Friends are the people who we can confide in. The ones we can trust above all others. The ones we can call family even with no blood relation. That is why a relationship such as that is harder to break than any other. Nothing is more painful than finding out that someone you thought was friend is actually the one stabbing you in the back. These Redditors share the moment they realized their "friend" was actually an enemy. Content has been edited for clarity.
He Volunteered His Time
“I have had this friend for 8 years. I truly believed we were soulmates. We trusted each other and cared for each other. We knew every good and bad thing about each other. I loved him in a friendly basis because I knew his life wasn’t easy. He was a difficult person, never had a lot of close friends and people were always saying stuff about him. But I was one of his only close friends. He had trust issues, but we opened out about everything: family problems, harassment situations, life. Everything. I was always there to support him and so was him.
Years passed and that strong friendship started fading away. We were still friends, but it just wasn’t the same. We were going through new adventures and situations so it was normal to have a little distance between us. After the 6th year of our friendship, I was almost ending university. He made a startup with a really cool idea and needed my help. I said, ‘Sure why not?’ I was volunteering my work, no paid involved and that was fine by me. I dedicated a lot of my time to his project.
Time passed and I started having some money issues. I desperately needed a job. This was about a year after starting working with him. I told him that I was truly sorry, but I couldn’t continue investing that much time in his project because I was having some serious money problems and really needed a job. I told him I would still be there for anything he needed, but not as much as before.
At first, he seemed to be fine with my decision. I started looking for jobs, but he would always had something negative to say. I realized he wouldn’t support me but our friendship was still important to me. Time passed, and he and his partner decided to kick me out of the startup. His partner told me some really nasty things and was really ticked off that I wasn’t investing all of my time with them. I never truly understood why he was so mad. It was something way out of my control. They sent me an email and a voice note through messenger telling me that I was out and that I wouldn’t have access to the startup files anymore. ‘Fine’, I thought, ‘maybe things were a little harsh but this is business. Our friendship could still survive, right?’ No, I was so wrong. They kicked me out. One week later my ex friend called me (his partner never called me again). It went something like this:
‘Hey, how are you? I was wondering if you can open these files and tell me the information inside it?’
‘Umm sorry, but I’m not in the startup anymore and I don’t have any access.’
‘Yes I know, but I was wondering if you could do this for me because our friendship.’
‘No sorry, that’s business and I’m not in it anymore.’
‘Pleeeeaseee, my partner really needs it.’
‘Your partner? If he really needs it, he can ask for it himself.’
‘Don’t be like that, please do it for the sake of our friendship.’
‘Fine, I’ll do it for our friendship, but this is the last time.’
After that they removed my access to my files, my projects, and stole my work. They didn’t even ask for it. It was all gone. They never spoke to me again and they used my work. They’re selling and making profit with it. Most of that work I did was for their project, so it wouldn’t really have bothered me to give it to them. What really bothered me was that they didn’t even ask and that I will not see a dime of my work. It’s all just gone.
A year has passed, and they still haven’t spoken to me. I doubt they ever will again. That’s fine by me, I don’t want that friendship anymore. What kind of friend would steal from you, make profit with your work and not even offer you an explanation? If I must be honest, I’m glad this is over. It was too much unnecessary drama. Now I’m better, I found what true friendship really means, graduated, and found an amazing boyfriend. I learned that you can’t trust people when it comes to business and that some people can’t see the line between friendship and work. I really wish them the best. Their startup was really cool, they just need real management and administration.
That day I lost a friend, but it was the best thing that could happen to me.”
They Didn’t Believe Her
“When I was 15, I started my first real relationship with a guy. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was a complete loser. He was 18 years old, a high school dropout, an addict, mean to his mother, a perpetual ‘victim,’ and unemployed. I had been working in restaurants since I was 12 (before I was legally allowed), an honor’s student in the ‘gifted’ program, respectful of my elders, taught to take responsibility for my actions, and called ‘Captain Sober’ by my peers.
Being young and dumb, I stayed with this guy for over 3 years. Once I finally became tired of making excuses for him, I dumped him. It did not go well!
We were at one of his friend’s houses for a party. He had gone early, but I had to close at work so got there hours later. His friend was shocked to see me when I arrived, she explained, because he had told her several months before that he had dumped me. She and I briefly discussed this and I realized I had been right about my suspicion. He happened to be sleeping with this ‘friend.’
I respected this girl for being honest with me about it, so didn’t want to cause a scene at her party. I decided to take another of his friends up on an offer to head out to a diner and call it I night.
I told my soon-to-be-ex that his friend and I were leaving to get food then I was going home and I would talk to him the next day. He loudly responded, ‘If you leave or go anywhere with him, it’s over!’
I calmly replied, ‘We both know it’s already over. Let’s not make a scene.’
Of course, he started crying and wailing and begged to talk to me privately. For some reason, I felt bad for him and agreed.
We went down a hill under a car port away from everyone and asks why. I tell him I’ve known he was cheating and I knew she wasn’t the only one. He tries to deny it and I explain the conversation the host and I had. Realizing he can’t lie his way out of it, he lunges at me and begins strangling me against a car. I kicked him in the balls and ran back to the crowd.
These people, his friends not mine at the time, protected me as he chased me to a deck and tried to throw me off. They pulled him away as he continued trying to throw his fists at me. They locked him in a room as they tried to help me calm down.
These friends of his had done more to help me in less than an hour than I ever thought anyone would do for another person. I WISH they had been my friends leading up to that point, but can proudly say they have been since.
My ‘friends’ at the time were a different story. Following our break-up, I told two of my closest friends about that incident, as well as two others after that where he had tried to kill me, and another incident where I slept with him because I feared for my life. I got a ‘that sucks, we’re here for you.’ Which I mistakenly believed. It wasn’t until half a decade later that I found out how they really felt.
Another ‘close friend’ of mine secretly dated my psycho ex for a few months. She told me over drinks one night right after she broke it off with him. She said, ‘You know, none of us believed he had actually done any of that stuff to you until he did it to me?’
Remember, I had only told two people and she was not one of them!
I asked, ‘What do you mean? Who is us? And how do you even know?’
She confessed pretty much my entire group of 10 to 15 friends all talked about it and how I made things up and I was just trying to make people hate him because he was cheating on me. She also let slip that they all knew he was cheating on me the whole time, but none of them wanted to tell me.
She then mentioned how they (including her) still didn’t believe he threatened me into sleeping with him because he never did that to her, but they did believe he attacked me, so I should feel better about that.
Yes, I should feel better that confiding in two close friends made me the subject of defamatory gossip for years amongst people I thought cared about me, because now they think I only lied about some of it!
That’s when I realized that party was a God send! Because if not for that night, I would have never made any REAL friends, nor would I have known what two-faced pricks the people I thought were my friends actually were!”
Traveling Solo
“I had a friend for 7 years, same name as me. We met in year 7 of secondary school and bonded over the same sense of humor and similar background. We hung out a load over the next few years and I even lived with her family for a couple of months when I had a major fallout with my parents. I was always little weary of her, but two things totally ruined our friendship.
We both went to a festival in Cornwall one year. I arrived in the dark and couldn’t find the tent I was staying in, and all my friends were wasted and not picking up their phones. No biggie, there was loud music and bad signal. She offered to let me leave my bag in her tent overnight where she would look after it, then collect it in the morning once I had gathered my bearings. Great. I left my main bag with all my clothes, shoes, and other belongings. I kept my sleeping bag and smaller backpack with me, luckily.
I came back the next day and she had a boy in her tent. I’d met him before, but we weren’t friends. My bag wasn’t in the tent but my drink was. I asked where my bag was; she didn’t know. I asked around and had a search, still no bag. A few of my friends and I went to lost property and reported it missing. We went back a couple more times to ask if it had shown up and searched the area – nothing.
Go back again the next day, and she verbally attacks me, blaming me for leaving it there and saying I was using her. At this point, I am panicking. I was confused about the whole situation and had nothing except my sleeping bag and the clothes on my back. Luckily, my parents and a few friends helped me out and I went home after the festival finished, had a breather, and spoke to her again. I never mentioned the bag. Strike 1.
The following summer, I was planning on having a chilled summer. I had a couple family holidays and festivals planned and other things in the works. She was planning to go backpacking around Europe for a few weeks and tried several times to convince me to come too. I politely rejected her invitation on the basis of having little money, as I had just finished school, and I had a few things already planned. She left a week later. 8 days into her trip, she started posting mildly depressing and lonely messages on social media, which as her friend, I noticed. I messaged her asking if everything was okay. She said she was really lonely and wanted a friend to travel with. After a few phone calls, a talk with my parents and some logistical planning, I agreed to come out for a few weeks too. I sold my festival ticket, cancelled plans, and caught a flight the following evening.
As soon as I arrived in Venice, where she was staying at the time, I found out she had also pulled the same stunt on her boyfriend at the time, who had conveniently also flown out to see her. So I was now third-wheeling in Venice. Her boyfriend and I got along well, but she deliberately made it very uncomfortable for me and I felt very awkward, opting to stay at a hotel rather than camp on the beach with them so I could get away for a bit. As soon as her boyfriend left, she moved her control over to me, insisting on me giving her my room number so she could stay in the same one, then telling my roommates who I had befriended untrue stories of me. Weird.
A few awkward days later, we were on an 11-hour journey to Zagreb, Croatia. I had been very easygoing so far, but was growing tired of how she acted. I became aware she was compulsively lying continuously and manipulating me. I was incredibly tired from the journey and snapped a few times at her on the train, as I listened to her recite a very doctored version of a story I told her years ago, fashioned to being about herself. When we arrived at the hotel, we were (luckily) placed in separate rooms. We had made plans the day before to stay with another friend. I was looking forward to seeing them the day after, although she was in control of all communication with him. She charged the deposit for her room to my credit card, and got her room key and left before I had even checked in without so much as a goodbye. Being emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted, I got upset in my room. A lovely French girl cheered me up and invited me to come out for dinner with her and her friends to cheer me up. I sent my friend a message inviting her, but she never replied. I ended up having a fantastic night and made a lot of wonderful friends that I am still in touch with.
When I woke up around 10:00 am the next morning, I scrolled through Twitter in bed. The first thing on my timeline was her tweet: ‘So glad to be solo travelling again!!’ I was incredibly confused and checked the time and other tweets, coming to the conclusion she had actually left. I messaged her and she confirmed this. It turned aggressive quickly. I found out she had charged the full amount for her room to my card, which she excused by citing an ice lolly she had bought for me a few days prior…
I was then alone, as an inexperienced young traveler, with limited funds and no plan to get home, in Croatia.
Luckily, my family and other friends were able to support me through it and I ended up continuing my travels and having an incredible summer. I haven’t heard from her since, she blocked me on every platform after I requested she send me the hotel money back, but not before she sent me some nasty messages.
I have no desire to ever speak or hear from her again. I haven’t ever thought differently. It has been almost a year now, and I recently heard that she has flunked school, with no real job, and is in the process of being kicked out of home for awful behavior towards her family. Good riddance.”
She Doesn’t Know How To Listen
“This girl talked a lot. And I mean, a lot. About her self, about her boyfriend, about her family. It was non-stop talking.
Now, I wasn’t a quiet person when I was in school, I was vocal and liked to talk too. I enjoyed talking and conversing.
We were friends for quite some time; I think maybe 7 or so years. It was then when I realized that she never cared about what I had to say. She never let me speak. When she asked me a question she would usually answer it herself, at the same time guessing what I would say, which was always wrong. I noticed this after a long day of shopping and mentioned it to my other friend (who didn’t know her personally).
Whenever I messaged her, she wouldn’t respond. One time she messaged after ages and had the audacity to call me ‘stranger.’
I ended up ignoring her because I was sick of this leeching and this one sided friendship until a year or so ago when she got back into contact with me because she was getting married and wanted me there. I was happy for her, so I agreed to go. We decided to meet up before the wedding and have a chat. She spoke about herself the whole way through and I was bored to death. I think she asked me 1 question and let me speak for an AMAZING 30 SECONDS!
One thing that seemed off was that she told her fiancé that she was inviting me. He said, ‘Why is she coming I don’t like her.’ This girl told this to me with a smile on her face like it was funny. Now that I think about it, it’s actually rude.
I went to the wedding took one picture with her and left.
I messaged her afterwards and she replied once. Then ignored me.
I thought she would want to be friends again, but I was just there for the picture.
I was disappointed, but I got over it. I’m never going to see her annoying face ever again.”
Taken Advantage
“A little background first: I grew up in a working class family. My parents were children of the depression and were somewhat frugal. We had everything we needed, but not a lot of excess. My parents, especially dad, really instilled the value of a dollar in us kids. If we wanted something extra, it was on us to figure out how to pay for it. Want a nicer bicycle, or a mini bike, or gas/maintenance for the mini bike? Better earn some money. From about age 11 or 12, I had three customers whose yards I maintained, all four seasons. I also had a paper route (inherited from my older brother), and when it snowed, my friend Rob and I would wonder the neighborhoods, asking people if they wanted us to shovel. And we never named a price, we always told them to give what they felt was fair. We were never stiffed. Note that maintenance on our families’ yards was expected and unpaid.
First instance: I had a friend named Thomas. We met when I was about 10, and became close friends. We spent lots of time together fishing, camping, stayed at each other’s houses.
One Saturday, when I was about 15, I asked if he wanted to hit the local movie theater. He agreed, so we met up. He brought his neighbor/friend, Serge, with him. I didn’t particularly like or dislike Serge. He had a mouth on him, but he didn’t really bother me. We walk to the theater, and as we are about to buy our tickets, Serge says that he doesn’t have enough money, so he’s heading home. I tell Serge that I’ll help him out, and do so. Thomas then says to Serge ‘See? I told you it would work out.’ Thomas said to me that Serge initially didn’t want to go, due to lack of money, but Thomas told him to come along, as ‘Kindhearted Dave will take care of you.’ I was flabbergasted. Truly. I didn’t let on, but realized that my closest friend had taken advantage of me. We drifted away after that. I never said anything to him, but it really hurt.
Second instance: I met Tim when I was in first grade (age 6). I moved across town, we didn’t stay in touch, and re-met each other when I was in sixth grade via a mutual friend, John. The three of us spent a lot of time together for the next few years, sometimes the three of us, other times just with one or the other. At the end of our Junior year of high school, my parents bought me a class ring. This surprised me, as I really didn’t think they would pay for it. I really treasured that ring. I had also bought myself a silver and turquoise ring (with my own money, of course). Nothing gaudy. And hey, this was the seventies, so it was somewhat in style.
One weekend, my parents were away, so I had Tim and John over for a couple drinks. Nothing wild. I took my rings off and relaxed on the couch. We hung around, shot the breeze. Then we decided to go grab something to eat at the local McDonald’s. I look for my rings and can’t find them, Tim helps me look, but no luck. Oh well, I think, I must have left them elsewhere in the house.
As we’re sitting in the parking lot of McDonald’s eating, I see my older brother drive in the parking lot in his pickup truck. Tim and John go running up behind the truck and jump in. As they do so, I heard a metallic clang, but thought nothing of it. My brother snarled at them, they jumped out, had a good laugh, and that was that.
The next day, my brother asked me if I am missing something. I tell him about the rings. He hands them both to me, saying that they were in the bed of his truck. I find Tim and John, tell them, and ask for an explanation. Tim said that he found my rings as we were getting ready to leave for McDonald’s, put them in his pocket, with the intention to give them to me, and ‘forget’ about them. It sounded REALLY fishy to me, but I foolishly let it slide. After all, this was my friend of several years.
Fast-forward a week or two and my rings go missing again. Same players were at my house. Now I drop my denial, and realized that Tim is not my friend, and that he very likely took them again.
A couple months later, I see Tim’s younger brother, and as we’re chatting, I noticed he’s wearing a familiar looking ring (my silver ring). He seems to be trying to keep his hand out of view, so I asked him about it. He became very nervous, stammered something about how he bought it recently, etc. Although I had no proof, I knew it was mine.
Note that Tim had taken another item of mine a couple years prior to this. After I made a fuss, the item suddenly appeared. Tim was known to steal from retail stores, but I didn’t think he would steal from a friend.
This happened about forty years ago. John remains a very close friend, and has always been trustworthy, and has had my back on numerous occasions. I dropped Tim as a friend, as he apparently never was one to begin with. Despite being quite talented (artistically) from a young age, Tim went down a self-destructive path. He works in a terrible job and spends his money on drinks, cigs, illegal substances, and women. I have avoided contact with him for decades.”
Nothing Remained A Secret
“Five years ago, I was working as admin assistant for a small IT company. One of my then-best friends had helped me get the job. I worked the same job she did (just opposite days). The man who employed us, our boss, had developed a sort of fatherly attachment to my friend. So he unofficially adopted her. Well, adopted her in the only way he could since we were both 18 at the time.
And a few months after having employed me, he seemed to develop the same fatherly attachment to me. Might I add that I had no such familial attachment to him at all, and he never once asked me if I was okay with it.
A few months after my boss unilaterally decided I was his unofficial daughter, my fiancé and my friend’s then-boyfriend decided to surprise us at the office one of the few days we were working together. My boss took the maybe ten minutes he saw and heard my fiancé to decide that my fiancé was no good for me.
Over the next few weeks, I was given several assignments to go with my boss to clients and help him out. Odd admin jobs here and there with the clients. Since I had no license and it was easier, my boss drove me to and from all these assignments. He used these times we were alone in his car to try to convince me that my fiancé was no good for me. He didn’t state it outright, just used subtle conversation cues and information specifically about my relationship.
It didn’t occur to me at first, but he was using information I had never told him. After a few of these conversations, it became clear that I had never told him a lot of what he was talking about. Process of elimination told me that my friend who had got me the job was telling him the information. She was the only person my boss had ever talked with that also knew information about my relationship.
So I decided to test my theory. I told my friend something about my fiancé and I that wasn’t true at all. Something that I told no one else. The next conversation I had alone with my boss, he brought it up.
That was the moment I knew my friend wasn’t really my friend.”