Sometimes, losing a friend can hurt more than a breakup—especially when it seemed like they were destined to be part of your life forever. All of a sudden, the person you trusted with your life turns their back or exposes themself to be a terrible person. From callous behavior to devastating betrayals, these tales of friendships gone wrong are seriously jaw-dropping.
1. Starting The Drama
I had one friend that bought a bunch of tickets for a midnight movie premiere for myself and our entire friend group, about 15 of us in total. On the day of the show, he texts me and says he forgot to buy a ticket for me. I ask, "What do you mean you forgot to buy ‘my’ ticket? Of the 15 you bought, how is it my ticket that you decided wasn't purchased?"
Turns out, he did buy a ticket for me included in the 15 he bought, but he had just met a girl the week prior and decided to give my ticket to her. So our entire friend group went to the movie, minus me. There's other things he did to me as well. We're no longer friends. And for anyone wondering what movie it was, it was Jurassic World.
2. Driving Me Up The Wall
One day, my wife needed to go to the airport. I didn't have a car and Uber is not cheap, so I asked my friend if they could drop us off. After all, the airport was on their way to the club they went to on weekends. They agreed very reluctantly but didn't call or show up when it was time to leave. I got this sinking feeling in my stomach at that point.
It was so bad that I didn’t call them to remind them or anything. I just got the feeling that they didn't want to help us and I didn’t want to make it weirder. I was on my way to the bus stop to catch the bus when we bumped into them. Now having no way out, they said they forgot about it and offered to drop us off after all. Honestly, I wish we hadn’t even said yes; in the car all they did was taunt us about buying a car.
We didn't speak again after this incident.
3. Quiet Cuts
Ooof! This one hurt. When I was married, we had a friend group of three couples from our street. We went to football games, trips to the beach, and spent holidays at each other's homes. After the divorce, I went traveling for a year then moved to a condo downtown in our city. I'd had lunch with the wives after returning from traveling.
I thought we were still friends. I was sitting on the second-floor balcony of my new condo one night about 8 pm and saw them walking down the street. I said, “HI! So good to see you!” They'd all been out to dinner and were headed to another couple's apartment who had moved downtown while their house was being renovated for a quick drink.
I was excited to see them and asked them to stop by on their way back to where they'd parked. I tidied up my place and anxiously awaited seeing my old pals. I was texting with one of the ladies during the wait. About 9 pm, I saw them walking and chatting back towards my place. They couldn't see me. I wish I hadn’t seen what I did.
When they got close to my balcony, they stopped talking and walked quickly and quietly by. Then started laughing and talking after they passed. The one I'd been texting with while I waited sent me a text an hour later saying they were just now leaving the other friend's place and it was too late to stop by. I replied that I'd seen them when they left.
I never spoke to any of them again, even though they tried to be "friends" on Facebook. I wasn't hurt that they couldn't stop by on short notice. It was that they made me a joke that really hurt.
4. Sitting Duck
My friend invited me over to hang out. Thirty-five minutes into the get together, she was like: “I will be right back.” She gets in the car with her boyfriend and leaves me at her house with her kid siblings. That's when it hit me. She literally tricked me into babysitting. I was 16 at the time, and I was really nice and naive. The kids I unknowingly babysat were really good kids and their nice mother was at work.
I eventually told off the “friend” after graduation. I didn’t realize until more situations like this that she was just using me. I just wanted friends.
5. Tripping Up
I had three best friends all throughout school. We did everything together. We all went to different universities after we graduated, but we kept in touch every day. They all graduated university and got jobs back at home, while I stayed on at school to do a Masters. We were still super close, though. We talked about finally going on our first group holiday together.
All suggesting places, one of them suggested a nice resort. But as a student without any real income, I said that would be a bit out of my budget. I suggested a similar resort that was a bit cheaper. Never heard from any of them again. I messaged and called. Nothing. Fifteen years of friendship down the drain, over a holiday. They went on the trip without me. I was utterly heartbroken.
6. Get Your Story Straight
This one friend constantly told people that she had some form of cancer for as long as I could remember. At first, I thought it was because she was trying to cover up the fact that she was gay and had short hair, which to a certain degree is still a little taboo in our region. But then she just kept lying, even after she actually came out as gay.
She kept telling people she had cancer, but it always changed. Leukemia, brain cancer, melanoma, breast cancer, colon cancer, the list goes on. She told a ton of people at a cattle show that she was a 14-year-old boy, all so she could show someone’s steer in the junior class. Then in the ring showing, the steer knocked her over and she fell down.
The metal brush in her back pocket penetrated her jeans and was stuck into her cheek. I still remember some of the bystanders helping her. Dude: "C'mon young man, we need to pull it out, let us help you." Her: "No I'm fine." Dude: "There’s blood all over the back of your jeans, we need to take a look and see if we can pull it out or if you need to go to a hospital. We can't tell if you are wearing your jeans over it. We're all tough folk here, no one cares if they see your butt."
She agreed, and then the entire crowd saw her neon pink thong. That's when everyone she had lied to realized that she wasn't a 14-year-old boy. She would also claim she wasn't gay after coming out. There were times that she was dating or screwing around with guys in secret.
7. Fishy Behavior
I asked my best friend if he could stop in daily to feed my fish and test my water while I was out of town for two weeks. I ran a decent saltwater tank. It was a nice 150 gallon bowfront and gorgeous. I came home to a horrible sight. The tank was completely nuked. That means the fish were all dead and the tank was full of parasites. Turns out the friend didn't stop by even one time. I gave him $200 to do this, and he said, "Yea, no problem. It's on my way home from work anyways."
A lot of folks are usually interested in hearing the aftermath of this situation. When I got home and saw my tank nuked, I went to my friend’s house and confronted him. He basically shrugged the entire thing off. He claimed he had just forgotten and acted like I can just start a new tank, like it wasn't a big deal at all. I was in such a rage that I thought it best to just leave or I would hurt him bad.
So I went home, had a good cry, and proceeded with cleaning up. I sold off the equipment and gave up for about three years. I've never spoken to the guy again and have zero intentions of ever doing so.
8. Gossip Girl
I first met my ex-friend as a coworker. He needed a ride home since he didn't have a car, so I offered. I drove him home after almost every shift for three years. He became my closest friend. I was 16 years old and had just started driving. He was in his mid to early twenties. This was eight or some odd years ago. Now, as a teenager, I made some bad decisions and wasn't always the best guy. But that doesn't mean I deserve what he did to me.
Fast forward to four months ago, when he told my fiancee every terrible thing I've ever done throughout my life, and detailed to her every reason she should leave me. He gave her a spare key to his house and told her that when she makes the right decision his doors are open. Apparently, he's secretly been trying to end our relationship for almost two years.
He’s been feeding her lies and whispering in her ear about how bad a person I am so that he can have my fiancee join his fiancee and him in a three-way relationship.
9. The Cabin In The Woods
I had a group of friends in my mid-20s that I had considered close. These were people who were going to be a part of my wedding when it eventually happened and were going to be aunts and uncles to my future kids. Our kids were going to grow up together. Then I realized in the summer of 2014 that they didn't feel the same way about me. It was one rude awakening.
There were a bunch of little things leading up to it and a bunch of little things that happened after, but two big things were a local wedding that I wasn't invited to and an apparently incredible weekend at a cabin in the mountains that I also wasn't invited to. I was feeling depressed because of the wedding and all of the aforementioned little things and some other personal stuff going on in my life, so I had begged the organizer of the cabin if I could join.
It was pathetic. I said that I can sleep on the floor; I can come for just one night; just anything as long as I can come over. I was told very firmly, "No. There's no more room." But it gets worse. Oh yeah, my birthday was also that weekend, and literally, all of my friends that I would have asked to spend my birthday with me were already out of town or at that cabin.
No exaggeration, for a year after these events, whenever I spent time with these “friends,” the conversation would somehow gravitate to how awesome these events were. Like during a board game night, someone would bring a board game and go, "This is the game that we played that one night at the cabin, remember? Bob got really lucky with those dice rolls, didn't he?" and that would trigger a full-blown conversation about how awesome that weekend was.
Or we'd be at a dinner and someone would go, "Where's Frank and Lindsey?" and someone else would go, "They're finally on their honeymoon. Man, remember the awesome wedding they had?" Made me feel awful.
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10. New Phone, Who Dis?
My best friend since fifth grade invited me to his wedding as a guest. I expected to be a groomsman, since we basically stayed the night at each other's houses every weekend all through high school and I set him up with his wife. We were still "close" for long-distance friends too after moving to college. I'd come visit and spend the weekend with him and some mutual friends a few times a year.
We did fantasy football and texted pretty frequently. Fine—but then it got so awkward. At the wedding, the bride and groom each had about eight people in their parties. The groom had his brother and seven friends. I didn't even make the top seven. I knew pretty much everyone on the bride's side, but only knew half of the guys up there with the groom.
That opened my eyes a bit. I took a step back and analyzed our friendship after that. At that point, I realized I always texted him first or made plans, always visited him but he never visited me, etc. He basically put in no effort. So I stopped texting for a while, as a test, and I haven't heard from him since. It's been about 11 years.
11. Up Against The Clock
I had twelve hours before I deployed to Afghanistan. I lived about six hours away from my point of departure, i.e. the airport from which I would fly into theater. My friend, who also happened to be my ex-girlfriend, had committed to driving me there on that day. Packed, dressed, goodbyes said, I take an Uber to her house with all my gear and baggage ready to go.
I knock on the door and she answers in her robe. I ask her if she was about ready to go and she proceeds to tell me that she forgot. This was after we had talked about it just two days prior. She then informed me that she really wasn't feeling like driving that distance. Utterly shocked and confused, I explain to her that if I miss my flight, it's considered a "failure to report for duty" and I could be considered a deserter or AWOL.
Heavy consequences for it either way. She told me to figure it out and closed the door. I was completely in shock. At that point, I had no idea what to do, so I called my first sergeant. We worked in a very remote location and he was the closest person to me at that point. That man drove the three hours from his home to get me and then the other six hours to the airport.
He even bought me dinner and got me tipsy before I had to get on my flight. I had the stunning realization that day that you really can't trust anyone, but I gained a lifelong friend as a result. Thankfully, solely due to that man’s kindness, I was able to make it in time, and I never spoke to the girl again. But me and the sergeant still talk regularly to this day!
12. Living In The Present
My former friend swiped my Christmas and birthday present. I had him and my other friends over a bunch because my family went on vacation without me. I was only about 16 or 17 years old at the time and I was home alone, so I wanted some company. I woke up one morning to grab my gift card that was my big present for the year and found out it was gone.
Every single one of my guests I had known since I was in elementary school and I treated them all like they were my brothers. I called up the Best Buy store to see if someone had used the gift card and found out that it had indeed been used already to buy a car stereo head unit. I got the specific model. Then, I called up my one friend's girlfriend and asked her if he had bought anything at Best Buy lately.
She said he had. I asked if he had used a gift card. She said he had. I asked if he had bought a head unit of that specific model. She said he had. I was furious—but I got my revenge. Me and my other friends then got in our cars and drove over to his house. We looked into his vehicle and saw the brand new headset installed in his car. Theoretically, in a totally didn't happen scenario, "we then proceeded to break off all his mirrors and windows, and slashed his tires."
The guy didn't understand why I didn't want to talk to him ever again. Who the heck takes someone else’s birthday and Christmas presents? The gosh darn Grinch, that's who. Apparently, he had been sleeping at my house weekly for years. I mostly hate my birthday and Christmas now because of that, and also because I was deployed on my 21st birthday as well as that year's Christmas in which both my grandpas came down with cancer and one passed while I was away.
Kinda soured things for me.
13. Change For The Better
In my late teens, my girlfriend of about a year or so cheated on me with a random dude, then started dating another guy in my pretty preppy and sheltered friend group. In an effort not to "pick sides," they kept inviting us all to everything, claiming it was my problem if I didn't want to attend. I ended up saying screw them and started to make an effort to engage in the punk/DIY scene.
I took a lot of social "risks" going to shows, parties, and events on my own, but eventually met people, joined a band, and ended up quite involved. Fast-forward another year or so, and my band is booked to play a show at a local bar. A group of my former "friends" are there inadvertently rather than for the show, including my ex who has broken up with the other dude.
I chat with them briefly, they ask me who I'm there with, I respond, "Oh, my band's playing in 20 minutes." The Look. It was amazing. I spent the rest of the night hanging with my bandmates and friends, they spent the whole night looking over at, and no doubt talking about me. Yeah I changed, and I certainly don't need you anymore.
14. Get Your Own Beach House
My parents have a beach house, and I made a lot of friends in May and June one year. A couple of years ago, my wife and I bought a lake house with her older brother and his wife. All of a sudden this flurry of "old friends" came out of the woodwork again. I'm totally fine with sharing and inviting people over and all that fun stuff, but at least put us on your Christmas card list or wish us a happy birthday.
Or, you know, something other than "Hey what week can we come up?" Or my favorite: "Well, when will it be empty? We would love a private weekend to ourselves.” This isn't a bed and breakfast.
15. A Change Of Heart
After 25 years of friendship, I announced to my best friend that I was moving to the city she was in. I had a great job opportunity and felt like it was an awesome time to make a big life change. I was so excited to tell her, I could hardly wait. She flatly replied with, “Cool.” And when I asked her what parts of town I should look at to live in, she stated, “I can’t help you, you should just figure it out when you get here.”
We never had a fight, had been close for our entire adult lives, and I had continually helped her in all aspects of her life without hesitation. To this day, I cannot tell you why she started treating me this way. Long story short, we live in the same city now and haven’t seen each other in six years. And I’m quite sure we live just minutes away from each other. I will probably never know what happened.
16. Choosing Sides
Getting divorced was a real eye-opener. I started with a core group of close friends who had all met in our late teens/early 20, and one of them introduced me to the woman who I would ultimately marry. Well into our 40s, they were what I considered to be my family. But when the divorce happened, things spiraled. My best friend stuck with me, but his wife was the one who orchestrated things in our group, and she was best friends with my ex.
I was expecting the two of them to insulate for a while and I knew it was painful for my ex to be around me, so it was no surprise when I stopped getting invitations to cookouts, etc. But then I noticed that the other members of the group were also avoiding/ignoring me. I'd see on Facebook that one of them came into my town to go to a concert for a band that they knew I liked and hadn't so much as texted.
Birthdays rolled around and nobody would call. When my parents both passed within a few months of each other, not a one of them reached out. I knew where I stood. My best friend needs to get credit, though. Alone from all of them, he made a consistent effort to stay in touch and see me regularly. He was there when my parents passed and through everything else even though his wife clearly disapproved.
I think finally after this nonsense had been going on for several years, he told her how ridiculous it all seemed and the entire friend group tried to reconcile with me. I made it clear right from the start that there was no guarantee that I'd ever find space for them in my life again.
18. The Class Weirdo
Back in my first year of college, I used to have a group of friends; it was like seven dudes with me included. We always hung out together and we used to have this group chat where we discussed anything and everything, from class subjects to random things. After a year, I noticed that one of the guys, let's just call him Randy, kept getting excluded.
For example, he wasn’t invited to group hangout, and all the while they're talking smack behind his back. The "unofficial leader" of the group actually made a whole new group chat, inviting everyone (myself included) except Randy, without his knowledge. I know what it feels like to be left out, since I experienced that in middle school and it's really awful.
Because of that, I stopped hanging out with them and I started hanging out with just Randy. He's quite eccentric but a very good person at heart. We've been friends for more than six years, and he’s still got my back.
18. In The Red
When I went bankrupt. I lost $2 million in net worth, and both my homes. I learned the hard way who my friends were and who were no friends at all. Some of my closest friends literally abandoned me. My fiancée started cheating on me when this occurred, as if I wasn’t dealing with enough in my life at the time. It was icing on the cake.
You’ll never really know, unless you hit a rock bottom of sorts, who’s going to be there and who’ll be lickety split, got no time for you when the going gets rough. Of course, it could have been worse; I could have married her. Meanwhile, one of my closest friends disowned me over $600, which I was unable to come up with to pay him back.
Due to, you know, being bankrupt. I was a groomsman at his wedding and I’d known him for 15 years. Other friends helped tremendously. One gifted me $10,000 to cover court costs, and another married couple let me stay with them rent-free in their beautiful home for eight months while I healed from the financial devastation and emotional train wreck I’d been through.
It was a rough, dark, terrible two years following all of that. The one friend still to this day will not speak to me, all because at that time I couldn’t scratch up the money to pay him back as I was being evicted and foreclosed on. The weirdest thing is that he and his wife have a painting of Jesus in their living room. The forgiver of sins. Christ almighty.
The three friends who helped me the most were an agnostic, an atheist married couple, and my Jewish friend.
19. You Think You Know Someone
I was very close friends with this guy I met in high school, let's call him John. Then John started dating this girl, Caroline. I never really became friends with her but I liked her. We finished high school and lost touch a bit, and they married and had a baby. We still live close to each other, so we would go out occasionally with some other friends.
Then, in 2019, I learned they were getting a divorce—and the reason blew my mind. Caroline’s friend told me that John had been abusing her. It even got to the point that he pointed a weapon at her, said she was a bad mom, and cheated on her multiple times with underage girls. John was never this type of guy when we were teenagers, but his father always acted like this and I think he developed this behavior later.
I don't consider John my friend anymore, and he lost almost every friend he used to have.
20. Pickup And Put Down
I had a pickup truck, and it was amazing how many friends didn't want to hang out with me after I got rid of it. One day proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I got a call about six months after I had traded the pickup to a car. My "friend" was like, “Hey, long time no talk,” so we talked for a few minutes. He then goes, “What are you doing tomorrow?”
I said, “I'm going to wash my new CAR.” I had heard he was moving and of course he wasn't aware that I no longer had the pickup, because he didn’t talk to me unless he needed something. Lo and behold, he ended the conversation not too long after that. Never heard from that "friend" again, and honestly good riddance to him.
21. Suffering By Comparison
I've had a couple of bad friends, but the one that stung the most was my "best friend" who kept me around to feel good about herself. There were things I didn't realize until she ghosted me after nearly seven years of friendship. While we were friends, she always had a guy, a job she loved and was constantly getting promoted, plus a fancy apartment.
Meanwhile, I was always single, had a job I hated, and while my apartment was nice, it was nowhere near as "nice" as hers. I'm not complaining about my life, by the way. I was fine being single and was working on finding a good job. Fast-forward to me getting in a very solid, serious relationship (we're now married), renting a nice house instead of a small apartment, and having a really good and secure job.
Add on to that being medicated for anxiety, so I'm much happier now. Suddenly, everything changed. The last I spoke with her, we had made plans for her to visit me. When that date got closer, I texted her to see if she still planned on coming and she never responded. I reached out to her a number of times over a couple of months. Nothing.
From her perspective, I was no longer the friend to feel sorry for, or the friend you could compare yourself to and feel better about your life. Therefore, I was no longer needed. It broke my heart and took me months to get over.
22. Party Down
I was at a party, really depressed after a bad breakup, and I started drinking too much. My horrible ex showed up, caught me somewhere alone, and hit me. I begged several friends for help since I was too gone to drive home alone, and they ignored me. My ex-best friend was there, completely sober, and refused to drive home with me because she didn't believe my ex would do that.
There's no Uber or anything in my country, by the way. The whole thing escalated, and one guy I didn't know ended up finding me alone in a field crying and throwing up. He brought me back to the house, built a bed out of blankets for me, and sat guard all night to make sure my ex wouldn't do anything again. I moved away for university and only saw my ex two more times in public places where he just glared at me.
I blocked him everywhere, and he was only kicked from the friend group later for unrelated stuff. I no longer talk to the ones from the friend group that were at the party. I found new friends at university and met an amazing guy who didn't give off a single red flag during the time I took to carefully get to know him. We're engaged and have a baby on the way.
23. Moving On Up
I had the same group of three friends since elementary school, but that was because I was very introverted and didn’t make any other friends. Because of this, I stuck with them for 10+ years. However, I was considered the “weirdo” of the group. They constantly belittled me, and they would “accidentally” hit me or throw me down. Even in high school, I was the joke of the group.
My life problems were brought up and laughed at, and at this point, I started distancing myself from all of them. Once we graduated high school I told myself that I will never speak to them again, which I did. Truthfully, I miss having a group of friends (I have no friends now), but I’m so glad I’m not friends with fake people who hurt me day in and out.
Four years later, they still complain about me leaving their friend group, because apparently, “I think I’m better than them.” It’s pretty ridiculous that they think they’re entitled to my friendship when all they did was hurt me for years.
24. Nothing To Fear But Josh Himself
I had this best friend, Josh. He and I grew up together, and we’ve been friends since the second grade. We went through everything together. When I was young, I was very stupid and naïve, and I didn’t realize how destructive our friendship was until we started drifting apart. For example, as a child, he would always say things to scare me.
Josh always used to talk about creepypastas, doing his best to convince me they were real. I ended up having to go to therapy because I was so terrified of slender man that I was having nightmares and hallucinations because I was so scared and sleep-deprived. It sounds stupid, but I was only 7-8 or so. One of the most blatant examples was when I was called to the office, but they didn’t specify why.
Josh turns to me with panic on his face and says, “Your dad could have been shot!” My father, who I was close with at the time, was an officer. When he played with my emotions and let out his sadism on me, this felt normal and I didn’t know any better because I had a rough childhood. I remember about a year and a half ago—the last time we hung out—he was on the phone with his girlfriend.
Apparently, she had cheated on him, so he was purposefully humiliating her and berating her. I wasn’t in the next room, we were thigh to thigh on my bed playing Call of Duty, so I could hear absolutely everything. I didn’t know how abusive he was to everyone until I saw him take it out on other people, and since then we just haven’t talked.
25. Stood Up
I got convinced to go to homecoming without a date by my “friends” in my sophomore year of high school. This was after getting ditched by my homecoming date freshman year. Everyone told me that going with friends would be a lot better than going with a date and that I would have way more fun than last time, so I decided to take a chance and go.
The plan was to get dressed by a specific time, wait until my friend’s parents come to pick me up, go out for a nice dinner, then go to the homecoming dance. I got dressed at the time I was supposed to, let my friends know I was ready and waited…for hours. I texted and called every single person that was a part of my homecoming group, letting them know I was ready, and not a single person responded. Then something in me broke.
I remember sobbing about it in the backseat of my dad’s car when he took me to McDonald’s 30 minutes before the dance started. He felt bad and didn’t want me to go hungry. After I ate, he drove me to the dance, and as I get out of the car and start walking toward the line to get into the building, still wiping tears from my eyes, I see the same group I was supposed to be with right in front of me.
I went up to them and asked why no one bothered to respond to my messages. They pretty much responded with, “Oh, sorry,” and split off from me the second we got inside the building. That was about five years ago but I still remember it like it was yesterday. People suck.
26. Split Down The Middle
I flew out to support a friend going through a messy divorce. While I was there, she left me in the apartment to meet up with her boyfriend, who I didn't know about. It didn’t end there. This boyfriend turned out to have just been released from prison for manslaughter. Once she told me that, I told her that I didn't want to spend time with him, especially considering the circumstances of my visit.
The next night, I woke up in the middle of the night to find him in the living room. She said that she thought it wouldn't matter since I was asleep. The next day, she invited her soon-to-be ex-husband over without telling me and then asked me to meditate their conversation once he got there. That conversation turned ugly fast, and she ended up storming out.
He broke down and asked if I thought it was salvageable, and I told him that she had already moved on. Maybe not the best idea on my part, but at that point, she had shown me how vile of a person she is.
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27. Nobody’s Perfect
I think I realized the fake aspect of my old group of friends when things started to happen to me in a way that didn’t fit their narrative, and so they blocked me out and continue to do so to this day. Specifically, it was one of my closer friends, who I was constantly hanging with since third grade and was also in a band with.
The biggest asteroid of realization came when my current, only, and actual best friend told me recently that this ex-friend said verbatim, "He can be your problem now," when I was in a psych ward for a manic experience. Like, I’m sorry that my mental framework isn’t up to your standards, but didn’t we confide in each other for no less than a full decade?
Didn't we develop as friends over several years with tons of common interests? Didn't we have tons of fun playing music? It just doesn’t matter because I chose to experiment with substances and you didn't? And that my brain is wired in a way that couldn’t handle it? I never took from you. I never hit you. I never intentionally harmed you in any way.
When I found out he said that and felt that way, it gave me a lot of insight into how this guy really is for the most part. His nonchalant reflection on our days of being in our old band was always, "Yeah, we suuuuucked," with a very condescending and critical attitude. Like yeah, but wasn’t it fun? Why be so critical and treat it like it was just some stupid ephemeral portion of your life?
You probably wouldn't be teaching music to kids now and having a successful new band had we not done what we did. But everything has to be perfect for it to be worth it to him. I’ve always had problems with depression, various mental health issues, and so on, so it hurt when it really hit me that his choice was, "Nah, I’m gonna distance myself" rather than, "Is there something I can do to help or understand?”
It definitely continues to have long-lasting damage and impact on how I view the world. I hold myself accountable for the awful stuff I have done. But my real friend stuck around, the only real friend I ever really had among them. I've been sober for almost four years now, and he supports me even though he's not into the whole sobriety thing.
28. Small Town Spite
This one hurt so badly. See, I was the only one from my "real" friend group that finished college. During the time where I was away and each of them was understandably struggling to figure out what to do next, we obviously had a hard time not growing apart. It wasn't that bad until they started dating these guys from our backwater hometown.
I tried to be happy for them, until these guys showed their horrible true colors. I’m a Black woman, and they turned out to be disturbingly prejudiced about both these parts of me. After a particularly bad night, I made my feelings about them known because I was hurt, fed up, and honestly I thought my friends deserved better than these jerks.
After that, they barely answered my messages, stopped including me in their plans, and actively made up stories when I tried to make the plans first. We use to hang out every day when we weren't at school or at work, so this behavior didn't go unnoticed to me. Then, my dad got really sick and spent the entire summer I was home in the hospital.
I was really stressed and struggling and these friends knew it, but barely reached out. That's when I knew despite everything we had gone through, they were fake friends. We had a fight at one point and I never spoke to any of them again. My only "consolation" to this day is that they stayed in that stupid town for those guys. They had plans about moving down south and doing other stuff and never fulfilled any of them.
Meanwhile, I have done all the things I said I was going to do. However, I don't consider it much of a consolation because despite how they treated me, I didn't want them to live sad lives. But oh well, karma comes for everyone.
29. Radio Silence
She just kept delaying or canceling our meet-ups. ONE time she had a valid excuse, or at least one I didn't blame her for, when her uncle landed in the hospital. But I still wasn't happy about it because she could have texted me what was going on, rather than three hours after we were supposed to meet up. How am I supposed to know what is happening?
But excuses just kept piling up, and the one that did it was when I had asked her for a ride to work the next day. She said cool. Even after she had already accepted, I offered to buy her dinner to sweeten the deal, and she accepted. The next day came, and I heard NOTHING from her. Tried to confirm half an hour before, tried 10 minutes before, and then I had to scramble to find my own way to work.
Uber/Lyft/Taxis were all delayed because it was a Saturday night, so I got on one of those rental Lime scooters. The brakes didn't work. I had to end that ride and start another one and made it to work 12 minutes late. Even two hours into my shift, she STILL hadn't replied, but I could see she had SEEN the messages. I unfriended her and blocked her on Facebook.
With the exception of her being in a near-fatal accident, there was no excuse strong enough for me to care about her again. The next day, she tried to text me, but I never opened it. I only saw the preview: "I have no excuse.” I mouthed You’re right before I blocked her number and deleted the conversation. She earned me my first tardy at that job, ever.
30. The Skin You’re In
My “friend” refused to come to my wedding because she hadn't had weight loss surgery yet ad didn't want to look fat and frumpy on my wedding day. That was the culmination that led to me severing ties. She used to refer to me as her “DUFF,” the designated ugly fat friend. Then as we grew up, I slimmed down and grew into my appearance rather nicely.
Meanwhile, she did the opposite, which infuriated her. Relatedly, she tried to make up a dozen excuses as to why she couldn't be my maid of honor. She couldn't afford to travel to my wedding; I offered to pay for it all. She couldn't afford the dress; I also paid for my bridesmaids’ dresses. Then when she went on a very lavish and expensive trip to a resort and posted photos on Facebook, so I called her out.
That's when she said she didn't want to go and be in pictures because she was having gastric surgery and my wedding was too soon for her to be hot in my wedding line. At that point, our other mutual friend melted down and literally listed all the ways my best friend was a frenemy and toxic to me and to all of us. Feels bad, man.
31. Center Of Attention
She was so busy scrolling on her phone, stopping only to tell me that she "couldn't be my therapist," when I was pouring my heart out about some really difficult stuff. I chalked it up to her own mental health and my bad method of delivery. Turns out, it's not just my hardships she doesn't care about. She wasn't excited about any of the great stuff in my life, either.
She also doesn't care about my needs unless they're somehow able to fulfill hers—i.e. concert tickets to her favorite band for my birthday. She will actually walk 10 feet ahead of me and not notice that me, a disabled person, is struggling to keep up. I'm also expected to be aware of and in support of every single aspect of her life, giving 110% to our friendship.
Meanwhile, she'll ignore my messages unless or until she wants something from me. We've been friends for over half my life and I can't even talk to her about feeling like garbage because of the way she'll turn it all on me. I'm gonna have to just cut my losses. I can't keep forcing myself to hang out with her when it makes me feel so bad.
32. R-E-S-P-E-C-T
When I was injured and housebound for four months, they went radio silent on me, apart from a text message telling me it was my fault, since I probably had a brittle bone disease. They then later told me they didn’t contact/check in on me on purpose because they don’t like “needy people.” Eventually, though, karma came back for them.
Six months later, they get injured and are housebound. They start phoning me up, asking me for favors, to run errands for them, etc. Me being a forgiving person and for some reason wishing to keep the friendship alive, I did. This culminated in them taking a twisted delight in telling me how they had sent “thank you” flowers to a mutual friend who had popped in on them.
It was a lot of fawning about how touched they were by their thoughtful gesture, all while I was basically running myself ragged driving this person around, fetching/buying them stuff, and generally trying to keep them happy and not wanting them to feel abandoned like I had. At that point, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I wasn’t a friend anymore, I was a groupie.
Unappreciated and not respected. I cut off all contact and never looked back.
33. Living A Double Life
It turns out that my friend lied. About every single thing. We were friends for over a year, but it felt like we'd known each other forever. He would always make it a point to let me know that I was someone he trusted, and that I was the “only” person he had. He would tell me that “everyone leaves” him, that “he always hurts people,” etc. My response to this was to make sure that I would never leave his texts unanswered and promise to be there for him no matter what.
Then, one day, out of the blue, he tells me that our friendship is over. I remember feeling like my heart was shattered. I cried for weeks, trying to figure out what I had done wrong. Our mutual friends assured me that he had a very good reason for doing this, and that he'd be back to being my friend sometime soon. So I began waiting, constantly worried about him.
He told all our mutual friends what was wrong, except me, and instructed them not to let me know. Finally, my best friend calls me one day and tells me that he's lied to every single person he knows, and that nothing we thought we knew about him was true at all. Turns out, he told everyone that he'd been diagnosed with cancer and had to take time away from everyone.
During our friendship, he opened up to me about his extremely abusive household, and most of our friendship was me letting him know that he deserved better and that I'd do anything to help him out of there. None of what he said was true. The truth came out because one of my friends caved and called his sister to find out how he was doing.
She was confused, because he was absolutely healthy. And when asked about their parents' separation, she confirmed that their parents were indeed together, and had never been at risk of divorce.
34. Truck Stop
During my freshman year in college, I had two roommates and one of their girlfriends came to visit for the weekend. So the other roommate and I were gonna give them the room to themselves for a little while. Most nights, this wouldn't be a big deal, but this was in the middle of a blizzard and we had almost two feet of snow, so there wasn't really anywhere to go.
So my roommate and a few buddies were gonna take a friend's truck out for a ride through the snowy hills we lived in. As we were walking out to the truck, I realized I had forgotten something and ran back upstairs to grab it real quick. When I came back down, I saw the truck driving away without me. Turns out one of our other friends had their girlfriend in town too, and he had brought her along, so there wasn't room in the car for me anymore.
So they just left without me, without waiting or even trying to tell me…
35. Three For The Price Of One
The moment I realized my friend wasn’t a real friend was going over to their house to hang out and finding around ten of my missing Xbox games in a loose stack of discs in his living room. On another occasion, I arrived late to a friend's birthday party a few years ago, and the birthday boy introduced me as "the guy I was telling you all about. Cool dude, but I wouldn't trust him with my wallet!"
He was intoxicated and it wasn't a joke. I also had a girlfriend break up with me. When she told me why, my blood ran cold. Apparently, my roommate would send her private pics of himself, call her on weekends, dial her up all the time, and do many other inappropriate things to try to get her to sleep with him. These are the ones that come to mind right now. I definitely am no longer friends with any of those individuals.
The first story occurred when I was only about twelve years old. I definitely took the games all back, but I remember that some of them were so scratched they were unplayable. The second story was a few years ago, but it honestly still bothers me. I don't take things that don’t belong with me, so I have no idea what he was referring to. Rest assured, your wallets are safe with me.
As for the last story, she told me that stuff only after we broke up because she wanted to hurt my feelings. My roomie was a substance-using crazy loon. To be honest, all the behavior that she described seemed like something he could do for sure. But by that time, he was already my ex-roomie. So making him an ex-friend too was not that big a deal.
36. When I Was Seventeen
It was my seventeenth birthday. I had invited two of my "best friends" over to stay the night. I waited for hours and finally got a text from one of them, saying they had gotten in trouble and couldn't stay the night. For some context, they were twins. About an hour later, they were tagged in pictures on social media. They were at another girl's house.
I confronted them the next day and they stuck with their lie and said their mom wouldn't drive them because they were in terrible trouble. They claimed that this was why they walked to the other girl’s house instead. My mom asked their mom in the end, because she knew how hurt I was. Turns out their mom didn't even know about my birthday, and they had never been in trouble. It was devastating.
I stopped hanging out with them after that. I learned a few months later that one of them had decided she didn't like me because her twenty-year-old crush, i.e. another friend's brother, had said he thought it was a shame that I was a minor because he thought I was cute. The twenty-year-old didn't know I was 17 at first. They have another sister who was born about a year after him.
He thought I was the 19-year-old’s friend and asked if I was single. My friend told him I was 17. He never once came off as creepy. He was always very nice and respectful. Never hit on me or made me feel uncomfortable. But he still inadvertently cost me my friendship with both twins. It still bugs me when I think about it from time to time.
37. Second Coming
We were friends since we were babies. Our moms worked at the same place. My mom saw him as her own child and he was frequently at our house after school, because his mom was kind of absent. His family moved out of the state, but we kinda kept in touch. Then, he came back while we were in our twenties. My mom was going to start remodeling the house.
He insisted on helping us since he was working with a construction company. To make a long story short, he said he needed some money for the construction permits. In hindsight, it wasn't even that much. But he took the money and we never saw him again. He even blocked me on Facebook. We later found out that the permit cost was a fraction of the amount he took.
The biggest pain in the heart was watching my mom crying, disappointed that her "own son" would do that to her. So screw him. We still aren’t fully sure what his motivation could have been. Some have proposed addiction as a possible explanation. I'll tell you that for a while we remained cautious about that as a possibility, until we found out that he had just left his job suddenly.
Also, many years later, his sweet old lady of a grandma was thrown behind bars because she and another woman had defrauded hundreds of their colleagues out of money. So we just realized that it was maybe just in the family’s genes. You can be sure as heck that I don’t consider that guy a friend anymore! He was by far the worst friend I’ve ever had.
38. Choosing Sides
Some friends had done some horrible stuff to me over the years. We're all capable of that. But the worst I would have to say was with this one girl. I really did enjoy being friends with her and I cared about her a lot. As soon as we became friends, we clicked instantly and we just had the most amazing conversations. We also had a similar understanding of life that you don't find in many other people.
Anyway, her boyfriend's brother took physical advantage of me in an inappropriate way. And I didn't really tell anyone about it. But my boyfriend at the time found out and reached out to people trying to find out information. So this girl's boyfriend, the brother of the guy who did it, made my friend disown me as a friend. She just dropped me once the truth came out.
She acted like we didn't just spend the last year together attached at the hip. She blocked me on all social media accounts. She pretended like we were never friends. Then, she and her boyfriend had a falling out and all of a sudden she resurfaced saying she was done with him and that she was sorry. But I guess that didn't last longer than a week, because once they got back together she dropped and blocked me again.
It hurt me a lot. It still hurts when I think about it. It's really messed up to do things like that to people. It’s been enough time now that I’m okay. But it was definitely a learning experience for me about the dark side of human nature. Thankfully, it didn't break me.
39. Birthday Surprise
This story happened a long time ago. At my tenth birthday party, to be precise. It was the first time I'd actually tried to have a big group get together. It was around thirty kids at a park with a t-ball set up, along with normal picnic stuff and the like. My best friend at the time said he had a surprise for me in one of the fenced walkways leading to the park.
I follow him around the corner, where he sucker-punched me with his other friend. They then took turns jumping on me and kicking me. After a few minutes, another kid from the party saw, ran them off, and took me back to my mom away from the other kids so I didn't have to be too embarrassed. It was a horrible experience to have gone through as a kid.
Thankfully, whenever I tell this story, I receive an outpouring of kindness and support. It was so long ago but still brings back uncomfortable memories of being a shy poor kid with a weird last name in a very rich area, honestly. In case anyone was wondering, this happened in the 1980s, so it wasn’t like it was all the way back in a time when this kind of physical violence was common among kids.
For some additional context, my “friend” was the kind of guy to spray paint caterpillars to watch them slowly lose consciousness. He’d also shoot pellets at stray cats, or hide rocks inside snowballs and then laugh at someone getting hurt when he threw them. No, he didn't get in trouble for what he did because no one else saw what happened and I never said who it was, even if my mom secretly knew.
His mom tried almost everything to make him behave, but he was just that bad. The upside is that he regretted doing that to me for years afterward. And when he finally apologized to me, he was a totally different person and has been ever since. Still a little atypical, but not malicious at all. He told me that the reason why he hit me was because the other kid wanted to be his new best friend and he was angry at me for criticizing him about how cruel he could be.
I had, however timidly, told him about this concern of mine not long before. The other kid, "Steve," hated me for being poor and Jewish, basically, and pushed my friend to hate me too. It being my birthday didn't matter, because I really wasn't friends with anyone. I was really just trying to make some for the first time, which might have set Steve off, come to think of it.
There were also loads of families in the area, so it was really a case of throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. The boy who stepped in to help and I didn't really know each other. He was the guy everyone else was afraid of because he got big at a very young age. He went to boarding school the next year and it was somehow really good for him. Heck of a man last I knew.
Anyway, it’s been ages since the incident and I don’t hold a grudge. I just appreciate the kindness that others have shown me in all the years since. I was fortunate enough that this became a last straw type moment in terms of what I'd put up with. I know that doesn't happen for everybody who has to deal with being bullied quite so hard, but it really helped motivate me to stand up for myself down the road.
If anyone read this and faced something similar, I'm sorry to you. You deserve better in a friend and I hope you can find it, just like I later did.
40. A Tale Of Two Cities
I drove a twelve-hour journey twice in the span of a year to visit this jerk because I thought we were friends and he acted like we were. It cost me $300 each time to visit him, but he was alone in his new city and kept messaging me saying I should come visit and blah blah blah. It was his first job after graduating from college, so I was happy to visit and help with the adjustment.
Later, I find out that this guy has come back to my town multiple times and didn’t even hit me up once. And he stayed for months at a time! When I confront him about this, he says he’ll visit me next time he’s back in town. So the next time comes around and he stops by literally right before he’s about to drive home. He knocks on my door to say hi for five minutes.
Like dude, if you don’t wanna see me, why are you just going through all this nonsense and making me waste my money?
41. Happy Birthday
I had been seeing a girl for several months. It was an unofficial sort of thing, yet we introduced each other as boyfriend and girlfriend and all that. I had my birthday come around and had some friends over for drinks. One of those friends was Aaron. He was the last guy from our school friends’ group that I was still friends with. Pretty sure that was my 22nd birthday, so we’d been friends for a while.
My girlfriend was drinking a fair bit and decided that I wasn’t giving her enough attention, so she started flirting with him a bit. I didn’t really mind, since I knew she was intoxicated and I figured it wouldn’t go anywhere since I trusted him. Oh, how wrong I was. My girlfriend was absolutely plastered by the time things wound down and everyone started going home.
Aaron was intoxicated and was going to be sleeping on the couch. The two of them ended up on the couch making out and who knows what else. She started throwing up not long after and that sobered herself up enough to realize what she was doing. The next morning, my friend acted like we were still friends and I was just quietly waiting for it to be long enough that he could drive home.
I blocked him on everything the moment he left and had a talk with my girlfriend. I ended up forgiving her due to how out of her senses she was and how sorry she was. I found out a few days later that at least two of my other friends had been telling Aaron that he needed to stop because she was my girlfriend, and he had just made a bunch of excuses and ignored them.
Looking back, it wasn’t really a surprise. He’d started dating my previous ex a month after she broke up with me, then cheated on her with one of his little brother’s intoxicated friends and got dumped. This was almost ten years ago now. We broke up a month or so later when she and her family moved to another state.
42. He Said, She Said
The story that comes to mind for me is the horrible first impression my at the time 'best friend' had on my then-new girlfriend, who is now my wife all these years later. We all went out to dinner. My wife is shy and quiet, while my friends are loud and rowdy. My friend’s cousin kept messing with her and being obnoxious, despite her very clearly asking him to stop.
At one point, he made inappropriate comments on her breasts, and it got to the point where she ended up crying and walking out of the restaurant. I followed her out. Then, my "friend," who had been in the bathroom at the time, called me to ask what happened. I told him his cousin was being a jerk, and his response was that my girlfriend was probably doing something to provoke him.
He claimed that they had been trying to lighten the mood and get her to talk more, but she was just "giving them the cold shoulder." He then informed me that she wasn't welcome at their outings anymore. He went on to apologize later on, but was also having serious problems with drinking and we drifted our separate ways before long.
43. History Repeats Itself
I gave my friend a birthday present and she just said she didn’t like it. I later found it in the trash when I visited her. She would always be late to everything. She got tickets to an Incubus concert and a meet and greet. It wasn’t in our city, so I saved all of my money to be able to afford the trip. A week before, she texted me saying she was going to Disneyland, so she sold the tickets.
I once painted a whole big beautiful mural in her room. Two months later, she just painted over it with purple because she got bored. She once invited me for coffee and I got really excited because I hadn’t seen her for a while and had a lot going on. I was almost homeless at the time, so I took the little money I had to pay for my coffee.
I got there only to discover that what she had invited me to was not a private get together at all. It was a multilevel marketing presentation that she was trying to sell me on. There were like six other people there, who all appeared to be just as disappointed as me. Then, she did it again the next time we made plans. I don’t know why I thought it would be different. That was the last time I saw her.
44. Room Service
My first roommate was one of my best friends from high school, though out of everyone in the friend group we had we weren't the closest, I guess. Nevertheless, we were still very good friends. Aside from being a poor communicator who would sometimes leave her phone at home and then disappear with her boyfriend and scare everyone, she was actually a great roommate considering how a couple of messy, working 19-year-old girls can be.
She went through a rough patch at work where she was basically working 60+ hour work weeks and in escalated customer service issues for a store credit card. She was miserable. When she got a week off after working, she wanted to throw a party in our house and promised to host, clean, and handle it all. I was 19, not being expected to do anything, and I wanted to go to a party.
So I said heck yeah! Everything with the party was a blast until towards the end, when people started asking me for things. I was intoxicated, so I said, "Why the heck are you askin' me?! Ask my friend!!" That was when I found out that my friend had been getting hot and heavy with her boyfriend, but had let two of our intoxicated mutual friends sleep in her bed already.
So the two lovebirds directed partygoers to me for anything they needed and left to go to my friend's boyfriend's place for the night, during her party. This was all done without even informing me. She left her phone, of course, and he didn't answer his. The following night, when she didn't come back, I cleaned up with a few members of our friend group, who also couldn't believe she had done this. I was beyond furious.
She wasn't intoxicated or anything, and she had specifically encouraged me to drink and have fun all night, saying she wanted to enjoy the hosting experience. She said seeing us all have fun would relax her more than drinking would. And then she bailed and left me with a ton of bugs drawing food and dirty dishes in the sink, along with the mess you'd expect from thirty young drinking idiots.
It took five hours for five people to clean up! And we were actually good cleaners! She didn't come back for three days. Except for once, two days after the party, when I was at work, to get some of her things. I know because I had missed a stack of pizza boxes she had put in the oven, so they started a small fire and my dad went to check on things for me.
The day after I finally managed to confront her about it, which was maybe five days after the party itself, she was so "upset" that she packed everything and moved out. Just like that. She ended up cutting all of our friends off, and we realized she had some other things going on in the background that were extra shady. But yeah. Whew.
45. I’ve Got A Secret
I'm married and one of my best friends was a woman, who was basically like a younger sister to me. My wife really never had any issue with it since there were no trust issues between us. Around our second year of marriage, this "friend" (who I’ll refer to as “J”) decided to spread a rumor to my coworkers that we had been having a one-time affair.
One of my coworkers told me and showed me proof that J was saying all this stuff. When I finally confronted her, she initially just kept lying about it, until I showed her the screenshots of her texts. Then everything blew up. She got angry at me for not caring about her, not loving her, and the fact that I “left her” by getting married.
Eventually, I found out that the “one-time” rumor wasn't a one-time rumor. Instead, she had been saying this stuff to her coworkers and family ever since I got married, including the claim that I was leaving my wife for her.
46. I’ll Have What She’s Having
She wasn't my worst friend to be honest, but this was the crummiest act anyone ever did towards me. I had just started dating a guy in our friend group. We were in all different classes but he was in the same class with her a lot. As soon as we started dating, she became very clingy towards him. She was always hanging onto him, flirting, and just overall acting like she was interested in him.
After two months of us being together, he broke up with me. I was heartbroken. And as soon as he and I weren't together anymore, she stopped acting the way she had been around him. It was suspicious for sure, but I just wanted to think she was still my close friend. Then, I confided in her that I really liked another guy and was ready to move on.
She just so happened to be in a summer play with this guy that I wasn't a part of because I was working all summer. She starts going on and on each time I see her about how much people think she and him are a couple and how she is always flirting with him. It made me realize that the only reason she was doing all this was that she wanted my attention on her, even if it meant stepping on her close friend's feelings.
I stopped confiding in her after that. A few years later, I met and married my husband. She messaged him on Facebook to congratulate us and “interrogate” him, since I was “her dear friend.” She ended up getting flirty quickly and my husband stopped responding. I also have an ex-friend who did similar things, on top of being emotionally manipulative, but it wasn't as obvious other than the "accidental" nude photos she sent to my husband.
47. Room Service
I live in the Eastern time zone of North America. My “friend” once texted my roommate, who was also the owner of my condo but was living in California at the time where it was 5:00 in the morning PST. In this text message, he claimed that I was high on illicit substances and having rowdy and inappropriate parties every night.
In reality, I was fast asleep when this all went down. Turns out he was the high one texting so early, and did this so that I would get blamed for the damage he himself caused. He was upset at me about something I stood up for and tried to make me homeless as a result. When you hear the backstory of what he was upset about, you will realize how truly ridiculous he is.
REASON: We were at a bar and he was very buzzed and high, sitting at a table. My other friend and I had literally got there just in time to miss a big disagreement between two other friends. The guy in question was pumped up and excited to fill me in, but the way he snapped his fingers and slammed the table to demand me to sit next to him was too much.
I said, “Let me get my first drink first, then I’ll walk over. Please don’t snap your fingers at me and demand that I do things.” Things escalated very quickly after I said that, to the point where he threatened to tip the table over. It was an ugly scene to say the least. And, next thing I knew, he was using this incident as his justification for trying to get me kicked out of our house.
48. Pineapple Express
A friend was moving internationally and he offered me a fridge and washing machine for about half price. I was in university, but desperately needed it. I told him I had like $20 per week to work with and he was cool with it. We agreed to a price of $15 per week for the next year. Then, six weeks later, his girlfriend comes around to tell me he wants to take me to court to get the rest of the money in one payment.
I get served, go to court, and present the original agreement. His girlfriend says he needs the money urgently and the judge says that doesn't mean squat. He then calls my dad and says I took stuff that belonged to him. My dad calls me up and I lay it all out. Dad ends up paying him the remainder just to get him to go away.
Screw you with a pineapple, Toby!
49. Falling For Him
This guy I knew pushed me into the ground for no reason mid-sentence. He did this despite knowing that I was still injured from a car accident, which he knew I was hospitalized for. He then immediately turned his back and walked away without a word. I was too shocked to say anything. The next thing I knew, he was gone. I wasn’t saying anything bad or mean to him either. It was something casual akin to the weather.
After that, I had to slowly and carefully get up from my crouching position by myself and sit down on a nearby fence to gather myself. When I later confronted him about it, he got super defensive and started saying it was just a light shove and a prank. Super not okay. I had to strain my back muscles really uncomfortably just so I wouldn’t hit the ground, and I don’t think anyone should have to live in constant fear that their “friend” might at any minute risk paralyzing them for life just to get a cheap laugh.
This same guy also kept parroting something my abuser had said, which I told the group about in confidence. He thought that doing this was hilarious. I told him to stop but he said he wouldn’t. He accused me of being too “PC.” As if my own personal story is something to be politically correct about?? I trust some people a lot less now because of this experience...
No one seemed to care or stand up for me or anything, and I felt utterly alone. Needless to say, I do not talk to this guy anymore...
50. Let’s Get Away From It All
When I was in Grade 8, I went to the Dominican Republic with my friend and her family. The entire time we were there, she didn't want to do anything at the resort. Like, nothing at all. She wanted to sit around with her parents and watch them play games. This was despite the fact that her parents and their friends were pushing us to go off and do some fun kid activities and other things.
You know, normal vacation activities such as swimming and taking in the sights. I was miserable. I couldn't go anywhere without her and missed out on everything because she was just being a jerk and mean. It was clear she didn't want to be on the trip at all, probably because they vacationed so frequently, and they only invited me to entertain her.
She was never like this at school. I was still happy to be there. My family was poor and this was my first ever vacation. I was thankful that my mom and dad were able to get enough money together so I could go. So I didn't complain. When we returned and went to school the following Monday, she told all of our group of friends that I made fun of her mom on our trip for having breast cancer.
WHAT?! I didn't know she had breast cancer, and no I definitely didn't make fun of her. I'm not a lunatic. Her mom, who we found out was perfectly healthy when I told my mom about this and she called, did not have breast cancer. Anyways, everyone at school hated me after that. I had no friends until I went off to high school.
51. Planning For The Future
I had a very close friend in high school. She moved to Alabama for university after we graduated, but we remained very close. Then, when she came back, we didn't talk much. But I still considered her a close friend. We went out for coffee about two years ago. She kept asking me about my life and my goals, and I said I was happy with where I was.
I coach gymnastics and my boyfriend and I will eventually take over his family farm, and start our own family. She texted me two days later and said, "Hey, so my entrepreneur friend is hosting a workshop. Do you want me to sign you up?" I said no, but thanked her for the offer. She then texted me saying: "So clearly we are at two different points in our lives. You have no goals or ambitions, and I don't want that kind of negativity in my life. I wish you the best."
And I never spoke to her again after that.
52. Room Service
For a full year, my college roommate secretly slept with my boyfriend while I was in 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 canceled 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.
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53. Rubbernecking To The Extreme
She loved misery. I was driving her to work (she lived on my couch) and she was sobbing hysterically in the passenger seat, she really hated her job and was an unbalanced person. We come across a horrible wreck, her tears dry up instantly and she gets this huge smile, I’ve never seen her so happy. I ask what caused the sudden change and she starts laughing like a lunatic—side-splitting giggles.
She says that it looks like there were some fatalities due to the wreck and seeing it just made her day. I was pretty disgusted/creeped out. She was absolutely chipper for the next two days.
54. It’ll Take A Lot To Kill This Pain
I had this friend in college who I thought was just a friend. I always thought she was so cool because she’d do anything for anyone. Well, it turns out it was just me and most of the stories she told me were lies. She was prescribed painkillers for something and had no problems sharing them, as we hung out and got lit quite 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 heck 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.
55. Loose Lips Sink Friendships
So, my mother had two friends she frequently visited—about twice a month—but when she wasn’t there, one of them was constantly complaining about her, saying that she is a bad person and a bunch of other stuff. Unfortunately, the other friend believed her. It came to a hugely awkward climax. One night we went to visit them, and they were talking so little with her.
It was just SO clear they didn't think of her as a friend anymore. Three years later we moved (not so far) and my mother saw the friend that believed all the stories, and the friend just walked quickly away from my mom. Worst of all, I had played with their kids way back when and I was sort of like a big brother to them. They wanted to at least say hello and so did her husband, but she dragged them away, too.
56. Trying His Luck
At university four years ago, I had some typical bro friends. It was all right that they were douchey because I was a douche at the time myself. Then one day, I managed to land myself my (STILL) current partner, who was beautiful, funny, and smart. We had been dating for about six months at the point this story takes place, and we all went for a night out as you normally do.
A couple of days later, my girlfriend made a disturbing confession. She told me that one of my so-called friends tried hitting on her when I wasn't around. When I talked to him about it, he played it off as, “Oh, I was so wasted, sorry bro.” Except the thing is, my girlfriend told me that he said to her: "He doesn't need to know."
It kind of brought me to my senses that I needed to grow up and move away from these idiots, because they do not care about anyone but themselves.
57. Copycats
When I returned to work after being off for three months due to an injury, I practically begged this group of work friends to go out and do pub trivia. All three of them passed because they had plans. I wish that was the end of it, but it was most certainly not. It turns out their plans were to go grab a drink do pub trivia...without me.
I found out through social media and deleted it shortly afterward. I've been a lot less depressed about things since I've deleted social media and stopped looking at them as friends and just as work acquaintances. It took that for me to realize that the "friendships" were really one-sided and I'm better off not pursuing anything other than being cordial at work.
58. Hedging My Bets
My “best friend” in high school was awful. On Wednesday, I’d ask if she wanted to see a movie Friday night. She’d always say maybe, if I can get out of doing whatever with my parents. Come Monday, I’d hear her talking about how great the movie was. Apparently, last-minute her parents said she didn’t have to go wherever and “miraculously” a group of people called right then and asked her to see the same movie.
She’d always say, “I figured you made other plans” when I confronted her about it. In reality, she’d just wait to see what the better option was and pick on Friday. God that made me angry.
59. Not My Person
There was no single awful event, but it was by a thousand cuts, really. I just got tired of being an afterthought even though when we were actually together you’d swear we were all family. I finally decided to just cut it all out and move on after my absolute closest friend, who I’ve known since I was eight, handed me a wedding invitation for a wedding that had been planned for a year, and by the time he invited me, it was like two weeks away.
He tells me the “hotel is almost fully booked, so call soon if you plan on staying overnight.” That was the most I’ve ever felt like a complete and total afterthought. I went to the wedding for the ceremony in one last show of effort for the friendship, but at this point, I felt so uncomfortable and alienated I knew they just weren’t my people anymore and I had to get on without them.
60. A Little Off The Top
This was when I realized who were my friends and who weren't. We were supposed to go on a tour and we saved our money and pooled it together. These fake friends then told me they had to cancel the plan because the ticket prices got too high, and told me to wait a few days to get my money back. My real friends asked me why I bailed on them, and were worried that I had an emergency.
Turns out my fake friends didn't want me to come and instead used my money for their booze and told everyone else that I bailed out and took my money back so everyone else would give more for their booze allowance.
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61. No Clear Answers
When I “fell asleep” camping, I heard endless complaints about me. It was all coming from this one guy, who was a total jerk to me even while I was awake, but probably what hurt the most was how everyone else just enabled him. I’m surprised I put up with it for so long. It’s hard when it’s mixed in with genuine brotherhood and friendship.
62. Stay Together For The Friends
A couple of my closest friends stopped talking to me when I got divorced from my husband. I finally stood up for myself in a loveless marriage where I did all the work and handled all responsibilities around the house and kids. Later, he even admitted to avoiding the house because it was too stressful, not that he was doing that much better at work.
In fact, he stopped doing his duties at work for six months and got a warning. Then he still didn't shape up and got fired six more months after that. I didn't know any of this was going on until he was fired, and he proceeded to lie to me for the next six months about working on "new certifications" for his industry. Well, I found out he was just jerking around online.
I lost any remaining love and respect for him after that, plus when I discovered he made out with a co-worker at an office trip to Vegas, though he did stop himself when she invited him into her hotel room while they groped each other in the hallway. So yeah, when I got out of THAT relationship finally, all of my friends seemed to turn on me.
My one friend still isn't speaking to me because she thinks I should have stayed for the kids and to help my husband through his life crisis. The other friend and I are barely friends now and she still says stuff like "None of us knew how unhappy you were" and "Oh well, that's the difference between us, I don't mind reminding my husband here and there."
They know everything now but still act like I'm the crazy person. I feel like all those years of supporting them, when I finally needed it in return, they completely let me down. I didn't have my "girlfriends" to help me through my divorce. I felt alone and betrayed. I’m finally in a better place with my new fiancé but that still hurts me to my core finding out my friends weren't really my friends.
63. Fair-Weather Friends
Hindsight is 20:20 with this situation, but I was very naive at the time. I had just been broken up with and was feeling the lowest I’d felt in my life. I started going out with people who I thought were my closest friends at the time and we were drinking a lot. This evolved over time to partying all the time at either my house or another one of the guys’ houses.
One day we decided to trip together at my house, and they came over. After we had all taken it, one of the guys started being really weird and was hiding from us. We looked all over my house for him and he texted us to say he’d got his grandma to pick him up. Me and the other guys decided to go for a walk, but as we’re passing my house, the guy that said he’d left hops over my fence.
At this point, we’re all like, “What the heck?” I was getting in my head and feeling like I wanted them all to go. That’s when the realization hit me. These guys were just using me for my house. I said I’d like them to go because I was just going to stay on my own. Barely listening to me, they were like “Nah man, let’s go back to yours, it’s fine.”
Eventually, I put my foot down and said, “No, I’m going back on my own.” The guy who was being weird walked past me and cussed me out. After staring at him for a second, I just went home. At that point, I called one of my other friends (who is still my friend to this day) and asked if he could come up because I was having a bit of a hard time on my own.
He came up and I felt so much better. It’s such a difference, you know? When you’re around someone who you truly like and who truly likes you. And wouldn’t you know it, while my friend was there I got a call from one of the guys that left. I said to my other friend, “I guarantee he’s going to ask if I have weed.” I pick up the phone and he’s like, “Hey, man you alright?”
I say yes, and immediately he asks exactly what I thought he would. It really solidified in my head that these guys were just using me. I stopped talking to those guys for a while, and it was a good thing too. Although they protested, I later found out that one of them was sleeping with my ex—the one I was having such a hard time getting over—behind my back. Trust your instincts on people.
64. Christian Values
I got an apartment off-campus and invited all of my friends to come to visit—then no one showed. Later, that same apartment burned down when I was in college, and not one single person let me crash on their couch while I got situated. I had to commute from my parents’ home two hours away for each day I had class. I had classes daily, and this went on for over four months.
Because apartments near the campus are on rental leases, it was hard to find an apartment mid-semester. The worst part about this is that I belonged to a Christian organization and I would put in a lot of money for the collections that were to help others in our circle when they needed it. For example, I put in $50 once for a person whose mom had cancer.
Meanwhile, for me, my home burns down and I lose everything, and those so-called Christians were nowhere to be found. All of them would go up to me the next day and say, “I heard your apartment burned down,” but with no follow-ups like, “Do you need anything?” I mean, I was wearing old T-shirts and raggedy sweats because I didn’t have any clothes.
I took out an emergency student loan, and it was one of the worst periods of my life.
65. Ok, But What About Me?
When my dad died, my best friend didn't call or text me, but managed to message a mutual friend who I had previously slept with a few weeks before for a quickie of her own. He asked her if she had messaged me about my dad, and when she said no, he said “You should message your friend.” He was texting me throughout this situation, too.
She knew for five days that my dad died, and the weekend it happened I comforted her through a breakup. I hadn't told her then, but she found out two days later from a mutual friend of ours. I ended the friendship after that. I lost two of the most important people in my life within a week, even if one of them wasn’t as great as I thought she was.
66. Common Interests, Or Else
It occurred to me I hadn't seen her post anything to Facebook for a while, so I checked and she had blocked me. I emailed her to ask what was wrong, and her response made a shiver go through me. It was a rambling, manipulative, domineering list of everything she thought I had done imperfectly for the past two years, attached to an ultimatum that I accept full responsibility and believe what I was told to believe.
The most bizarre of the passages was when she declared that if I truly understood "the basis of friendship" I would be a fan of Kanye West. Unfortunately, we had a wedding of a mutual friend coming up so as much fun as it would have been to let her know how I really felt, I didn't want her making a scene at the wedding. Instead, I bit the bullet and told her what she needed to hear and then cut her out of my life entirely afterward.
67. Rotten Wing Woman
She slept with a guy I was in love with. We weren't in a relationship, but she knew my feelings for him and slept with him the very night that I confessed that to her. I found out much later that she had invited him over and cried and begged to sleep with him. I forgave her and actually let her stay with me over the summer rent-free because her housing fell through.
Then she proceeded to sleep with another guy I was hooking up with and then flirt with another guy I was potentially wanting to date—like, she came out in a flimsy bathrobe when he was hanging out with me. She then always played the victim and claimed life had wronged her. It took me a year of this stuff, but I completely cut her off.
68. At Least Put Some Effort In
I had a "friend" who would only contact me when she needed something, but she was pretty sly about it in the beginning. Like, inviting me over to hang and then bringing up the favor organically, like “Oh, we don't have anyone to watch the dog next weekend,” or “I want to move this bed but it's so heavy,” etc. After a while, it got more egregious and obvious
Stuff like only calling to ask to use my truck or dog sit. I'd politely say I wasn't available and eventually she stopped calling. She still texts every now and then to "catch up." She tried that a few times in the past and it was always followed by a request, despite my no longer responding. To this day I cringe when someone says, "Hi, friend!" which is her freaking catchphrase
69. The Good Kind Of Ghost
When I realized literally just being in the same room as that person made me miserable. It’s because the person was extremely self-conscious, to the point that they would overcompensate by “putting others down” every little chance they had, to make themselves feel above it all. I kept wondering why they would keep throwing me under the bus for no reason.
Like we had been friends for years, why would they treat me like this? It took me years to figure out exactly how bad of a friend they were, no matter how hard they pretended not to be. It took me an entire year of ghosting to stop being friends with that person, because they loved putting me down so much they wouldn’t stop calling me, texting me, trying to contact me.
A year with no responses because they could not understand how someone could possibly want to stop hanging out with them because they are so perfect!
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70. Girl Power
They abandoned me when I was going through a rough time, and this was after I spent years listening to and supporting them. When I had my first true moment where I wasn’t coping and needed support, they were nowhere to be seen. But that wasn’t the worst of it. In fact, they were just complaining about me behind my back that whole time.
This is when I realized my high school friends had never grown up past high school. Luckily I had other friends, just not a large girl group like that. But I can actually say that every friend I have now, I know they have my back and won't judge me if I am not always happy. Obviously, it’s the same for me. I have always had very high expectations of myself as a friend and I feel that everyone I call a friend is someone who brings something special to my life.
That is worth more than having a huge group of witchy girlfriends who turn on each other when they are out of the room. It took me a long time to realize it, though.
71. One Strike, You’re Out
One "friend" at university tried to plagiarize my animation coursework and get me kicked out for copying his work. However, I had help setting things up by one of my professors, so he got expelled and blacklisted from the university and any other university in the UK doing the same subject. The people running all the animation degrees in every university in the UK back then knew each other and talked to each other regularly as it was a small community.
I think there were less than half a dozen universities with animation degrees back then.
72. Going No Contact
When I moved across the country I had a going away party, gave people a month's notice, and the day of, I get "I couldn't find anyone to look after the dogs" from one group and "The dog couple was our ride” from another. The party was at my mother's house at the beach where they could both stay and bring the dogs...Of course, these are also the jerks who visited the city I moved to when I moved away from home without telling me at least three times.
I had to find out about it from a mutual friend. They were apparently only great friends when I was willing to cover their dinner but not when I wanted to, like, be friends.
73. Projecting, Much?
She told me she was cheating on her husband, while laughing about how funny it was that her boyfriend would come over to the house and hang out with her husband and her and their newborn. After I told her that wasn't cool and we weren't friends anymore, she told everyone that I was sleeping with her husband and an abusive alcoholic.
None of this was true. There was a happy ending, though: The husband got divorced and got full custody, while I got new friends.
74. The Creepiest Form Of Flattery
This girl started copying me. Everything about me. It was something straight out of Single White Female. She started using my frequent phrases, tried to pick up all my hobbies, and started dressing exactly like me. The final straw was when she started getting really possessive when I would hang out with people without her and tried to turn me against all my other friends.
We aren't friends anymore, but everyone tells me she's still obsessed with me and talks about how I abandoned her to anyone who will listen.
75. You Are NOT The Father
She tricked one of my friends that she was pregnant with their child, and used my phone to do it. She used to take my phone while I was sleeping and text my friend—the guy she hooked up with—pretending to be me, saying stuff like, “She is throwing up again this morning” and various other pregnancy things to convince him. She was not pregnant and 100% knew she wasn’t.
76. Here For A Good Time, Not A Long Time
After accidentally overdosing and ending up in the hospital, I reached out and messaged those friends who'd said, "Message me if you need anything!" When I asked them to do something like feed my cat, check the mail, message my family who don't use the Internet, or just talk to me, the response was still just, "Let me know if you need anything!"
It was as though saying that somehow allowed them to ignore what I was telling them I needed. That day, I learned people say this when they don't know what to say, or don't want to actually do something. Like, here I am, in a hospital bed, asking you for that help you said I could ask for. I know that I've helped you, but now that I just need this rudimentary help while I'm being treated at the hospital, no one is there.
Not even family. I've gone out and visited friends, hosted events for them, helped them in many ways, and it could have been that way for years. And yet if I ask to be visited or for help, there's nothing. Sometimes they won't even let me know they can't show up for things like my birthday until hours into the party starting time. Some people just want to "piggybank" you, dropping figurative social coins into you so that you show up for them, but they may never show up for you.
I've spent years talking to someone wondering what it would take for them to ever visit me, to have them literally show up once in over five years of a friendship. I feel like an idiot for having invested so much of myself, time, money, and genuine love to realize they do not want to invest even a fraction in reciprocation. "We're friends for life now," some have said to me, and we've shared deep things.
But it's always in public chat groups and we never converse in private. I've learned some people know how to be emphatic and seem really caring, but often it seems all they really care about is a performative friendship. The song and dance of a friendship, but when you genuinely want to talk and open up about a conflict, to really ask for help to work through something, it's not what they're there for.
They're there for the superficial and entertaining, the positive only, and the negative—whatever it may be—is not in their vocabulary. I don't know anymore what a real friendship is. I'm left really wondering if I'm the problem. The proverb "if everyone is the problem, then it's you" rings in my head. I must be the problem, because every relationship has similar issues: lack of genuine connection.
77. Pale, Don’t Care
I was wondering why my house, which I share with my roommates/friends, was so quiet in the morning. I didn't hear anyone move about in their rooms or come through the front door. Lunchtime passed, and I realized that they all had gone. They came back in the evening after spending a day at the beach together. I cried a little inside, but I didn't get sunburned so I had that going for me.
78. Done And Distant
I had a pretty bad bout of depression, the kind where it's insanely hard not to just drive into a wall, and tried to talk about it to a dude I considered my best friend at the time. He pretty much just said I was being stupid and ignored me for the rest of the drinks. I noticed a week later that no one in the group was texting me, so I thought I'd see how long until they noticed I wasn't around.
I ended up confronting one of them a year later, expressing how disappointed I was, and that was the last time I saw, spoke, or heard from any of them since. Oh, about another year after that, one of my exes who was in the group tried to be "friends," so I let something "slip." That was an enormous blunder. Sure enough, through a friend of a friend, she had been talking about it to the old friend group.
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79. These Friends Need Couples Therapy
I found a huge skeleton in my family closet and it messed me up for months. I explained to my "friends" I was going through a lot and it would take time to talk about it. Except when it really DID take some time, my friends were angry that I didn't trust them enough to go through it together. I did tell them after a couple of months and I went to therapy for it, but at that point, they told me they didn't care if I got better.
One friend's exact quote was, "Your existence bothers me." We were all roommates and I ended up moving out in secret because they were purposefully causing anxiety attacks by banging on my door at night, not letting me into the kitchen to eat, etc.
80. That’s Just Sick
This girl was a habitual liar. We’d been friends since we were little kids and I always just excused her smaller lies because of her horrible childhood, but when she came out with the lie that she had leukemia, I had to end our then-25-year-long friendship when I found out it was untrue. The worst part was that her mother and my uncle had both just passed of cancer.
She tried to backtrack and say that the alleged leukemia was soon cured with a blood transfusion—which of course is utter nonsense. I’m still sad about it, but I can’t abide that level of lying.
81. Here’s To The Real Ones
When you try to open up and try to share a genuine conversation about something going on in your life and all they can do is crack jokes and try to get you to go out drinking with them. It made me realize how surface-level many “friendships” really are. Then you have the opposite of that—three guys I’ve known since I was a freshman in high school.
We’ve been friends for over 15 years and have stayed in touch through all of us getting married, having kids, and moving to completely separate areas of the country. Yet whenever we’re within an hour of each other, we always make a point to get breakfast and catch up. This usually turns into 3+ hour conversations. This may only happen once or twice a year, but I consider those guys my best friends.
That’s real friendship and I’m fortunate to have them.
82. It’s Personal
My so-called “friends” invited me to a party, and then at the last moment, they texted the group that no one's coming and the party is canceled. Only…they did have the party that day. Everyone went. They just had decided they didn't want me there because I was boring and not a fun person, so they told me that there was no party happening. It hurt a lot; it was a terrible day for me.
83. Two-Timing In More Ways Than One
When my “best friend” became close with the guy who abused me for two years. She knew everything, and still formed that friendship anyway. When I confronted her about it, she said he was a nice guy who was misunderstood, that my experience never happened. She also said that my other friend—who had integrity and reached out to me with screenshots when he attempted to contact her—was making him look bad.
She threw away a four-year friendship in that moment. She was also sending him screenshots of our private conversations and updating him about me when he has a new girlfriend.
84. Drastic Measures
She threatened to hurt herself if I didn't do what she wanted. She asked me if she could sleep over at my house one night. I told her no since I had grandparents visiting the next day. She continued and tried to convince me to let her. She then said that if I let her, she would stop cutting, but if I didn't, it would be my fault if she finished the job.
I didn't let her, and I "ditched" her the same year. She's still alive to this day. She has a girlfriend and is moving out of town soon.
85. Liar, Liar
She pretended to have millions of dollars but lived in a condo. She always told ridiculous lies like she “flew to New York overnight” and she had “five pairs of AirPods and three Apple Watches, she just kept them at home.” All lies. She was a pathological, compulsive liar who was manipulating and told unbelievable and outrageous lies and expected everyone to believe them.
She also was a know-it-all and used fake facts to make it seem like she was right. I was only friends with her because I was the new kid and no one else was nice to me. To make a long story short, I cut her off, made new friends, and now I don’t even talk to her anymore.
86. The Long And The Short Of It
I realized that they didn’t care about me like I did them after this incident. When we went shopping, I felt pressured to buy a pair of shorts that were way shorter than what I was comfortable with just to make them feel like I wasn’t wasting their time by dragging them around and then not buying anything. The shorts were short enough to show scars on my thigh I was self-conscious about, but they were like, “If you tug it down before you sit then you’re fine.”
We went to a bar/skate rink that night and the whole time they mostly focused on taking selfies with my phone (it had the better camera) and occasionally remembered to include me to make sure it still felt like we were all hanging out together (it didn’t).
87. Not Sharing The Big Day
My wedding was the moment I realized I had fake friends. I invited friends from college to my bridal shower and nobody showed up. A few had legitimate reasons, and I wasn't upset about them. When I kept getting RSVPs as “no” for the actual wedding, I was disappointed, but nothing was going to ruin my special day. Something almost did, though.
My favorite was when I had to call my college roommate because I hadn't received her RSVP. Her excuse? "Oh, it's on my birthday." That's it. That's all she said. I just asked if it was a yes or no, but she gave me that excuse.
88. Outing Yourself As A Jerk
Right after I came out of the closet, I lost a ton of friends. They were all super supportive and encouraging at first, until I started openly seeing guys. Then my closest friend started excluding me from things. When I confronted him about it, his answer was, “I know you’re gay, and that’s great! But I don’t want to see or hear about all this gay stuff.”
So I was allowed to be gay, I just wasn’t allowed to talk about dating anyone or flirt with anyone…and just like that, all of the other friends in that group fell in line with him. Good riddance, though. Now I am surrounded by people that matter.
89. MY Bundle Of Joy
When I had a miscarriage and was grieving, my “friend” just wanted me to focus on her pregnancy and just forget about what I was feeling and to act like nothing had happened. Literally two days after my miscarriage, she insisted I got out with her to go shopping for her baby and talk about cradles and things like that. Selfish jerk.
90. The Graduate
All the way back in eighth grade, after I had just switched schools, a friend of mine called me up one night and told me that a kid who I had wanted to become friends with had just taken his own life. I was devastated to hear this—but the truth was even more disturbing. Three months later, I visit their graduation ceremony and find out that he lied to me and that the kid was still alive.
91. Better Off Without Them
My friend started sleeping with my husband while I was pregnant. I divorced him, and haven't spoken to her since I found out. The experience was a catalyst for a metric ton of personal growth on my part over the next few years, and I'm now living a much fuller and more authentic life without either of them in it. Amor fati, y'all.
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92. This One Will Make You Sick...
When a "good" friend of mine who I worked under had cancer and wasn't able to pay some bills, I loaned her $200 just to help. I was only 18 years old at the time and I felt bad because she had kids. It was right around the holidays and I just wanted to help however I could and be a good person in life. She promised to pay me back when she could.
Turns out she lied about having cancer, was embezzling money from the company I worked at, scammed my other coworkers, and would come in after skipping work for her “chemo” to make fraudulent returns while I was overseeing the store by myself because of her absence. I eventually got her fired and got promoted to her position.
93. 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.
94. No Trespassing
I had a friend, well, ex-friend, and we got into a massive, almost physically violent argument. I told her to leave my apartment and get out of the complex since she didn't live there. Her reply was so stupid, it’s unforgettable. She said "I don't have to! This is government property!" I was like… girl no...just no…I called the cops and they came and informed her the opposite. Ahhh, that was satisfying.
95. Detour
I had a falling out with my best friend and, at one point, they wanted to reconcile. So we had a day together and it was good. About two weeks later, I was summoned to court on traffic charges and accused of refusing to appear. It turned out that this “friend” of mine had recently been stopped by traffic authorities, did not have identification on him, and claimed to be me.
As soon as the judge read the case report, including the physical description of what was supposed to be me, he looked at me and dismissed the case. I never saw that “friend” again. I heard much later through mutual acquaintances that they had taken their own life. The whole situation is very messed up and sad on multiple levels.
96. Brutal Honesty
This friend, I'll call her Mary, had kids the same age as mine. We got together for play dates pretty often and our kids would sleepover at each other’s houses for weekends. I liked Mary. We would often visit and talk while our kids were playing. One weekend, her kids had stayed at my house. The older one called her mom to see when she was coming to pick her up.
I was in the room, and the kid put the phone on speaker for some reason. Mary told the kid what time she would be there. Then it took a dark turn. She then added, "You had better be waiting outside. If I have to go in and spend the next hour talking to that woman, I'm going to be really annoyed.” We didn't spend much time together after that.
Did I overreact? Was Mary just having a bad day and not want to talk? Well, here's what happened after I overheard my friend say that to her child: I simply stopped initiating contact and wasn't as available to do stuff for her. When we dropped off or picked up the kids, I smiled and waved. I let the kids make the plans for playdates.
I no longer had time to help her with her garden or watch her kids while she went out with another friend. She never contacted me unless she wanted something. This had always been true, but I had not realized it. The "friendship" eventually fizzled out on its own. So, I guess it had never been much of a friendship to begin with.
97. 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.
98. 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.
99. 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.
100. Goodbye To All That
Me and three other guys were supposedly all best friends. Then I found out the disturbing truth. Two of them were sleeping with my fiancée, while the third knew all about it and didn't say a word. Funny thing is, I was more sad than angry. I didn't want to get any sort of revenge, I just wanted all of them to leave me alone forever.
A few weeks after this all broke, one of the guys who was sleeping with her snuck up on me at a party and sucker-punched me. I never saw it coming. Apparently, he ASSUMED I wanted to fight him, so he attacked me first. I cut them all completely out of my life. I recently found out the guy who didn't say anything died about two years back, and I found out my ex didn't make it to 30.
101. 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.
Sources: Reddit, , , , , , , ,
