Not all friendships are forever, and honestly, based on these 13 stories, there are way too many friendships out there that never should have happened in the first.
Kind of like romantic relationships, I guess, though I think people are far more willing to tell their friends to get out of those when they’re not working.
If you’ve got any friendships with warning signs like these, you might want to rethink it.
13. That’s not the only thing that’s cancelled.
My “friends” planned a trip to Boston without me, and talked about it right in front of my face.
Joke’s on them, it got cancelled!
Thank you COVID!
12. That person is a psycho.
A long term peer that had I started to get closer than just the usual “Hey what’s up” conversations with. We were just hanging out one day, goofing around and I think I tossed a ball to them or something and they just stopped deadpan and said “Yeah no, get your stuff you’re going home.”
Didn’t say another word, just made me get in the car, took me home and dropped me off and completely ghosted me. Actively avoided me at school and even our graduation. No idea what set it off, no comment of any kind, just a deadpan “Yeah, no” and our friendship was over. Shit was traumatizing.
11. Don’t be like Tom.
Myself and my ex-friend (dub him Tom) had a mutual friend (dub him Mike). Mike had a long history of suicidal tendencies, and had attempted it twice already. A few months prior, Mike had made attempt number 3 by getting drugged up and standing in front of a train. Mike jumped away last second and got clipped, fracturing a couple ribs and dislocating his shoulder. By the time the last straw happened, Mike was all better. He actually healed fast, we were calling him iron man for it.
We were all 3 at a party, like 12 ish people there. All from my high school, all good friends. All drunk. So, around a couple others, I asked Mike about his train experience. I said if he was at all uncomfortable talking about it, to please say so. I was drunk and wanted to know what that surreal experience was like. Again, I made it very clear I respected his wish to not tell. Mike said it was fine, and he was laughing about it, actually. Said how dumb it was and how he feels much better for the time being.
After, Tom comes up to me. Tom has a history of being belligerent. He grabs my shirt and (tries, I am twice his size) to push me. Says if I ever do shit like that again, he will “kill me.” Tom won’t get off, insists he knows what’s best for Mike. Know that Tom had NEVER done anything to really help Mike with his issues. I tell him to get off of me, what the fuck dude. Night ends. Next day, 8am, Tom calls me and says he’s coming to my Mom’s house. I’m staying there for the weekend, I have my own place.
Tom gets there, wakes me up, and again tries to berate me for talking to Mike about it. I say “what the f%ck are you doing, it’s 8am, I went to bed at 3am, get out of this house.” Tom won’t leave, he tries to block me in my room. He is yelling at me, this and that. I finally have to push him, 20+ feet, from my room to the front door. He tells my mother “I don’t know where you went wrong, but your son is retarded.” He also says, in front of my mom, “if you ever talk to Mike like that again, I’ll kill you and bury you in front of her (points to mom)”
I had to get in his face and tell him to leave or get the sh%t kicked out of him. I’m not violent, I’m just a big guy. F%ck Tom.
10. A big red flag.
When they berated me for daring to ask them to see me home, because it “ruined their evening”.
Made me realise these people weren’t my friends.
9. Choose the bizarro friends.
They didn’t seem to respect me or think of me in any high regard. I was the punching bag and the butt of jokes for many years. Especially if they were introducing me to their friends or if girls were around.
They’d always try to set me up in little games like try to get me to admit something negative about myself or expose me for some negative opinion. Neither of which were ever based in fact. They always seemed to form a negative opinion of me. I decided these aren’t real friends. Real friends don’t treat you this poorly. People who treat others this poorly don’t deserve a person like me.
My other set of friends respected me and were always nice. I started to treat then badly because I was preemptively defensive and standoff-ish and I realized I was being a jerk because of the first set of friends. I dropped them never looked back.
8. Why bother?
I had a friend that would always back out on plans at the last minute. I should mention that she’s the one who would make these plans. The last straw was when she asked to meet for lunch to catch up. She picked Friday afternoon, she picked the restaurant and the time.
I text her an hour beforehand because I know how she is, and she said she was getting ready. I went there (I didnt go in because again, I know how she is). I waited for her for around 30 minutes. I text her a couple of times and then left. She messaged me an hour later saying she couldn’t make it. I blocked her number, unfriended her, and have never spoken to her since.
7. He chose the right side.
I was actually the last straw.
I was hanging out with a couple friends and dude the first was talking about how he was chatting up my girlfriend’s younger sister. We were in our early twenties and she was 17. The important thing to remember is dude knew I’d known the girl since she was ten, I was her first crush, and she was (and is) basically like a little sister to me.
I mentioned that hey, the age difference is kinda big, it might not work out. He said it didn’t matter because he was going to pump and dump, i.e. have a one night stand and f%ck off.
Both of these friends were utterly shocked when I told the sister and my girlfriend what was up. I apparently violated the bro code and couldn’t be friends with them any longer. That was information passed to me in confidence, and I shouldn’t have violated that confidence if I was a bro.
Like motherf%ckers, how did you not get this relationship dynamic? What made you think I wouldn’t say shit to anyone involved in the situation? What made you think I’d just stand aside and say “Do your damage, I’ll pick up the pieces when you’re done and then we can go down another case of Natty?”
6. Oh my goodness, what a nightmare.
I’m 43 and knew a guy since grade 9. We sort of come and go but were always friends. One time last summer he invited my family up to his place for a weekend camp out. Around 10PM his German shepherd bit my 7 year old Newfoundland in the face. Luckily I hadn’t been drinking anything and I had to rush my dog to an emergency vet. It took $1200 to fix the damages.
Him and his wife told me that although they didn’t have a lot of cash, they would etransfer me as much as they could out of their next two pay checks.
When I went to message them a week later, I found I was blocked on all social media and both their phones.
Thanks Ben!
5. Well that’s a sad tale.
A friend once gave me an ultimatum, them or someone else. I chose the someone else.
I made the wrong choice. I lost my friend, and then found out they were right to give me that ultimatum.
4. Turns out a lot of people are liars.
Turns out he was a serial liar who liked to one up everyone.
Guy and I worked at the same school and I liked him because he was a huge history nerd like me. However after just a month and a half of what turned out to be CONSTANT lying I started piecing two and two together “wait… how could he have done ALL OF THAT and only be 26??”
Plus many of the things he said were just out and out false. Also he was pedantic to a stupid level whenever we talked about history or geography “actuallly it’s the Minoan empire!” Queue 45 minutes of me searching through loads and loads of books and papers to show him that I’ve never EVER heard Minoan civilization called an empire…
3. It’s fun until it’s not.
Conspiracy theories, non-stop conspiracy theories. It used to be lots of fun, shared interests with a sprinkling of outlandish political ideas, and the occasional conspiracy, but then it spiraled away until all the fun was gone.
Six months later I cut him off completely after it became clear that not only was I required to listen, but I also had to agree with it all or I was the problem.
2. What’s the point?
I was super close friends with someone. I would have used the “my person” description when describing her. All of a sudden, she just ghosted me.
Blew me off, didn’t respond to texts or calls, etc. I was really upset for awhile, but after a bit of time and a move out of the area, I decided “whatever.”
After a year, due to an illness in my SO’s family, we moved back to the area again. She reached out to me and said she cut me out because she didn’t want to get hurt my losing me when we moved. So I gave her another chance, albeit cautiously. I was right to be cautious. After a few weeks, she was back to ghosting me.
It’s not worth my time to chase someone for their friendship. Every once awhile she’ll send me a “checking in” text. I’ll either give a brief answer or ignore it completely.
I still have to be civil, though. She’s married to my SO’s cousin, so I’ll see her at family stuff.
1. That’s a whole bunch of yikes.
Had a friend with super attention seeking and addiction issues. I always felt bad for him so I’d defend him to my friends and to my boyfriend especially (because they used to be close but bf had already had enough). He’d always want me to hang out with him and listen to his issues, especially when he was drunk and manic because of his drug usage.
One night I actually talked bf into hanging out and catching up with said friend. We were all drinking and having a good time. That is until bf and I decided that it was late and it was time for bed. That’s when friend lost it. Wouldn’t stop calling us over and over.
We put our phones on silence. I woke up to a long message telling me how horrible of a friend I am and how he was sick of being my “back up plan”. Which I took extreme offense to, not only have I been the one defending him this whole time and trying to deal with his pity party. But I never once thought of him as anything more than a friend. And the insinuation that I treated him as more was the last straw.
No time for fake people, y’all!
Tell me your story about the moment you knew you weren’t really friends – I want to hear it in the comments!