Well, it got bad. But that was just the tip of the iceberg with her. Then, while I was in another city visiting my parents she told me that her stepdad was going to come to visit for a while and that he was going to stay at our place. Reminder: She was a guest in our home. She didn't even ask before inviting him to come and stay for an undetermined amount of time as the fourth resident of a one-bedroom apartment.
I told her I was uncomfortable with this and that I wanted to talk about it. She called me a foul name and, because I had a weight problem, told me to "go eat myself to death". Afterward, she made up a slew of lies to tell our mutual friends about me so they'd stop talking to me. Luckily they saw through this.
18. Life of Brian
It's finally time for me to share this. I was 18 years old, one month away from graduating high school, and my mother was on her deathbed. She had Hep C and the liver that she'd gotten in a transplant a couple of years prior was failing. I had been driven up to the hospital four hours away after being taken out of school for the day. It was the phone call we had all prepared for: "Your mother has taken a turn and we want you up here".
My best friend at the time, a flamboyant gay boy (who we shall call Brian), drove my car up to the hospital per my father's and my request. This boy was very loved by my family. My mother wanted to throw him a birthday party after he said he'd never had one before. She bought him a birthday cake, an expensive cologne from her trip to Las Vegas, you name it.
She treated him like a son, but only because I called him a "friend". He cooked dinner for us sometimes, and my mother trusted him enough to employ him at the bridal shop that she owned. So, he worked there as a cashier and general backroom guy, just like my dad. Well, my mother passed about a week after I got up to see her.
She could no longer speak, she was in an induced coma, and I still have some minor triggers about the experience. The day I lost her, they were taking her off oxygen, and they asked each of us if we wanted to be with her. My father said yes and held her in his arms as she passed; I said no and waited in the next room. Brian said yes and watched my mother's final moments.
A month passed, and it was summer. I was at the bridal shop a lot because my dad couldn't quite handle it alone. Looking back, neither of us could handle it at all. And Brian knew that...A returning customer noticed something weird on their receipts, so they brought it in. That's when I learned the twisted truth: Brian had taken upwards of $10,000 from my mother's business by using her screen name and password in our computer system.
We brought the authorities in and everything, but they said they couldn't prove it "beyond a reasonable doubt," so they had to drop the case cold. Everyone else knew he did it, and I did too because that's when the razor blades and "laundry detergent" on his window sill finally made sense. Brian took tens of thousands of dollars from my mother after watching her die.
19. The Predator
When I was in high school, I was part of the theatre program. I was 15 when I joined. There were two guys: one my age who was really nice, and one 18-year-old who I, at the time, thought was nice as well. Most of his friends were 15-year-old girls and he would often make weird comments about them. I was naive and thought he was a decent guy due to his acting prowess alone. Then I saw his dark side up close.
He started trying to get me alone, I got creeped out and cut him out of my life. He later started dating a 14-year-old, who he took advantage of. I'm lucky I realized he was weird before he had a chance to do the same thing to me. To any young girl reading this, a grown man being interested in you at that age isn't okay. You aren't mature for your age, he is a predator.
20. Save The Date!
I get engaged in August and around October, we decided on our wedding date. We were so excited that we notified all our friends and family straight away. One of my best friends had been dating this girl for about nine months or so and in December he started talking about how he was about to propose to her and I told him how cool it is and all that and reminded him of my wedding date (because his girlfriend at the time doesn't like my fiancé at all).
Fast forward to Christmas Eve when he proposed to me. He texted a few of us and we congratulated him without us asking him too many questions. On the first day back to work, we were chatting and I asked if they had an idea of the date. He did—and it was the exact same date and time as my wedding. They won't budge on it, either.
So now, I'm down one groomsman and I won't get to attend one of my best friend's weddings because his fiancé hates us for some reason.
21. Don't Trust Your Friends
I used to live with five very close friends in a two-bedroom apartment. Two of them were a couple, and the lease was in their name. The rest of us paid rent to them, and they paid the landlord. I know—it sounds like a recipe for disaster. I should have known...but I never expected it to go as horribly as it did.
The dude of the couple is a slob. He gets worse once he actually finds a steady job driving a forklift in a plant. He gets some money and buys a TV and Playstation. He ends up skipping work and staying at home to play video games. She doesn't like this turn. She leaves him. He's devastated, but at least he's got his gaming addiction to cope, right?
Little did we know, after he lost his job on week #2 (not showing up because the new Call of Duty came out doesn't fly in automotive plants). But it gets worse. For three months, he took our rent money and he just kept it himself; he didn't pay the landlord. Next, he disappeared in the night...after looting everything of value from our rooms, of course.
Then a week later, we get a letter from the landlord: "This is your third and final notice, you have seven days to vacate". So my one-time best friend had officially gotten me kicked out of my apartment—but he still managed to keep spiraling. Next, he pawned the car that his dad had given him (to "help him get back on his feet"), went to the casino, blew all of it, and had his aunt pick him up.
This happened like 10 years ago, but he's still the one person in the world who I would punch if I saw him walking down the street. Everyone has tried to help this guy, through money or time or goods, but he clearly just doesn't care to change.
22. Taken For A Tattoo
I had an ex-girlfriend with whom I was still "friends". She called me in a panic when I was away at college, saying she was downtown and her car got towed. She had to get it out, otherwise, there was no way she could get to work that night, and would be fired. She told me that if she got fired, she would miss her tuition payments and would have to drop out of school.
She told me I was her only hope, so I wired her $250 Western Union. I didn't hear from her for a few days after that, which was odd. I figured things were ok, that she was just busy or something. Two weeks later I came home for winter break and ran into her brother. I asked her how the "whole towing debacle" turned out. He looked at me quizzically, and I explained how I wired her $250. That's when I learned I'd been betrayed.
He said "Huh? She told me you sent her $250 for her tattoo".
23. Friends Don't Put Friends In Trunks
I hooked up with a girl. I didn't know one of my friends had been interested. As I was in high school, the full "bro rules" of dating were a bit fuzzy. I went over to her place and my "friends" dropped by. They told me they wanted to go to a restaurant. I heaved a sigh of relief because it seemed like the whole thing had blown over. Nope. They actually tried to put me in the trunk. They drove '70s Oldsmobile, so you can imagine the trunk was pretty rough.
In my attempt to fight my way out, I cut my arm on the trunk lift assembly, leaving about a six-inch gash on my forearm. Needless to say, there were copious amounts of blood. It got everywhere. This sort of scared them off. Or at least, I was able to get out of the trunk and walk into the girl's house for bandaging. It wasn't deep enough for stitches, thankfully.
I started having pretty frequent dreams about getting knifed in the back. One particularly intense dream caused me to rip a pretty long hole in my sheets. In my panic, I had to physically check to see if I was bleeding. Oh, and they were planning on driving me out to a reservoir, a good 20 miles away, to let me walk home.
24. Liar, Liar
A childhood friend of mine came to hang out one day when our mutual friend from out of state visited us. Immediately, we could tell something was off about him. He was clearly on something, and he also started making up stories about his dad working for the Irish mob. He also refused to leave even though we entertained him until 2 am that morning.
We had to physically put him in my car and drive him home so we could get some sleep.
25. I Stripped My Life Of This Nonsense
My friend and I went to separate colleges after high school. He would call me up constantly asking to hang out, drive him somewhere, or generally give him money. Our colleges were 12 miles apart so I made the commute one weekend and proceeded to hang out with him. His plan for the weekend was, "Dude, you need to hit on girls then tell them to bang me". He was serious.
Not only am I not a Casanova, but my friend was a rather unlikeable person at times. We went drinking at the frats. It went even worse than I'd feared. I was having a pretty decent night and managed to get some girls talking to him. Overall, it seemed like a better-than-average night. Well, my friend thought that I was making fun of him because I was laughing a lot with the girls. He decided to give me a double shot of 151 and I didn’t remember much past laying my head down on the couch.
I woke up at around 4 PM the next day, freezing, with no shirt, shoes, or hat—just my jeans. I was laying on a metal wireframe of a futon in some basement in November. I was shivering, confused, and still felt sick. I feared for my life. I stumbled out of the basement and talked to the homeowner to get some information. That's when everything fell into place.
It turned out, I was five blocks away from the frat. My friend brought me to the house and purposely laid me down on the futon face up so if I puked, I would choke. The homeowner thought my friend was a bit "psycho" sounding and turned me over later. I thanked him and left. I tried to find my car and found out that my friend took my car and 20 other people to Denny’s using my credit card.
He then drove my car over 200 miles to hook up with a girl he met at the party. He went on and bought himself and this girl some iPods and spent my $76 in cash on clothes at the mall. He said to me, "You told me, take my car, it's yours now, and my credit card is yours. That means I own it". I called the authorities and he ended up serving some time and repaying me. I let him know if I ever saw him again, he would be down a few teeth.
26. The Holiday Spirit
A couple of years ago, I got really really sick and moved back to my parents' house for a couple of months. My roommate asked me if some friends of ours (his very long-time friends) could stay in my room for a few days because they were temporarily homeless. They had like four kids, but the kids had to stay somewhere else. I said sure because I wanted to do some good.
It was Christmas and these people were pretty poor; they definitely weren't going to be able to afford presents for the kids. My parents were actually going to give them a hundred bucks to help with presents. Then I found out what they did. I came back to the house a week or two after they stayed only to discover they had taken my MacBook, another laptop, a Kindle, and a set of gaming headphones.
The worst was my external hard drive since I had 15 years of pictures stored on there. They also swiped my roommate's college ring. I'm still mad about it three years later. You don't steal from friends, especially ones who are saving your homeless necks.
27. Dolphin Eats Dog
I had a friend who I had known since fourth grade. When we both got out of the service, we decided to get an apartment and were roommates for about eight months. I was working two jobs, so I was not around a lot. One day, our apartment manager caught me in the hallway and asked me if I had the rent. At the time, I was giving my roommate the rent and he said he was paying it.
I was only 22 at the time and a little naive about things. I paid him cash because I didn't have a checking account. I also happened to have a spending problem. Not having a credit card or checkbook stopped me from getting into debt, but it was hugely inconvenient. I was also working two jobs, so I did not have a lot of free time during the day. I didn't worry about my bro ripping me off, we were good friends.
I was a Devil Dog, he was a Devil Dolphin, and we had each other's backs. But I was so wrong. Turns out, he had not paid the previous two months and had pocketed my cash. I ended up paying for four months of rent for both of us. We got evicted and lost my security deposit. Lesson learned.
28. The Wrong POV
We were catching up on our lives and he mentioned his son’s latest brush with the law. He had been convicted of attacking a woman who had been walking on the beach after sunset. I asked how he was coping with the reality of his son’s transgressions and if it changed his regard for him. His response made me absolutely furious.
He explained that he didn't understand what all the fuss was about because what his son did “wasn’t a big deal” and the victim was also “an old lady” and not likely a virgin. I was astounded—not only by his attitude but by the fact that I had been friends for decades with someone who held such an egregious view.
29. And Then There Was One
I went through a divorce. It took me two years to recover and start dating again. I don't know what changed in me, but I became associated with an incredibly crummy group of humans who I considered my close friends. The following stories are all true—they happened over the span of about three years, and each one involved a different "friend":
First, I met a girl who worked at GNC. We started dating. I would find out later that one of my friends started going into that GNC daily, telling her to break up with me and date him instead. I broke up with her for not telling me it was happening for about three months, and I stopped talking to him completely because he knew how difficult it was for me to try and move on from my ex-wife.
After breaking up with the GNC girl, I met a new one. I was at my house playing Call of Duty with a friend and I invited her to hang out with us. The two of them started dating the next day. I wasn't actually too mad about this, since I wasn't dating this one—she was just someone I was talking to. So then I started dating yet another new girl, who I eventually introduced to my circle.
A few days later, she would tell me she got a Facebook message from one of my friends asking if she wanted to come over to his house. He followed that message up with an unsolicited picture. My friend tried to play it off like he was innocent, but he had no way out of that one.
30. Pure Evil
My closest male friend in high school turned out to be a predator. He and I had a deeply connected friendship throughout high school. I even set him up with my best friend and sort of pushed them together. He wound up forcing her to give up her virginity and pretty much took advantage of her for a few months before she finally broke it off.
He later did the same thing to another female friend of ours in college and tried to force himself on me after a long relationship of mine ended. I didn’t find out about the other two until years later. I still have deep regret that I pushed him and my best friend into a relationship. Looking back, it’s so clear now that she was crying out for help during that relationship and I was a dense and naive friend that thought she was being overdramatic.
It’s true that the worst people can be the ones you know and love. Anyone is capable of good and bad.
31. Uninvited
A group of my friends from high school had wanted to Japan for the longest time. When we all turned 24, we finally had jobs and money, so the three of us finalized the plans. Then another friend joined in, and then another. Just before we booked the flights, one of them called me up: "The four of us don't want you to come on this trip. We have different interests. The others can't even bring themselves to call you and tell you, but I figure this way is better". I never saw it coming.
I talked to some of my new colleagues about how awesome it would be to go to Japan and I ended up going with them on the original dates that were planned. It was a great trip, too. Of my high school friends, the only one I have any contact with, and the only one who kept any of my respect is the one who called me and fessed up.
32. Hurting For A Hug
I had a group of friends from junior high school through to the second year of high school. I had some serious self-esteem issues at the time and blamed myself for how poorly they treated me. I just continued to desperately try to be friends with them, even though they were terrible. Because of that, I witnessed some truly disturbing stuff. I saw one of the kids pick up a cat from someone's front lawn and drop-kick it.
Another time this same kid got back from having been in Florida for two weeks. He gave everyone a hug and then walked up to me like he was going to give me a hug as well, but then just punched me in the face as hard as possible. He never gave any reason for it, not even an excuse. He said he just “felt like it". Of course, everyone else in the group hugged him and expressed that it was okay that he did that.
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33. Me?? Pay Rent???
Back in November, I took in a friend after her boyfriend kicked her out. She lived with me completely free of charge because she was unable to get a job. Well, at the start of the month she got a job (finally), and of course, we agreed that she'd start paying the same rent and bills like everyone else in the house. That was all fine...until she decided she wanted to get a tattoo with her first pay.
I told her I was okay with that, but she had to make sure we had rent money first. You would have thought I told her her first month's rent was the soul of her firstborn. She went bananas, screaming about how I'm a horrid witch who's never done anything for her and saying that she shouldn't have to pay because she wants to use her money for her things.
She screamed and swore until my neighbors came over out of concern. This was all coming from the girl who I had given everything—food, clothes, a home—I shared my freaking bed with her for goodness sake, but the second I told her she was expected to contribute to the house, I was suddenly the worst human being to ever exist.
So she left last night after making that huge scene, calling me every name in the book, and she had her next victim pick her up. Poor guy. Soon enough, she'll do the same thing to him. She's done this more times than I can count. She makes a sob story about getting kicked out of her last place, then she moves in, doesn't contribute, and is generally a lazy slob until the person she's leeching off of wises up and kicks her out.
I thought it'd be different because we were such close friends, but no. I will be regretting letting her into my life for a very long time.
34. Girl Next Door
I knew this one girl for four years of my childhood. She lived next door to my family and my parents would hire her to babysit me, my sister, and my brother. I didn't really realize anything was wrong when I was a kid, but thinking back on it now, a lot of the games she played with us (or with me, anyway) were oddly inappropriate.
She once brought an adult video to our house once and showed it to me. I was somewhere between the ages of six and 10 when all of that happened, and she was in her late teens. Be careful who you trust to watch your children and remember that not all predators are men.
35. There Are No Friends In The Theater
I met a girl about three years back who quickly became one of my best friends. There were all the warning signs that she was a terrible person, but I ignored them: Everyone she'd been friends with before had apparently "betrayed her," she was sleeping with an engaged guy, and she knew a ton of gossip that other people in our social circle were apparently spreading about me.
She was big into theatre, and about a year into knowing me, she was putting on a show for a local festival. She asked me to be her set designer, which I'd never done before, but it was an easy job and I figured, "Why not? Some of the actresses are cute..." But the demands started getting bigger and bigger. Instead of just picking up tables and chairs, I had to build some kind of massive collapsible frame with imported fabric.
The deadlines were tight and we fought bitterly whenever I protested. I wound up putting down $600 dollars on all the materials, but the festival brought in that much money in cash very quickly once the show went up. I asked her for my money back and she said she was waiting on the check for online sales.
So fast forward three weeks after the show and I still didn't have my money back. I called her a few times. Her response still blows my mind. She went around and told every mutual friend we had that I was a chauvinistic, abusive pig who was harassing her and threatening her. She implied that she wanted to sue me and get the authorities involved, so I called her bluff and said she should.
She then wrote me a bad check and tried to accuse me of trying to "cash it twice" while still threatening to sue me. So, being stereotypically Jewish, I got one of my parents' many lawyer friends to help draft a letter and said I'd be fine to go to a small claims court. At this point, it was less about the money and more about hating this witch.
About two months later, she gave me $500 in cash and I decided to let it go. Some things I've learned since: 1) Every person she ever said "betrayed her" lent her money only to have her go scorched earth on them. 2) She made several thousand dollars on that play and didn't pay back any of the other people she owed. 3) Unsurprisingly, she'd been badmouthing me to everyone even before this happened, setting me up as the kind of guy that would pull something like this.
I've never gotten that close to someone again. She was the closest friend I've ever had and in some ways, I still miss that intimacy. I'm eternally grateful our relationship was purely platonic as it could have been so, so much worse otherwise. But at least she got her karma in the end. Her play was a steaming pile of doo-doo and was reviewed by several small-time blogs as basically "the worst thing ever".
36. Thwarted Terror
I was in a group of three best friends: me, C, and J. We were suburban tween Catholic school girls, in the same class, and we hung out every single day. In seventh grade, C devised an entire plan with some other kids in our group of friends to lure me into the woods and bash in my head with a rock. They were all just so edgy and thought that I was too “goody” for their group.
J and I were not speaking at the time, but she ended up sprinting home to warn me. I remember not believing her at the time because I was young and mad at her. Welp, five minutes later, my phone rang. I answered it—and my blood ran cold. It was C and the other kids “inviting” me over there. It’s been a very long time since then. They’re all pretty messed up people still.
I ran into one of the other girls of the group last year at a mutual friend’s party and she broke down crying, blubbering apologies over and over again. I’ve forgiven them because they very obviously have some serious mental issues that have nothing to do with me. I’ve remained friends with J over the years, and I’m still very grateful for her doing the right thing on what would have been a very dark day.
37. Left At The Mall
When I was 13, my friend group and I traveled to the closest town with a large shopping mall, which was two hours from home. I had just moved to this state, but these girls were my only friends. What they pulled is so messed up, I still can't quite believe it. They waited for me to go into the changing room of one of the stores, then told the mom who took us there that everybody was ready to go home.
They left me in a town two hours away, in a shopping mall. My mom had to get me. They also ostracized me for years after that. My mom spoke to the mom who drove, and the witch actually had the gall to say, "My girls would never do that!" Yeah, well, they did. It really ruined my trust for making any friends for years.
38. Two-Faced Terror
My friend and I moved into an off-campus apartment during my junior year. Many people, including myself, would describe her as friendly and the nicest person they had ever met. Little did I know, she was a lying manipulative person underneath that facade. I started dating my girlfriend in November and we weren't telling anyone about our relationship until a few months later.
Before we got around to talking to my roommate, she asked us and we told her the truth. She became upset but seemed to be over it, and for the next week, things calmed down. Ten days later, there was an eviction notice for me taped to my front door. I was floored. I would have to leave college, as I had nowhere to live.
In ten days, my roommate had gone behind my back, lied to my landlord, turned every mutual friend against me because she didn’t approve of the fact I was in a relationship with another woman. I was crushed, and my girlfriend was inconsolable. She blamed herself for "ruining my life". Not only that, but I had seen my roommate every single day, both at home and in class, and she talked and chatted with me like nothing was wrong.
Luckily, I did not get evicted, I talked to my landlord and my roommate ended up moving out. I slowly regained some, but not all, of my friends. Unfortunately, that wasn't the last of that woman. She tried to take our ping pong table, then when we caught her, she tried to lie to us. She also told her parents about my love life, so when they came to help her move, they told me I was disgusting and called my girlfriend names.
39. Karl And Liz
I got kicked out of my house and my best friend, we'll call him Karl, invited me to live with him and his girlfriend for the summer before I went back to college. Before I met anyone, he told me I was going to want to date his friend, Liz. He then forbade me from dating Liz with no explanation other than "she's basically my little sister". I then met Liz and really liked her.
Karl then tried to set me up with his friend Amy. Amy and I got along okay—we went on a couple of dates before I found out she was dating another guy on the side. It was no skin off my back since it was a casual setup in the first place. And that gave me an opening to start seeing more of Liz. I started dating Liz and Karl got grouchy with me, telling me I wasn't good enough for her, and he got all sorts of overprotective—but we mostly just dealt with it until I moved out and went to school in another city.
Liz visited me a couple of times, and eventually, Karl and Liz went to visit a friend of ours who lives nearish to me. I was like, "Oh sweet, I'll come too and it'll be a big ol' friends reunion!" Karl then told me it was a no-go because a guy who lived with them hated me for no reason. The worst part is that none of my other buddies would stand up for me. That hurt, but Liz said she would visit me after.
When she arrived, she finally revealed the whole story. Turns out, Karl and his girlfriend had been having relationship issues, and I had been invited to live with them as a buffer. I moved out and things got worse—they were now on a "break". The reason Karl forbade me from dating Liz? Liz was his backup girl and I was in the way of his prospective target.
The reason my buddies didn't have my back? Karl told everyone I cheated on Amy, and Karl was using that trip to try and get in Liz's pants.
40. Blind To The Truth
I had a good friend for many years and he always seemed like a nice, sensitive guy. I knew some other guy friends of mine didn't like him and had issues with him, but I never really saw any of that. Anyway, I asked him to come down to where I was living to hang out a few years ago and I found out that he was charged with forcing himself on his ex-girlfriend.
I thought it was crazy, but he admitted to it and I found out the reason they dropped the hammer was there was another previous allegation against him with someone else. I had known him that whole time, and it turns out he was not only a predator but a repeat offender. Like, we had slept in a bed together on a vacation and I was very close with him. It really shook me that I had no idea he was like that.
He always had really bad break-ups and I always took his side, but clearly, there were some real issues I just was blind to.
41. All's Fair In Geek Rock And Roll
I was in a geek rock band in college. We played around Chicago almost weekly. We also had a side job as a jazz band. We were pretty tight. We went to each others' weddings, hung out outside of gigs, etc. After several years of this friendship, I went through a divorce. I kept gigging with them.
One gig with the jazz group was rough. I wasn't there emotionally. I didn't miss a note, and I had some pretty sweet solos, but I probably looked like I'd just been beaten. A few weeks later, I got a mass email from my own band...saying come to our next gig to meet the new bassist, Joe Schmo! I was devastated. Not one of them had said anything to me. No one had checked in, no one had cared enough to say, "You're going through a rough time, maybe you want to take off for a bit".
One of the guys is a fellow teacher nearby and I have to see him a few times a year. Breaks my heart again every time.
42. He Was A Classified Jerk
A roommate of mine found a sublet for his room via Kijiji for the last month of our year lease. It was some random guy who was a few years older than me, but we hit it off. So, I invited him to move in with me and my girlfriend in our new lease, as he still hadn't made any arrangements to find another place, and our current lease was about to expire.
I figured I could use the help with rent and extra expenses for the first month. It turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life. One month turned into two, and I had to sit him down and tell him that we were going to transform his room next month and he had to find a place. He agreed. Then, a week before the month’s end, he started browsing for a new place. I liked the guy, but my girlfriend and I really wanted privacy after several months of him bumming around.
It was nearing the end of the month and I left for work thinking about the dreaded 'so did you get a place yet?' conversation that was coming up. Instead of coming home to my roommate, I came home to my cash drawer emptied—$2,000 in web design side project money I had received from a few different small projects in cash.
He went through all of my stuff, took the cash, grabbed the single item he owned of any value, his PS3, and took a bus to who knows where. He deleted me on Facebook, which was the only way he communicated with anyone, and I couldn’t find anyone with a related friend. I told the proper authorities and went to the call center where he worked, but nothing. No one had seen or heard from him. I had to move all his garbage out of his room and I never felt so angry and sad at the same time.
43. Thanks For The Job, Now Get Lost!
I helped a friend get a job at my work. This is someone I have known for close to seven years. She even came to my wedding. It is a small work environment and everyone teases each other there. No exception...until she went to HR after I called her a "smartass" and filed a harassment complaint. I pleaded with her to talk to the manager, but she "didn't want to get involved" and ended the conversation.
I got fired following my suspension (it was a non-union job). This was over a month ago and to this day she is one of the few people from that job who hasn't checked in on me yet. Besides my job search frustration, I feel genuinely heartbroken.
44. They Took Everything
When I was moving out, my three closest friends from high school came by my house and went through all the boxes that I had packed. Jewelry, books, video games, clothes—they took everything they wanted. What started out as 10 boxes turned into two mostly empty ones. It was like I'd passed and they divided up my belongings.
The things that hit hardest were my hardcover set of Harry Potter and the jewelry set (earrings, necklace, tennis bracelet) that I'd gotten from my grandparents before my grandpa passed. They weren't expensive pieces of jewelry, but they were highly sentimental. They blamed the whole thing on my sisters for a while, then I confirmed with all my siblings that they didn't have anything to do with my stuff going missing.
I haven't spoken to those "friends" in over a decade now.
45. Group Betrayal
At my university, we have the same group of people who we work on projects with for the entire semester. I had done about 60% of the work for every project we did thus far. Then came the worst days of my life. I had to have emergency surgery during a final, major project. I did as much work as I could leading up to the date of the surgery and then handed the reins over to them, as I would be in surgery and in recovery through the time of presentation.
I went through the surgery, recovered, came back, and got called into the dean's office. When I found out the reason, I wanted to scream. They took my name off of every project and claimed I did no work, fabricating evidence that I would not respond to their messages. I was blindsided and had only my word to defend myself. I ended up having to complete five semester-long projects in one week to graduate. I did it and graduated, if just barely. But that wasn't the last I'd heard of my "friends".
At the graduation party, they didn't even have the courage to face me. They asked a friend of mine how it was possible that I graduated. Luckily, my friend told them to ask me themselves. They never did. This was recent and I don't really trust any of them anymore. I'm trying to get past it.
46. Digging Your Own Grave
One of my college sorority sisters was dating a guy who was not a good guy. She had me help her change her locks only for her to give him a key. She even told me that if she had to, she would choose him over her two sons. She eventually got engaged to him and that changed our whole friendship. She started ghosting me and would rarely reply to my messages.
I honestly had gotten to the point where I no longer even cared. Then, one random day, she asked me a question that was totally uncalled for: "Are you sure you actually have MS?" That one really hurt, because out of everyone, she knew just how much I struggled with my MS diagnosis. My closest friend. If she hadn’t been so caught up in this guy, she would have known just how much I'd been struggling.
We are no longer friends. Her sons are who I feel bad for. Thank goodness for their dad who she cheated on—he's pretty much the one raising them.
47. Two Against One
I used to have two very good friends when I was 19 years old. We always hung out together. One day, the two of them teamed up on me and said, "We think you are only friends with us so you can take our substances. If you want to prove that you are really our friend, you should pay for everything for the next two months". I was genuinely blindsided.
Each of us, including me, had always fairly contributed to our purchases, so this was completely unwarranted. Also, it's completely ridiculous to ask your friend to prove his friendship by paying for things for you. So yeah, I told them to screw off and blocked them on all social media. I never contacted them again...but the story doesn't end there...
Two years later, I met one of the two at a concert. He told me that he wasn't friends with the other guy anymore because he realized what a manipulative jerk that guy was. He explained to me that the guy had talked him into ganging up on me back then and I forgave him, so we became friends again.
48. Broken Bedfellows
Early one summer, my friend’s girlfriend and my girlfriend got into a minor fight. My friend got on the phone and called my girlfriend a nasty name. He apologized to me. Even so, we only hung out once the entire summer, and it was very awkward. Then he started to hate me. He abandoned me and told all my other friends that I shouldn't be allowed at their homes. I’m not sure why. I was polite to him even after he called my girlfriend a name. Not only that but my girlfriend and his girl were really good friends, but since that day, they no longer speak either.
49. He Was A Bad Habit To Break
One of my best friends needed a roommate and my other friend begged me to move in with her. I was skeptical but had faith in him after he promised to never take advantage of her good nature. Six months later, he started bringing his buddies over and pushing dope out of the apartment. A few months later, my best friend said she suspected he was going into her room and snooping through her stuff.
Another two months later, the guy got taken in for attempting to break into a vehicle. As I offered to drive him to court, since he didn't have a car, he confessed to me that he would regularly break into cars at night, take stuff, then sell it on Craigslist. I made him promise to stop his bad habits before he went inside the courthouse. Unfortunately, a couple of weeks later, he was back to his old tricks, and I haven’t seen him since.
50. Friend Crashes, Friendship Burns
Two years ago, I had a friend I had known since middle school move in with me and another roommate. He was going through some rough times with his family and needed a place to stay. The first year was fine, with no issues at all. Then he started to avoid paying bills, and he wouldn't acknowledge it in any way.
I have no idea why, but I was heading home for the summer and figured it'd be fine. We started texting again and he seemed okay, but the other roommate was, at the same time, telling me that this guy had been eating his food, making messes all over the place, and still not paying bills. Mid-July, my "friend" texted me saying he and the other roommate almost got in a fight over the bills, so he would be moving out in two weeks.
He said he'd pay rent for August to avoid screwing us over. I told him I appreciate that and when he moved back home we should hang out like old times. The other roommate then told me he moved out on July 31st, and I texted him to see if he left a check there for rent. I got an automated message saying his number is no longer able to receive texts. Now that's a red flag—but this was just the beginning.
I called him and it said it's no longer in service. I checked Facebook and he deleted his account. He also blocked me on Twitter and removed me on Xbox. The worst part is, if he didn't want to pay rent for August, he could've just said so, and I wouldn't have complained. He left only owing me about 40 dollars for the internet bill for two months, but he owes my other roommate significantly more.
The dude threw away 12 years of friendship with me, and 10 with my roommate, all for God knows what reason. It sucks.
51. Trip And Rip
I learned my "friends" weren't actually my friends during a bad trip. They messed me up even more by telling me things like how I would never be able to have a real relationship and that I'd destroyed my brain for life. Needless to say, I spent the next 20 hours trying to hold myself together while those thoughts kept racing through my mind. I'm still not me, and it's been months.
52. Nurse Narcissism
My best friend in my first year of college was a mental health nurse. She always spoke about how challenging and selfless her profession was. I always fell for it and blindly praised her. Turns out, she is the most manipulative person I have ever been close with. She used my anorexia, past trauma, and sensitivities against me that I had told her in confidence.
Also, she called the people on her psych ward during placement “mentaloids” and “attention seekers,” claiming she would never get to that point as though she is immune to mental illness. I don’t know what it is about some nurses that make them some of the most mentally unstable and cruel people I have encountered.
53. Party Of Five?
New Year's Eve a few years ago, at a local rock club. My girlfriend and I had been talking to a girl all night. We vaguely knew her—she was the roommate of the girlfriend of a friend of ours. It was pretty apparent from the start that she was into both of us, and it was mutual. Things started getting interesting if you catch my drift.
Just as we were suggesting we go back to our place (literally a two-minute walk away), our friend and his girlfriend came over and inserted themselves into the situation. They told her in no uncertain terms that she shouldn't be going home with people, that she's sauced (we all were, but no one to the point of irrational decision-making), and so on.
She told them she was fine, but still, they just wouldn't. Stop! Eventually, she decided it was not a good idea (her first suggestion was actually that the three of us mess around in a bathroom stall because that'd be less obvious, but have you seen rock club bathrooms?). So, fair enough. It's good that she's got friends looking out for her. We were sad, but we understood.
Until we found out what happened when they got home. Turns out, the couple tried to initiate their own threesome with her! Haven't spoken to any of them since.
54. Good Riddance
My close friend took $2,000 from his parents then blamed it on me. The worst part is, he came up with a plan to make it seem like I didn’t have an alibi. Luckily, I was online with friends and was able to prove it so his parents didn’t sue. I haven’t spoken to him since and last I heard, he was wanted for possession.
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55. Send Them Back To The Farm
My best friend of five years stole my boyfriend. She's gorgeous and lively, very outgoing. I'm a more than slightly chubby redhead who plays video games and reads all day. We met through my BFF—he was tall, sort of decent-looking worked on a farm, and seemed like a really good guy. I have a massive soft spot for farmers.
So, he and I hit it off. We spent almost all of our free time together and we were texting constantly when we weren't together. A few months later, we got into an argument and he pretty much laid it out there that he had only been dating me so he could be close to my BFF. He straight up told me I was too fat for him, but that wasn't the worst part. He had been sleeping with her since pretty much right after we started dating.
I called my BFF. She confirmed his story and said she was only doing it because she knew he would hurt me and she wanted to make him like her so she could hurt him back. He was my first serious boyfriend in years, and I wouldn't even consider dating for nearly another year after that.
56. One-Way Street
A colleague I've worked with for years totally surprised me. I supported her in two projects and worked my butt off to get her promoted. We had a good relationship too. During our last round of evaluation, I asked for a promotion as well (to be on the same level as her roughly), thinking she would back me up. She didn't. Even worse, she claimed I wasn't doing well or working independently enough.
I later found out it was because she wanted to make sure I'd keep working for her...That was unexpected after four years of really helping her out.
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57. Knowing A Hypocrite
My friend got engaged. He's been very vocal in the past about not wanting to get married, and when our other friend got engaged after being with his girlfriend for six months, he went on a rant about how it was stupid to get engaged after such a short time. Well, come June, turned out he was engaged and had been for six weeks. He'd only been with the girl since February.
Oh and she is his best mate's ex, and that relationship ended just a month before they got engaged. The hypocrisy is staggering.
58. Get Over Yourself
When I came out of the closet, it didn't go well with my Catholic parents. I was devastated. I had already gone through an entire self-hatred process where I had to accept my homosexuality and align it with my religious beliefs. I had just accepted myself, but then having things blow up with my parents destabilized me again and I had to start the cycle of hatred and acceptance all over again.
Through that, I had a close friend in school. We spent a lot of time together, carpooled together, etc. She was a rock for me throughout that tough time. A couple of months later, she wanted nothing to do with me. She avoided me, came up with excuses to not carpool, etc. Then, a friend told me they overheard her telling our classmates that I hit on her all the time and that I was so awkward and pathetic. I wanted to SCREAM.
She was a married, straight woman. And just a close friend. Go screw yourself. It took me a while to figure out that it was just her major character flaw that caused her to act that way, and that my other female friends wouldn't do the same to me. Things are better now. I'm also successful in my field and she's not, so there's that too.
59. Holiday Havoc
I let a friend stay with me over the holidays. She took my mother’s medication, who was dying of cancer at the time. She also used my address as her place of residence when she got busted for shoplifting and was found in possession of illicit substances. This led to a SWAT team showing up at my house looking for her on the morning of my mother's funeral. I had to sit around and wait for officers to search my house and was late for mom's funeral service.
60. I Had To Weed Through This Mess
I had a friend who I started doing weed in high school. We smoked together all the time until he got a conservative girlfriend, who, for some reason, thought pot was Satan's plant. So life went on and I had no problem with him not partaking. I continued and we still hung at parties, he just wouldn’t smoke. One day, he sent an anonymous three-page letter to my parents and my other friend's parents.
It said that I was a daily toker, which I wasn’t, I eat mushrooms on a regular basis, which I never have, and that I was essentially an addict. It completely ruined my relationship with my parents even to this day. We recognized his terrible handwriting on the envelope immediately and confronted him about it. He denied it for three months, and, when he finally fessed up to it and apologized, we were no longer on good terms.
61. Joe And Tiffany, Sitting In A Tree...
When I was 19, I had a pretty close-knit group of friends. People would come and go but there were about five or six of us that had kinda stuck through it all over the previous few years. My close friend Joe was living with a dude I ended up punching, resulting in that dude kicking Joe out. So, homeless and hungry, I snuck him into my parents' basement for a few months.
Of course, a relationship developed between us at that time, and eventually, we decided to give it a go. I moved out into my own apartment, and he pretty much came with me. I continued to get fully invested and helped him find a job, get a phone, straighten up some outstanding court costs and charges, and just overall improve his life the best I could. That made what he did hurt so much more.
Of course, there was a lot of fighting, but I thought this was it for me. We had been friends for years and I felt like it could have been life-long. Eventually, my parents offered me a rent-free, on-campus place to live, but they were pretty adamant about Joe not joining me there. It was a condo that had been in our family, yadda, yadda.
So, I let Joe stay at our apartment for a couple of weeks while the lease overlapped and he was going to move back in with his parents (thanks to me helping him re-establish a civil relationship with them). One night, I had decided to go visit him at work before I stopped at our friend West's house. I had forgotten my phone across town so when I saw him I asked if I could use his phone to call West.
I called West and gave him the heads up, ate my food, and was about to go in and return Joe's phone. Well, I noticed on the lock screen there was a text from our friend Tiffany that said, "You should be mine". That text hit me like a truck. Of course, my heart was pounding and I somehow managed to still respect his privacy and just left a sticky note on his screen: "Saw Tiff's text, curious about what your reaction is, talk when we get home" in a lot more words.
Well, when he got home, we didn't talk at all. I think we were both just scared. The next day, I told him that I'm not the type of lady that sticks around once I have to question who he's texting and doubt where he is. We'd been together for almost two years but he had to go. He cried while I packed his things and denied anything was ever going on.
Well, the fallout, as you can imagine, was much worse since we had all the same friends. Everyone called me psycho and crazy and blamed the rift on me because I was "making things up". Some of my best girlfriends that I had known even before I met Joe also took this approach—but I knew in my gut something was going on.
We all broke apart, kinda opposite of how you'd think. The guys stuck with me and the two girls who had my back, while the other chicks in our group all swore through and through that Tiffany and Joe were innocent and I was crazy. I had a rough time letting go and we did the normal dance of sleeping together and seeing each other even after the break-up. Then one day he just stopped talking to me.
No response at all. Months went by and I didn't see him again—until a mutual friend's birthday party. Tiffany was there too but of course, at this point, there was still denial of anything between them. They kept it cool. Flash forward about four months later and I was at my friend's house drinking. I started talking about how it would have been so much easier if they would have just told me straight that they were involved the whole time.
Suddenly, she got a look on her face like she just can't really handle it anymore. The truth finally came out, and it was so much worse than I'd feared: "I'm not supposed to tell you but I can't keep lying to you. Tiffany is six months pregnant and it's Joe's". At this point, a million things happened to me while I just sat there with a dumb look on my face. Of course, I did the math and realized she would have gotten pregnant while Joe and I were still together, I was processing that I was right this whole time, etc, etc.
Then came all the feelings of betrayal when I asked how many people found out. All but my two closest girlfriends knew. And no one was allowed to tell them because they would tell me and it was legit a conspiracy to be sure I never found out. The icing on top? When Tiffany and Joe had their baby, I made fun of the name they picked to one person only (the one who told me they were having the baby), and not even a day or two later, Tiffany called me and threatened to kick my butt, hunt me down, whatever.
I had changed my number since we were friends too so that "friend" had to have given it to her specifically to call and threaten me. Anyway, I don't talk to any of them really anymore. I keep in touch with my two closest, who was also banned from knowing. But everyone else was completely disbanded. Tiffany controlled Joe's life for long enough and wouldn't let him contact anyone that ever had any contact with me, so they fell off.
I was alone for years and only recently found someone worth trying again. I plan to marry this guy and we've already even looked at rings. Sometimes I have trouble trusting him, but I still know I would hate to be the girlfriend going through a phone or constantly paranoid. I'm happy now but it destroyed me for years.
62. The Friendship Test
I had a group of really good friends in my teens and early 20s, and one friend in the group was my absolute best friend. We did everything together. Well, one day he was off at college, away from home. His girlfriend used to hang out with all the guys in our group so we were all really close; then, one day, she confided in me that her boyfriend (my best friend) had been cheating on her at college with several different girls.
I was disgusted at him and really didn't know how to feel after that; it wasn't like him at all. She was thinking of breaking up with him and she asked me what she should do. I hated being put on the spot, but I told her to go with her gut and either confront him or break up with him. Apparently, that was a huge mistake. The very next day, my friend contacted and we got into a heated argument about what a horrible friend I was.
It made me think the whole thing was set up as a "test" to see what I would say. He accused me of coming onto his girlfriend which I certainly did not do at all. And that day, our friendship ended. Not only that, he basically told everyone in our friend circle not to talk to me ever again and so I was left friendless because of either his awful "test" of friendship or his genuine stupidity of cheating on his girlfriend and her stupidity of reporting to him that I was coming onto her.
This all led to a few years of depression and eventually acceptance that I'll never have another close friend ever again.
63. Dirty Car Salesman
I bought a used car from a friend during my college years who was, himself, a mechanic. The car looked brand new. I thought I knew him well enough to take his word that the car was in "perfect shape" and did not need any money spent on it. Turned out, he used our friendship to unload a vehicle fraught with mechanical woes, including serious transmission repairs, brakes, and electrical issues.
64. The Ol' Snag And Swap
So my best friend brings this girl over to my place one day (we're gonna call her V). She's really cute and we end up hitting it off. He tells me he likes her, that's why he invited her over. Well, shoot. I backed off. But I mean, there's only so much a randy 19-year-old can do. As it turns out, she liked me and not him and you know how things go...We dated for six months.
Coincidentally, he also started dating a different girl (well call her B) for almost the exact same duration and time period. Also coincidentally, he breaks up with B at almost the same time V breaks up with me. So several weeks pass, and I'm still having a tough time getting over V...And that's when my best friend admits he's been seeing her. Low blow, but I mean, I did technically snag her from him first. I insist that I don't want them to stop seeing each other on account of my feelings.
I don't know how this worked, or even why I thought this was a good idea, but out of spite I decided to send B a text and I'll let you fill in the rest. We effectively traded girlfriends. In the end, he and I are still friends and neither of us talks to either of those girls anymore. We both admit that there was no good guy in that story and that we were both jerks.
65. My Actions Put A Wrench In Our Friendship
My friend and I were at a car junkyard and busting things up with whatever we could find. My grip slipped on a wrench I was hitting stuff with and it totally nailed my friend in the face from 20 feet away. He ended up with a long scar between his eyes. We eventually grew apart years later, but I kind of felt like this was a big reason. He never struck me as a guy who holds grudges, but I put a wrench into his face, so who could blame him.
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66. Robbed Of Their Friendship
I lived in a small suburb that wasn’t the best neighborhood. One day while I was out, my house got ransacked. I came home to find blood all over the carpet and furniture knocked all over. Officials determined the burglar cut himself on an antique piece of silverware that the thief took. About a week later, I was home alone when the dog started barking wildly.
I heard banging on the door and ran into my parents' room and crawled under the bed. My mom called the authorities and I sobbed my eyes out thinking there was a stranger in my house. When I found out who it was, I wanted to scream. Officers arrived and found my two best friends in the house knocking over furniture and spraying ketchup on the carpet. They heard about the break-in and decided to play a little practical joke. We pressed charges.
67. While You Were Gone...
My ex-girlfriend used my poor mental health and attempt to take my own life to convince our friends that I was a compulsive liar. At the time, I was taking some personal time to recover, away from people, and I didn't realize what was happening until I tried to reintegrate myself with my friends, who by then were convinced I was a conniving piece of garbage. For a little while, I was very alone at a very vulnerable time.
Since then, the experience has kind of given me perspective about who my real friends really are. The people who cared about me supported me regardless of what had been said about me, and they were willing to hear my side of the story. The people who didn't were probably never really there for me in the first place.
Important life lesson for me, I think. It kind of hurts me thinking about it, but I think I'm far better off now surrounded by people who I know really care about me.
68. Take The Fall
I was friends with a guy who's in the same industry as me. We'd both been around for years but never seemed to run into each other until he joined my company a little over two years ago. He's a real go-getter who has been recognized by the company a few times now and people generally give the feedback that he's one of the best in our field. Many people consider me to be the best and I guess it was inevitable that we'd gravitate towards each other.
We hung around for a few months, in and out of work. He's a real family guy, and so am I, so we had a lot in common. We were getting in and out of tough situations together at work, but it began to feel like I was carrying the weight of our friendship. Whenever the chickens came home to roost, it was on me. People accused me of being his fall guy.
There was even a situation where I got locked in somewhere because of his bad decisions. I have claustrophobia and I cannot deal with small spaces. We had a few disagreements but nothing really came of it. Anyway, a while ago we did have a big falling out. I won't go into it, but I wasn't speaking to him and he was desperate to mend our relationship. Finally, I gave in and we mended things.
Everything was great again for a while, but then he started talking to another guy in our field, who's been around as long as I have and we never saw eye to eye. Suddenly, he had a new "friend" who could help him. That's when he proved what kind of person he was. I threw him a party and got him a couple of gifts to say thanks for being a good friend, and he totally rejected them. He bought me a gift just to mock me and one of my interests.
Things got physical and he ended that night by smashing my TV. I got the worst of it. Now, to pile on, he's trying to take my position in the company. I really hate that he managed to manipulate me into helping him so much. He's a stupid idiot.
69. Prisoner Of The Mind
One of my best friends since high school totally surprised me. His mom, dad, and sisters all had mental health issues, but he seemed to be relatively fine himself. In his mid-thirties, however, he began having mental episodes that progressively got worse. I tried to help him and at first, it was working until he decided to stop taking his meds, which then led to a severe breakdown.
During that breakdown, he threatened his landlord, then went back to his house and shot both of his dogs which he loved like family. He was subsequently kicked out of his house (though the landlord did not press charges) and was apprehended for multiple animal-related offenses. That's when we realized just how serious his issues were. But they were only going to get worse...
After dealing with his issues, he went to therapy and got back on his meds. My friends and I also helped him get back on his feet by finding him a place to live and getting him a job at a friend's business. Things were fine for a while until he had another episode and completely went off the radar. He quit going to work, loaded up his car, and left the house where he was renting a room; not to be heard from for several months.
He finally resurfaced in the news for shooting someone during a dispute, and we still have not learned all of the details. We do know, however, that he'd been homeless, living at a roadside campsite several miles south of the city during the time we had not seen or heard from him. He's been in prison since then (almost a year now), and still has not had his day in court.
It's a really bad situation because he needs mental health care rather than prison time, but there's not much any of us can do at this point.
70. Halo, But No Angel
In seventh grade, my small group of friends and I were of the less popular crowd, but we had each other. One day, my closest friend in the group, we'll call him Adam, didn't hang out with us during the break. No problem, it wasn't like he had to every day. Adam and I were super close. Like, "sleepover twice a week and do nothing but play Halo 3 in his room the whole day" close.
Over the course of a week, he started hanging out with us less and less. I asked him why and he told me he'd been playing hand tennis with some other crowd (a much cooler crowd). Then, he went on to explain some nonsense about how it's just so he can join their soapbox derby team. Soapbox derby comes and goes. Still not a word from Adam.
I spotted him after school one day and confronted him, asking him why he was avoiding us. He couldn't even look me in the eyes and he was visibly embarrassed to be seen with me. That moment hurt more than anything. I just want an explanation, but I got nothing. We went our separate ways from there, and needless to say, his newfound friends led him down a path of poor choices. My other friends and I are all doing well for ourselves.
But what I'd give to go back and play Halo 3 with him again, greatest memories. Too bad it ended poorly.
71. Down A Dark Path
Last year, I moved in with a childhood friend who's a year younger than me. He's a good-looking guy who is always well dressed. Over the years, I'd hear stories about messed-up things he did, but I'd just shrug them off. But after we moved in together, I realized he was problematic—he did not care about anything or anyone at all apart from his image.
He'd skip rent payments or his own groceries, but would still have money for the club, funnily enough. I let it pass hoping he'd change until I realized he wasn't going to. I started buying food only for myself because I obviously couldn't afford food for both of us with my allowance. Around that time, I noticed he started to spend fewer days at home and more time at his "cousin's" place.
It turned out that he had skipped rent payments for three months and the landlord was looking for him. I waited for him to come back and confronted him one night, but it spiraled into an argument about how selfish I was and so on. It became very heated and he tried to fight me, but I'm not a violent person, so I just kept it cool.
He eventually moved back home to another town and I found myself a new roommate. Months later, I found out he attempted to take advantage of a girl, and I honestly wasn't even surprised. I just hope he gets help because he clearly needs it...It's a shame to see him go down that way.
72. Ridiculous? Check. Petty? Check.
I helped my friend get a summer job, her first job when we were 17. It was at a place where I had worked the summer before. I got a bonus and was put in charge when the owner wasn't around (there was no manager). When my friend started working there, she would tell my boss personal things that I had confided in her.
She also got mad at me for something involving a guy and she started taking it out on me at work. She would refuse to do what I asked of her and she rallied our coworkers to take sides. It was ridiculous and petty. Then, she convinced my childhood friends that I had abused her at work and taken her boyfriend (who I had no interest in and had only met once). My friends listened and left me left to be her friend.
Jokes on them though, because I have great friends now and the most amazing best friend, my boyfriend. They still gossip about stuff that happened back in high school and just act like children in general. On the occasions that I do run into them, they ask what I have been up to and mock the successes I have had or the happiness I have found. They are too jealous to be happy for me, even after all these years. Bullets dodged.
73. Shunned At School
When I was in middle school, as I was about to sit down to lunch, my best friend looked at me and said very bluntly, "You can't sit here". It was totally out of the blue. It sounds silly, but at the time, that's one of the most terrifying things that could happen to a kid. Having to wander through a crowded cafeteria looking for an empty seat was a nightmare. I ended up being a shy kid until eleventh grade.
74. Bail Out Blues
I made friends with a fellow business owner who was having some trouble with his business. I gave him 50% of my decently successful business and took over 50% of his failing business and put them under the same roof. For some reason, I let him be in charge of the finances, which included a bunch of credit cards and lines of credit in my name. Five months later, I found every single credit source maxed out and we had no cash. He took an excess of $40K from my business.
75. I Needed To Skate Away From This Guy
When I was 11 years old, I was into skateboarding and rollerblading. I loaned my skateboard to a friend. As collateral, I would hang onto his skateboard until he returned mine. One day I heard something in my garage. I found him crawling out the window. He broke the window, climbed in, and took his skateboard back because he broke mine. But still, he managed to outdo himself.
About two weeks later, my mom passed, and he tried to be mean about it in front of other people in an attempt to be cool. I punched him in the face, broke his nose, and convinced my dad to file charges for the theft. Later his parents came over and begged us to drop the charges. They paid for the repairs and then some, so we did.
76. Left In The Dust
It was high school and I was doing pretty well as far as socializing goes. I had never been in that position, and it went to my head. I saw this one girl who was completely alone, so I kind of adopted her. I pulled her into my friend group and she flourished. Over the next two years, I helped her battle through depression, an eating disorder, family issues, anxiety, you name it.
Whatever it was, I was there for her. Heck, I even volunteered to be her first lesbian kiss since she just wanted to get it out of the way. During senior year, things changed. She cut off all her hair and became a cool kid. By this point, I was generally a loner who drifted between groups. I still had really close friends, just across different cliques. She pretty much upgraded to the cool kids and completely abandoned me.
After everything I did for her, she couldn't even bother to talk to me. I still hurt thinking about it. Julia (or Jay now, I guess..), if you're reading this, I loved you a lot. I hope you realize you threw away someone who would have done anything for you. For what? Some more signatures in your yearbook.
77. Secrets Will Tear You Apart
I dated a girl for about a year and she broke up with me. I called my best friend of over 15 years to let him know since it was obviously hard to deal with, and he came and picked me up. We had some drinks and he helped me deal with the breakup. Fast forward about a year later and I noticed that he was at my university but he hadn't been calling me to hang out. He had been hanging out with her secretly behind my back and they later got married.
They both unfriended me on Facebook and I haven't spoken to them since. The part that I'm the saddest about is losing my best friend. I wish he had come to me about it and we could have chatted about it (I like to think that I'd have been okay with it). I miss him and hanging out like we used to.
78. Nothing To Cheer About
I had a group of six guy friends in high school. We were best friends since grade school. I was finally dating a cheerleader, who I was madly in love with. I had wanted to date her since freshman year, but she always dated cool, older guys. I finally won her over, and it was a hot, dramatic, passionate high school love. I was obsessed.
During senior week, I paid for her senior trip so we could spend a week together without supervision. It was a dream—then it turned into a nightmare. She dumped me on day one. She went to stay at the other house where my best friend was staying. I went over there sobbing begging him to not let anyone go near her. He promised he wouldn't. We got back together about three months later.
A week after that, she told me she was pregnant. I went over to my friend’s house to talk about the situation. We stayed up all night, and he convinced me it was her decision whether to keep it or not. So, I took her to get the abortion and paid for it. A while later, she dumped me for someone else. Then, she confessed the twisted truth, and I've never been the same. My friend was the father of the baby and not me.
When I confronted my friend, he admitted that they had slept together multiple times during senior week. When they found out she was pregnant, neither of them had any money for the procedure, so they decided to get me to pay for it.
79. Gone For Good
My girlfriend and I had just got engaged. She suddenly became very secretive and was out a lot of the time. One day she got a text message and said she was going out. When I asked where she was going out of concern something was wrong, she had a massive blowout with me about privacy. So when she went out, I decided to go to my best friend's house.
I turned up at the door and his housemate let me in. I walked up to his room and saw something that will be burned into my brain forever. There he was, nailing my girlfriend. We broke up pretty soon after and I was willing to let it go. I knew I was never going to talk to either of them again so I thought, just forget it. Then my so-called best friend came to my house and said he was gonna kill me for making her leave town. Apparently, she had gone back to live with her parents.
80. Rent Claims Another Friendship
We met as co-workers, got along well enough, and decided to split the rent of a nearby apartment. Things were going just great. We had a system where we simply split the rent in half, and each of us respectively paid our half of the rent. After a year or so, he quit that job and got another one nearby. No problem. A while later, I found out he was out of that job and on the market...okay...
In the meantime, he'd borrowed a few bucks here, a couple there, and that slowly added up. He owed me around a grand I think. Finally, I was walking through the building and one of the staff asked me what was going on. That's when the truth came out. He explained that we were about $1,500 behind on the rent (1.5 months' worth). It was so close to the wire that we were going to be kicked out the next day.
By some miracle, I actually had enough to cover that, but now he owed me a lot more money and I was absolutely furious. It went on for a while. He told me he would contact his mother, and she would be able to help him out. I made the mistake of taking his word on that, but after a couple of weeks of nothing, I decided to contact her myself.
Lo and behold, he had not mentioned this to her. So I apologetically explained the situation to her, and she spoke to him. Fortunately, everything turned out well (for me anyway). His mother paid me everything he owed me, plus enough to cover his next couple of months' rent. He found a job that he liked, and from that point, I paid the rent, and he paid me his portion (always on time).
We wound up losing contact after we each moved on in life but stayed on good terms, so I guess it all came out well in the end.
81. Well That Escalated Quickly
When I was in college, I was in a band that played at local alternative rock clubs. We played mostly for fun and for free drinks. One night, I got a call from the guy who got us our gigs saying he had a job that would pay us $300 for about a 90-minute performance. It was last minute, but decent money for 1994. I called the guys up, they said yes, and we confirmed everything.
I was trying to connect with the other guys so I could pick up the gear and get to the bar. No one answered their phones. After about three hours of trying to get ahold of them, I finally talked to the singer and he told me that since we hadn't practiced for two weeks (because they were renovating our practice space) they didn't want to do the gig and I was kicked out.
I still remember the call to the bar and getting torn apart by the manager. I'm friends with one of the guys now, but the singer can go choke.
82. Corporate Backlash
This is still sore. I worked at a small, privately-owned business for almost 12 years. It was my first job. The staff was so close that we were basically family. I think back at how we were all such huge parts of each other's lives; how my older co-workers really had a hand in shaping me to be the adult I am now. The owner sold the business to a corporation and announced that the manager, who was a very, very close friend of mine would be stepping down.
In front of the entire staff, he announced I would be the manager and that he would help me make the transition into new ownership. I had never been so shocked... I felt so betrayed. Deeply betrayed. My options were: to take the job and try it out for a year to build a resume or step down in my middle-management position and re-join the reception staff at a pay cut and limited schedule.
Well, two things: I never wanted to be the "the boss" and the previous manager knew that; I knew this acquisition was going to be terrible and wanted to leave. My significant other was just laid off, so I couldn't. As soon as I stepped into the position, I was forced to do things like change schedules, cut overtime, and switch 401k providers.
I had to do this or I would be fired. You can't stop a freight train, and this corporation didn't need or care about any of us. My work "family" immediately scapegoated me. They treated me like a turn-coat enemy as if anything could have been done. I was running myself haggard working 70 hours a week and they reveled in it.
Eventually, I was bullied by my friends...One day, five of them quit, which essentially crippled us. They had been planning it for two months. I lasted a year in the position and it was the worst year of my life. I would have quit sooner but my significant other got into an ATV accident and was out of work. I had hung out with these people outside of work for YEARS.
I went to their baby showers, planned parties with them for the 4th of July, spent New Year's together, etc. It's still sore because they don't think they did anything wrong in how they treated me.
83. IT's Not Looking Good
I was working as an IT consultant and was recently promoted to area manager. So I had maybe 15 other consultants under me. Now, I was personal friends with many of them before the promotion. Then in 2009, the big global recession finally hit IT in the country I worked in, and some of our jobs were cut after finished projects. Well, it was basically me and two other guys.
Shortly after, it came out that people had been badmouthing me behind my back, and it was the major reason why I was cut. Lo and behold, who did it? The people who were supposed to be my friends. I could disprove everything via written performance reviews from the company's managers where we were stationed, but since I found out after the fact, it was too late.
It cost me a year of unemployment and I ended up in debt just to survive. Why? Because of jealousy. Now, let's add some more fun facts: Some of those "friends" knew most of my friend circle, and they started badmouthing me to them. Out of those 10-ish people, one person questioned what they said and stayed friends with me, while the rest cut me out without even speaking to me.
One "friend" tried playing both sides, but after I showed him the performance review from my managers (whom the betrayers said were unhappy with my performance), he still kept in touch with them. So I cut him from my now very small (but genuine) friends circle. These backstabbers were all people who also came to my wedding.
Good riddance I say. I know the worst of those old "friends" is now stuck in a job he hates, and I got the job of my dreams for a long time after.
84. Creepy Cousin
My "best" friend growing up was a terrible person. At the time I couldn't see it, but she really was a completely awful human being. She had a very creepy cousin who would make chilling advances and comments toward me. He made me feel very uncomfortable and she knew this, yet she did nothing about it.
Mind you, this is when she and I were both 16, and he was 18. One day, we were getting silly at her boyfriend's house and her cousin came over to buy some God knows what (her boyfriend sold...lots of stuff). My "best" friend was a little frisky, and she decided this was a great time to go off and sleep with her boyfriend. She left me alone in a strange house with her creepy cousin.
This was before cell phones or anything like that, and I tried to zone out on the TV and keep to myself, as far away from him as possible. He kept making comments and would sit closer and closer to me on the couch. I was not in the right state of mind (I know, not the smartest thing) and that's when he finally started touching me. I grabbed his hand and said if he touched me again I'd end him.
He laughed and said he wasn't worried because he was much stronger than me (he was, I was about a sickly 90 lbs at that time). Needless to say, her cousin violated me. I stopped talking to her immediately and cut off all contact with her, our mutual friends, her family, etc. For months to years after, her cousin would find me on social media and stalk me.
The sickest part was he'd write things to me professing love and sweet feelings. It got to the point where I told people if I ever went missing, look at him first. I ended up talking to her randomly years later and told her what happened. Her reply was "Well, you were super messed up so who knows what actually happened. Maybe you wanted it".
85. Work And Play
I once worked in a call center. The work was tough—maybe a nine-month average burn-out time—and at two years in, I was one of the "old hands". After a large recruitment drive, there was a lot of new staff, none of whom knew very many people. My idea was, instead of us regulars going out to the pub on our own as usual (we did it nearly every night), we'd invite some of the new starts along as well and make a night of it.
It snowballed from there. One lady sketched and photocopied a quick poster with a date, time, and venue. One of the guys sent a group e-mail, and another handed out photocopied invitations. Another booked a large table at our favorite bar. I got a box of "Celebrations" sweets. The build-up was invigorating; everybody said they were up for it and looking forward to it. Bear in mind, we always went out for drinks anyway, the only difference with this night was that we were planning in advance and inviting others. I never predicted the disaster it became.
On the night, I went along early with the box of "Celebrations," sat at our table...and not a single person showed up. I swear, for the first solid hour on a busy weekend night I sat there alone at this table, reserving it "for my work-mates," as the pub slowly filled, and with more and more people asking if they could sit at this big, vacant table. It got mighty embarrassing very quickly to have to explain to them that I was waiting for a crowd to arrive.
Eventually, I gave up and started making it obvious that the table was available; I got some humiliatingly sympathetic looks from the people who took a seat. I was finishing my drink when a couple of new-starts showed up well over an hour after the "start" of the night, and while I was talking to them explaining that the night was a total dud, a couple of the "regulars" deigned to stroll in.
We had a couple of beers, but after being shown up I wasn't in the mood to make a night of it; I left the chocolates and split, having learned a valuable lesson: You can't absolutely count on people doing what they say they're going to, even if the thing is totally routine. The psychology of it was such that if we hadn't arranged ANYTHING, the table would have been filled with co-workers who would have been out as normal, as we always did. But make it "an occasion," and suddenly no one wants to be the first to turn up, and not so many people want to go at all.
The worst part of it was I got remembered as the "face" of the failed night out, and fellow co-workers had the nerve to rib me about it over the next couple of weeks, even though it wasn't guys like me that were the problem. And the following week, on the same day of the week, without any planning whatsoever, a big group of us hit that bar, got plastered, and had a good time, with only me seemingly spotting what was wrong with that picture.
86. You Had ONE RULE
I had a friend in middle school who I was excited to invite over to spend the night. I told him he just couldn't go into my brother's room. We played video games all day and night, and the next day, I spent the night at his house. He acted weird a lot of different times. He would get frustrated in the middle of us having fun for some reason.
I went home the next day and my mom told me on the ride home that my brother was missing 180 dollars from his room. She asked me if she thought my buddy took it, to which I said no way. At home, she asked me if I ever left him alone, which I said I did once—when I went to the restroom. I cried telling them that there is no way he took it because he was my friend.
Sure enough, my mom drove over there and came back with the money. I think the worst part was crying and defending him over it all. He didn't amount to much in life and he ended up getting locked up in his later years, but what's the worst is he could never give me a reason why he took the money.
87. Guilty People Do Bad Things
My best friend of 16 years. We both messed up and made out after confessing we both had feelings for each other. She understandably felt guilty because she was still dating my friend at the time, and even though he'd been acting like a jerk for the past few weeks, that was no excuse for what we did. But that also doesn't excuse what she did: To save face, she decided to spread rumors that I had vi0lated her.
I would've been happy to take my share of the blame for what happened, but when I found out about that, I lost respect for her instantly. After that, the entire friendship group turned on me and I had to cut all ties with them. Been friendless and alone for a long time after that and needless to say, I don't think I'll ever trust someone like that again.
88. Just Gimme A Reason
One of my best friends convinced my ex-wife that I'd been having an affair with an old girlfriend for five years. He lied and said I hadn't been to places where we were supposed to be together. I'd been with my wife for most of the last nine years. The girl lived two time zones away and we had just reconnected and become Facebook friends.
And the cherry on top? The friend and my ex are getting married in June. My ex knows now that nothing happened, and even if it did there was no excuse for what she did. They deserve each other.
89. No Friends During A Funeral
Several years ago, my grandmother passed. Driving home from her house (she lived very close to us), we ran into one of my best friends driving the other way. He had known her, and he ate Sunday dinner at her place on several occasions, so we stopped to let him know that she had passed and when the funeral would be.
We went to the funeral, then returned home to find a chilling sight. The place was empty. While we were at her funeral, my "friend" and a couple of other guys broke into our apartment and swiped all of our stuff. But he still sunk lower—a couple of nights later, they tried to break into my grandma's apartment too, but a neighbor saw them and scared them off.
This guy had been near the top of my best friends list and we'd known each other for about 12 years (I was 18 at the time).
90. He’s Not Bothering Anyone
Back in the 90s, a family friend's dog had passed. I ended up going over a few days later to play basketball, and the dog was laying in its usual spot, in a small bed near the TV in the living room. I said, "oh, I thought spot passed," and he said, "he did". That's when it all clicked into place. The gears started turning and the horror of it all became crystal clear.
Turns out, they left the deceased dog just laying there and they were gonna bury it that weekend when the sister came home from college. But in the meantime, they just left it laying there. It was an emaciated old chihuahua, so it's not like it was a gassy, swollen, stinking mess. More like a tiny little dog mummy, all dried out. But still, who does that?
Public Domain Pictures
91. Escaping Home
This girl I knew in high school was on the same rugby team as me. Ever since the spring season started, she began showing up to practice more and more infrequently. The coach always told us to stop asking about her and he never said anything against her not showing up, but he was rude to the rest of the other players who skipped or slacked off.
Cut to our quarterfinals tournament—she finally showed up, except something was horribly wrong. For one, she was crying. She was still determined to play, though, and played aggressively well against the other teams. I later found out that she lived in a dangerous household and she finally got emancipated that week. Throughout the two years that I had known her, she never gave any indication of anything like that.
As far as I know, no one else knew what was happening either. It came as a total surprise to me and really opened my eyes. It made me wonder for the first time if anyone else I knew was being covertly taken advantage of at home.
92. Nice Day For A Rude Wedding
My best friend of 10 years called on my wedding day to say she couldn’t make it because she was just so sad about her recent divorce. Later on, I found out the truth and it wounded me to my core. Turns out, she just had a date and would have rather done that. Our whole friendship was fake, it just took me to that point to realize it.
93. Good, Bye
My "best friend" ran off with my girlfriend after swearing for weeks that he would never do such a thing. The best part was that I was that he was married at the time, and I had been the best man at his wedding. It really hurt at the time, but in retrospect, I'm glad it happened. I got to kick two pieces of junk out of my life on the same day. Plus, I met my wife two years later, and I've never been happier.
94. The Great Protector
My wife had a falling out with some friends of mine that she met through me. We had known them a long time but I had known them for much longer. I was upset with her one night, because they were always asking why she never came around anymore, but she absolutely refused to see them. I always thought it was because of this little side business project they went into together that didn't work out.
So, I'm driving my wife somewhere, and I just start getting upset with her that she won't make up with them and move past it like they did, and it sucks that she never comes with when I go over there. So, she finally broke and told me the painful truth. Every time she went over there without me, they would talk smack about me, putting down my personality, my humor, and much more.
I guess they thought she would be okay with it, like a joking, "Haha my husband can be such a [insert something], right?" But she wasn't okay with it. She's not a confrontational person, so she never really spoke up, but she was disgusted by the way they spoke about me behind my back, and refused to have anything to do with them.
She had been letting me think it was all her fault and she took it because she knew the truth would hurt my feelings. And it did.
95. Do I Know You?
Toward the end of college, I had two roommates for about two years. We had enough in common to live together and even though we didn’t do EVERYTHING together, we spent enough time doing stuff on our own or with our extended group of friends that I had thought we were all fairly good friends. But when I had a chance to move into my own place, they instantly ghosted me.
Like, it happened the moment I drove my moving van out of the driveway. I never got a phone call, never got a response to any messages I left for either of them, not even a text in reply. About three years later, I ran into them in Las Vegas and they both looked me in the eye and then walked past me like I had never met them. Screw those guys.
96. Take A Hike
I was hanging out in a group and someone mentioned their upcoming trip to Japan. Oh, I thought, that's cool! What I heard next made my stomach drop. Someone else mentioned their upcoming trip to Japan. By the third person mentioning it, I knew where this was going for sure and I casually asked when they were all going. One person got the biggest “Oh no” look.
She nervously asked if I'd be interested in coming with them. They'd already planned the dates and itinerary. This wasn't the first time they'd done things without me and excitedly talked about it in front of me, but this was the biggest. I don't talk to any of them anymore.
97. You Don’t Get What You Give
I am a giver to my friends and loved ones. Giving without explanation of any return. Over the years, my wife has continued to complain about my fake friends, claiming they are around me for my generosity only. So she came up with an ingenious plan. She asked me to be a bit selfish and ask something of those she suspected of being fake.
I did, and, well...most of those so-called friends suddenly disappeared or found themselves extremely busy with other, more important, matters than to help a friend in need. For some it took just a text to make them disappear, others a call. What can I say. I am lucky to have a partner who is very emotionally intelligent, and she read them with ease.
As for my remaining best friends, I say: Thank you for being there when I needed you, and I'll be there for you. Love you all.
98. It’ll Take a Lot to Kill This Pain
I had a friend in college who I thought was just a friend. Always thought she was so cool because she’d do anything for anyone. Turns out it was just me and most of the stories were lies. She was prescribed painkillers for something and had no problems sharing them as we hung out and smoked often.
We’d drive outside of campus through the cornfields and get high, listening to music and talking. One day she picks me up at my dorm and offers me a drink. Cool, but it’s already open. At first, I really thought nothing of it but then I take a sip and think something is definitely off. I taste the painkillers. Oooookay, maybe I’m paranoid?
I ask her to take me home and she asks if we can stop by her place first. Ok, but I think it’s a bit strange. We walk in and it’s literally trashed, dishes piled up, a few bags of trash laying around. She starts GOING OFF about how much she cleans and her roommates just trash the place, how she just “did the dishes yesterday and took out the trash” (I’m seeing food dried to plates, trying hard to understand how four girls can make three bags of trash in 24 hours, no freaking way she was telling the truth).
Then I realized how she was cleaning—dropping it low, thong showing, flirtatious talking—and now I realize I’m starting to feel the effects of the painkillers; with every new bout of blurred vision and itchy skin I realize need to get the hell out of there NOW. Texted my brother to meet me in the middle of campus and to keep heading towards her place if I didn’t show up.
The last thing that I remember is hugging my brother and then waking up the next day. She never tried to speak to me again but made sure to ask everyone we knew why I was mad at her to see if I told anyone. You’re lucky I didn’t, JESSICA! If a girl is obsessed with horses, run far, run fast and don’t look back.
99. The Bad Husband
I lost respect for this friend when it came out that he was cheating on his disabled and housebound wife. But that was just the beginning of the nightmare. She managed the finances and managed the electronic toll-road bill that showed he was in the wrong state when he was said he was at work. When she confronted him, he denied it until she then pulled out the phone bill with his texts and calls to a number in the general area of the state he had been in.
He then divorced her and tried to screw her out of her share of his Navy pension and insurance. They were married for longer than his time in the service (25 years) and was she entitled to half of it. He went out of his way to hurt her. She passed less than a year later in a nursing home while he was moving in with a completely different woman than the one he originally cheated on his wife with.
Real classy guy. He showed up to the first wife’s funeral with #2. He also claimed to go out "whaling" while in the Navy—he and his fellow sailors would apparently search out and bed the largest lady they could while on shore leave. The winner who took home the biggest got bragging rights until the next round of leave. Horrific.
100. Room Service
For a full year, my college roommate secretly slept with my boyfriend while I was at class. I routinely took more than a full course load and was in math and science classes or study groups every morning. One day, I walked in to see a horrifying sight. They were just fully in the act after I came back early from a cancelled class.
I moved out. I was more angry at her than heartbroken. I also lost most of my friends through the breakup, and they stuck together for a good while. Fast forward five years later. Those two throw a crazy expensive engagement party at the guy's parents' beach house, which was attended by some still-mutual friends who told me everything.
At the party, she caught him sleeping with one of the waitresses from the catering company in a bathroom. They still got married. I feel a little bad for her despite the karma balance. She feels like she can't do better than being with a cheater.
