Lights, Camera, Betrayal
“When I was 15, there was a casting at our high school for a movie. The casters came to our class and moved through the tables taking angles of us. The ones that were noticed were invited to the next interview. My friend was chosen, I was not. That same day, my friend that got chosen and I were leaving the school and a recruiter for the same movie saw me and called me to give me an invite for the interview but my friend immediately informed him that I had already been looked at and did not receive the invitation, at which the recruiter changed his mind and did not give me the invite… He never got the part or anything out of it, I’m still bitter about it, it felt like a huge backstab.”
Slight of Hand Made Their Friendship Disappear
“I had a close group of friends back when I was 15 or 16 and we used to be extremely close, hanging out and playing basketball daily. We used to go on short holiday trips together and one of the things we did was play cards and gamble for small amounts, like 2 bucks a hand or so. So on this particular trip, we had been playing for a few days already and one of my friends pulled me aside and asked me if I thought another friend, ‘A,’ was winning too much. It had never ever crossed my mind that this was anything other than a friendly game to pass the time, though as a teenager, the money was not insignificant.
By the last day of the trip, pretty much all of us at that point knew that A was cheating us. We finally confronted him and his only explanation was that he had gambled with some other friends and he had gotten cheated as well. Could never forgive him, not so much for the money, but for the fact that he thought it was fine to cheat us, his group of closest friends. It pretty much taught me that there are some people who are just inherently dishonest.”
Three’s a Crowd
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“We signed a lease. Two days into it, her girlfriend was over three nights a week. The more the merrier!
Six months into it, her girlfriend was over 6 nights a week or more, contributing nothing to bills.
10 months into it, I can’t get ready for work in the morning because the girlfriend got a job with the same hours as me. I’m working full time and taking two grad classes.
I kindly asked my roommate if her girlfriend could just not stay over Tuesdays and Thursdays, because it was increasingly difficult in the mornings. She started shrieking like I had asked to eat her first born.
I didn’t get what I needed and the next two months were savage.”
Photo Foe
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“My wife and I got married three years ago. I had a friend who was just getting into her career as a pro photographer and was looking for clients to take her on. It seemed like a good deal: she got to go nuts with a camera (I knew her quite well and specified she could take and make as many pictures as she wants),
We paid for her drive, hotel, food, and gave her a decent sum of money (cheap compared to what a pro photographer charged, but definitely enough to cover picture and editing time at a good wage).
We got 25 photos back, over Facebook, and then she ghosted us. She still talks to some of our mutual friends… but I haven’t heard from her in 3+ years. Good riddance.”
Festival Friends Forever
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“I was going through divorce and desperate for a place to live. A friend of mine offered me an apartment for a good price, provided that I didn’t mind that her fiancé is a DJ (I didn’t care). So she said I could move in after she returned from Burning Man. Upon her return, she told me it’s no longer available and that another friend was moving in. Thankfully, I had looked at a few other apartments just in case I found a better place. I thought it made sense if a friend who is much closer to her would move in instead of me, so I didn’t hold it against her at the time.
Then I heard who her friend was. Her ‘friend’ was some random girl she met at Burning Man that she hung out with for a couple of days and at some point offered her the apartment instead of me. I was really mad but didn’t call her out on it.
I moved into a great apartment at a reasonable price, so I didn’t have to stress about where to live. About a month after moving into my new place, I got a message from her asking if I was still interested in moving into her apartment. Her Burning Man friend’s pit bull attacked her terrier, who then needed emergency veterinary aid. She also refused to pay for any of the bills or the rent and moved out. Still, I’ll never forget that and I’ve been salty about it ever since.”
“Dude, Where’s My Car?”
“I’ve wanted a ’69 Baja bug for a long time. When I was in the navy, I finally had the opportunity to get and work on one. I was so excited. I got the fiberglass body kit, big rear tires, lifted it, installed a flat bench in the back instead of the stock seats, redid the floor pans, redid the wiring, and was saving money for an engine rebuild (I wanted to keep the stock air-cooled engine).
Then I got orders to deploy and I trusted my buddy with the keys.
I came back and not only was my baby gone, it’s in an impound lot and had been chopped to pieces. I confronted him and he said, ‘Yeah I forgot about that thing. Sorry dude.’
I punched him in the mouth. Still don’t have my bug.”
Blindsided by Bridesmaids
“I spent a year helping my friend plan her wedding. She wasn’t going to have bridesmaids at all… cool, no worries. Then, less than a month before the destination wedding in Mexico, she texts me to say that she has decided to have bridesmaids after all. I wasn’t one of them. I had literally been at her house the night before for four hours, helping her figure out where to set up the chairs for the ceremony, figuring out what stuff I would bring down to Mexico to help her out. When I told her that it hurt my feelings that she just texted that, instead of talking to me, she got super defensive. She had originally wanted me to do her hair for the wedding, then said that I was ‘controlling’ for having offered. The worst part was that I knew something was off when I went to the bachelorette weekend. One of the girls she chose to be a bridesmaid was, I kid you not, my childhood bully. Suffice to say she hasn’t grown out of that. I could tell something was up, but soldiered on and didn’t say anything, just helped with whatever I could. But, the girl was being incredibly condescending the whole time. When I asked my friend what was going on (after I received the text), she said I was being paranoid, but went on to say that she had picked up on weird vibes from me. So…. me noticing a weird vibe is paranoid, but you picking up on a weird vibe is normal? Got it.
I ended up still going to the wedding (didn’t want to be dramatic or anything). I stayed in the background, kept to myself for the most part. But that didn’t stop her from talking about me behind my back loudly enough for my boyfriend to notice.
She and her family quite literally shunned my boyfriend and me on the day of the wedding, which is a bit absurd considering that I tutor her much younger brother every week. (He went from failing every subject to mostly B’s and a couple of A’s).
After the wedding she texted me as if nothing had happened, though I hadn’t heard anything from her for the entire month leading up to the wedding.
Oh, and she’s 33. Mean Girls never grow up, apparently.”
Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game
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“My good friend and I were both love stricken by a server at a bar we used to frequent. It was a dive, but she was amazingly attractive in every way. After going to this place hundreds of times, we both claimed we loved her. I was under the impression that asking her out would be foolish because all of the slobs who frequent this place faun over her and she is there working.
At one point, I decided that I was going to throw caution to the wind and ask her out. The worst that could happen (assuming I do it respectfully) is I will be denied. I told my friend my intention as we sat at a table in her bar. To avoid any competition, I said I would give him the opportunity to ask her out instead of me, but if by 30 minutes before closing if he did not do it, I was going to.
I gave him plenty of opportunities to make his move. I gave him a periodical warning as the clock ticked.
He did nothing. I asked her out and she gave me her number. After closing, I walked out in front of him. He stayed behind and came out about ten minutes later. He admitted he’d said something to her about me. When I called her the next day, she answered and said she did not want to talk to me and I should not call her. I respectfully did not continue to call.
He never told me what he said to her. What a jerk.”
Fish Fiend
“Years ago the fair was in town, and one of the games was to throw a ping pong ball into a jar from a distance. I nailed it, swish. Won myself a goldfish! So this was during my lunch from work, so I took it back to work, stuck it in a tub of water until I finished my shift.
At the end of my shift, I went to get it to take it home and it was dead, scales had all fallen off, looked terrible like it had disintegrated or something. I took it back to the guy at the stall and went mad. Like, it was only a few hours ago I won this and look at it. They gave me a replacement but I was still mad.
My mate rang me later that day asking about the fish, and started laughing. Turns out he put floor cleaner in the water with it when I wasn’t there to mess with me cause he thought it would be funny. What a jerk. Still makes me mad to this day.”
Not So Happy Birthday
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“Friends said they wanted to treat me out for my birthday dinner. They expected me to pay for their meals. They only told me this after the check came. I asked the waitress to separate my food from the bill and just paid for my portion. Luckily I drove my own car, so after I gave the waitress a huge cash tip in front of my friends, I immediately drove home. The next day I got ‘it was just a prank bro’ texts from them. I seriously doubt it as they looked mad I asked to have my bill separated. I haven’t talked to them in years.”
He Cut Him Off For A Girl But Came Crawling Back For A Favor
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“My old best friend met a girl and basically starting ignoring me and our other friends. So they get engaged, I find a girl, and I basically think it’s over.
Anyway, they break up after just moving into a house and he calls me in tears. Says he’s sorry for all the stuff he did and that he treated me badly and blah blah blah. So he asked me to help him move into a new apartment and I’m like, ‘Sure man.’
Moved him into that apartment and he stopped talking to me again. Called me the day before my wedding and said he couldn’t come, his excuse was he had to work. Haven’t spoken to him since.”
This Professor Prankster Wouldn’t Admit To His Tricks
“This is why I don’t really attach myself to people. I was in trouble for missing class and the teacher believed I had skipped. He thought he had seen me on campus. I’ve always developed good, close relationships with teachers so he was a little hurt by what he thought was me lying to his face. I was trying to convince him that it was most definitely not me, cause I’m not tryna get on a professor’s bad side. Then my ‘friend’ chimes in with a bunch of bull, making it sound like I was on campus messing around. Asking me how that sandwich I tried out yesterday was (sandwich shop in the cafeteria), blah blah blah.
I just looked him in his face and told him, ‘You think that it’s funny but it’s not.’
‘Aw man, it’s a joke.’
‘It wasn’t a joke five seconds ago when you were trying to be cute, but now that we have a problem, it’s supposed to be “a joke, bro.”‘
‘Whatever, man.’ He pouted and walked away.
Haven’t talked to him since. I can’t stand people like that. I even held off long enough to see if he would say he was joking. Maybe a, ‘Haha, I’m just playing. I know he was home sick yesterday.’ But nope. Just kept going and going. It was only funny cause he’s not the one dealing with the consequences. People like that know what they’re doing. I’m convinced they hide ill intent behind humor.”
Quit Playing Games
“For a good two years, I organized board game night every other weekend with a group of friends. I was happy to have them over, happy to play games, everything was great. Why not every weekend? Sometimes I had to work, had to make room for family obligations, and hosting constantly can get exhausting.
Then I found out on the off-weekends, there was a game night anyway, at one of the invitee’s place. It was kept secret from me. People were smiling at me to my face about how great it was to play games with me, but when my back was turned they had their own thing going on.
I only found out after being brow-beaten into a tech support visit and seeing a lot of the same titles on their shelves as on mine. These particular friends are no longer welcome, but now the rest of the group is too small to enjoy a lot of great titles so, yes, salt is a way of life.”
His Family Emergency Wasn’t So Urgent After All
“My fraternity brother was supposed to be a groomsman in my wedding. The day of the bachelor party we hear from him that a relative is having a major surgery, out of state, due to cancer and it wasn’t looking good. We all told him profusely to go be with family and everyone feeling bad for him put a damper on the whole night.
The next morning, we saw photos of him waterskiing at his ex-fiancée’s family lake house on her Facebook. He knew for a fact that she cheated on him multiple times and he broke it off. Of course, we all supported him and told him he was better off. So when they tried to get back together, she wanted him to have nothing to do with us.
A few days later, he called my now wife saying his relative died and that he could not come to the wedding. He did not say a word to me. The only post I could find about this tragic death was from him on a private group of just a few of us. His parent’s Facebook pages said nothing about losing a very close relative.
The day of the wedding, I got a text from him saying how he hates that he can’t be there, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just replied, ‘I hate it too.’ This was almost three years ago and I avoid going to anything at my Alma Mater that I think he will be at and have not spoken to him since that text.
He got back with his ex and it lasted about all of three weeks.”
His Sob Story Tricked Him But The Reality Was Worse
“I drove a 1990 Cadillac Brougham in college. It was a really nice car that I bought off of my grandparents for $1,700. They made me a great deal on the car, but even so, I was a high school kid making minimum wage and busted my butt for two summers before I could save the cash to buy it.
Anywho, fast forward to college. I was looking for a car with good gas mileage since I was going to be commuting 30 minutes from home to campus. With my grandparents’ blessing, I decided to sell the car for what I paid for it in order to buy a Saturn off of my dad.
My cousin, Jeremy, caught wind and came to me with some sob story about how broke he and his wife were. Their car was completely trashed and he was panicking about not being able to provide for his wife and three kids. He tearfully begged me to sign the title of my Cadillac over to him and he promised to ‘pay what he can’ when he has the money.
I believed every word of his lie, signed the title over and never saw a dime. In fact, he immediately turned around and sold my Cadillac for around $3,000 to some random guy he worked with and never gave me a penny for it. He then had the audacity to ask my grandpa to loan him money…to buy a car.”
Creative Klepto
“He was an artist and I was a writer. I had a script written out for a graphic novel; he wanted to work on it and I agreed.
He did no work whatsoever for two months. Not a single sketch. Instead, he put his name on my story and took a meeting with a publisher through a contact he had. He told me about it after they let him know they weren’t interested and acted like it was no big deal.
Needless to say, I lost my mind. I made him show me all the stuff he showed them. His name, everywhere. His contact info, everywhere. My name was on one page, under his. Everything he showed them was 100% my work, even what sketches there were from me, and he acted like he did it all.”
Music Festival Mayhem
“We went to a music festival. She met a guy in a crowd at one of the stages who was giving me a load of trouble about not knowing ‘less popular’ The National songs. Seriously. I just kind of ignored him, but she ended up running off with him, leaving me in a crowd. Then her phone died. I was completely by myself at a music festival that’s on an island (you need a ferry to get off, and then a car. She was my ride), with no way of getting a hold of her.
I just had to sit in the same place that she left me all night. A couple of hours later, she turned up. We got on the ferry and drove home in almost complete silence, and I never spoke to her again. That was a very close friend of a few years, too. And the cherry on the top, she had a boyfriend at the time! Wonder what he would have thought about that, hm?”
Frauding Friend
“I had a good friend fall on hard times after high school. I had just gotten a studio apartment in North Carolina, and I found out he was living under a bridge somewhere in New York. So I called him up and told him to come live with me for a while.
Turned out he was doing fine, was getting a ton of money and brand new clothes every other week from his mom, while I was buying groceries for the both of us, driving him everywhere, and sharing a studio apartment with someone.
After about two months, I told him that he had to start helping me out with some money because I was starting to struggle. I woke up the next morning and he was gone. Haven’t seen or heard from him in about four years.”
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