He Left A Little Surprise For Him In His Car
“I loaned him my car and he brought it back with the interior completely torn apart—like ripped and broken into pieces. He was looking for a crack rock he had dropped. I didn’t know he was into heavy substances until then. I knew he smoked pot, but that was it. We were roommates at the time and our other roommate and I had an absolutely no substance use rule, except pot.
Needless to say, we kicked him out and I found out you can take your car to the police station and have a dog go over it without getting in trouble. The dog found it and the police destroyed it.”
Used And Abused
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“I’m a straight woman. For many years my best friend was a straight guy. We were best friends from 10th grade through our early 20s; in college, we’d spend at least four hours a night on the phone. Surprisingly, neither one of us ever ‘caught feelings.’ We weren’t romantically attracted to each other; we were just genuinely best friends.
Then suddenly, a few weeks after I graduated from college, he dropped off the face of the earth. I tried calling, texting, emailing. He had a Facebook account but never used it; I tried contacting mutual friends and they basically said, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve talked to him, he’s just busy.’
Then suddenly I saw him tagged in a photo kissing a girl. Oh, he got a girlfriend. Good for him. So I texted him, told him I saw the photo (I recognized the girl as a coworker, so I mentioned that I thought she was really nice). That was when he finally texted me back and said, ‘Oh yeah, sorry we’ve been spending lots of time together, so I haven’t gotten to respond to you.’ I acted like I was fine, but I was kind of angry he never said anything to me about this.
Then after that, I would text him here and there, maybe once a week or so, and RARELY heard anything. Finally, I got a long email from him basically saying, ‘Listen, it was great hanging out with you when I was single; you filled that emotional hole for a while, but now I’m in a happy relationship and I don’t really need you anymore.’
Yeah, that was basically more painful than any romantic relationship ending. Since then, which happened about eight years ago, I hear from him once in a while when he needs a favor, but that’s it. He basically admitted he used me for a long time, and now he’s still trying to do that.”
Want To Go Shopping?
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“I had a friend that had a very poor family— her mom was an addict and dad was in jail. Mom would sleep with random people to get her fix. Her mom loved her very much, she just couldn’t function.
Anyway, my family was pretty well off and very supportive, and I always had a job cause I liked having money for fun stuff and taking my friends out. It was normal to me to pay for things if I invited someone to do something with me—just something I liked to do.
My friend’s birthday was close to Christmas and my grandparents usually give me a fair amount of money for Christmas. So I ended up spending all my grandparents’ Christmas money taking my friend out on a shopping spree. I bought her Sperry’s and clothes and lunch; it was a fun day, and I had a good time.
My friend and I didn’t talk too often after this. This, too, was pretty normal for me. I don’t need to be constantly in contact with people I care about, plus we went to different high schools on opposite sides of town. But then she called me up and told me she’s getting a job! Cool! I’m proud of her! Would I mind going shopping with her for work clothes? No, that would be fun. Would you mind if your mom came? Yeah, sure she’s awesome and I guess you must have missed her.
So my friend, Mom, and I went shopping. She picked out a bunch clothes and then expected ME or MY MOM to pay for them! After that, we stopped talking and she doesn’t understand why I don’t talk to her anymore.”
Uncovering A Possible Murder
“He told me his foster mom had walked in on his girlfriend going down on him and decided it was necessary to inform her parents. Even I thought it was a messed up thing to do, especially since everyone was 18 at this time.
Sometime later (maybe a year or so, perhaps less), he and his girlfriend were breaking up and he kept sending me over to convince her to stay with him (we were all friends). She was sticking to her word, though, and I wasn’t really there to convince her of anything anyway, I was just there to listen to a friend.
She showed me a checklist of signs that your boyfriend will be abusive in the future, and she pointed out (didn’t take much convincing) that he exhibited 8 out of the 10 signs. Later, she told me what really happened with his foster mom. The foster mom had seen how serious their relationship was getting and she had known my friend from when he was young; she knew what kind of guy he was, like how he used people and manipulates them.
She had gone over to his girlfriend’s house to warn her.
Interestingly, I was able to convince my parents to let him move into our house. They were cool with it because they liked him, but they wanted to speak to his foster mom about it. I was worried about what she might say and I voiced this concern to him, and he told me not to worry about it. A week or two later, she died.
I dunno if he had any connection to it, but I’m suspicious about it.”
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
“My father was hospitalized Christmas Eve and it was bad–he’d been declining for a while and his doctors said he could pass at any time. I lived far away and was traveling back for the holidays and arrived at his house to that news. I called my best friend and she couldn’t even talk to me because she had to go to dinner at her husband’s second cousin’s house–and she hated this cousin! But she and her husband were pathological cheapskates and nothing was more important than free food for them. They made six figures and were still like that.
Just as I was about to go to the hospital, she asked me to drop off my Christmas gift for her on her porch because I would ‘obviously be too busy to get together.’ I dropped her present off, she didn’t leave mine. Never mailed it, either. She didn’t even follow up to see if my dad made it (he did, but died a year later). A good person will talk to you when your father is dying. A best friend sure as heck will and will want to be by your side. A horrible person is like, ‘FREE PRIME RIB, BYE!'”
Pathologically Irational
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“Lala and I were best friends for a couple years. We survived working retail together and she seemed to be just so supportive and kind to everyone that I turned a blind eye to a lot of her behavior.
She was very glib and it always seemed to have a very good excuse for the semi-shady things that she was doing. She could paint herself the victim in everything.
Lala constantly cheated on her boyfriend with an old friend who didn’t want to date her (he just wanted to get with her when he was in town) under the justification that it wasn’t cheating because she considered the relationship over but her name was on the lease, and neither could afford to break it.
Only, she never told the boyfriend that she considered the relationship over, and just let him continue to pay the majority of the bills.
She justified not telling her boyfriend and letting him pay all bills because she had paid the all the bills years ago when he was in school and it was his turn to support her.
Supposedly, the boyfriend pressured her into buying more car than she needed to help his buddy with a commission; therefore, he was paying her car note.
There was always an excuse that made sense at the time, when you’re close to the situation and can’t see the forest for the trees.
Then she tried to feed our super lightweight friend, Izzy, an excessive amount of drinks and talked Izzy into going to a stranger’s hotel room. When confronted and asked why, Lala said she didn’t want to be the only one in the friend group who had cheated on her boyfriend.
I ignored so many red flags because she was a fun person and I enjoyed spending time with her. I could even forgive the way she acted when I got divorced, and I was free to live the wild and single life Lala wanted to live.
But what she tried to do to Izzy was entirely too far. Trying to destroy Izzy’s relationship with a good man just so that Lala didn’t have to be ‘the only one who cheated.’
She was also obsessed with Twilight, and introduced herself as Mrs. Edward Cullen.”
A “Business Partner”
“Right after college, we were looking for jobs and he kept trying to get me involved in some ‘business ventures.’
One was Quixtar, a pyramid scheme. One was a ‘stock-trading’ class, which we would have to pay $500 to join. Another was the idea of us opening a PC Repair/Custom Builds Store, which sounded fun, but he wanted me to ask MY family for money to start it.
It seemed that every time we got together, it eventually became him asking me to join a get-rich-quick scheme.
I went back to school to get my Master’s. We drifted after that, as he also thought that was a waste of time (he didn’t say that out loud, but I could tell).
I wasn’t invited to his wedding. Didn’t even know he had a kid until after his wife died suddenly (heard about that from someone else on Facebook, he never joined it).
I’ve known him since 4th-grade and I still consider him one of my oldest friends, though we don’t talk much anymore. But I still regret how things went.”
A Ruined Life
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“I want to start by saying that I love my best friend and I think that a good person is still somewhere inside of her. But she is a rampant drinker and substance abuser who is so caught up in her own world that she drags down everyone around her.
In college, it was just some casual substance use here and there. We smoked together; we tried a few different other things. We drank a lot. I think there was a period in college where all of my friends were drinkers, or at least the type of drinkers who emerge in a college environment. But somewhere around junior or senior year of college, my other friends and I began to slow down on the substance use and the drinking. We began hanging out sober and we were okay with that. My friend ramped it up a notch.
In the many years since we’ve graduated college, our friend group has changed. Many of us are married, most have full-time jobs and a salary, and some have children. But my best friend moved from relationship to relationship, cheating on each one. She no longer has a job after multiple driving under the influence charges and getting caught at work with hard substances. She has spent months in jail, but none of this has dissuaded her. She drinks every day to the point of blacking out. She uses the white stuff at the very least. She has no money and no job right now. She has been extremely verbally abusive to her family and other friends, and many no longer speak to her.
We are nearing 30 now and most people want her to get help and grow up. I still remember the friend who helped me out through the hardest times, who held my hand and took me to the hospital when a past abusive relationship beat me to a pulp. When I can catch her in a sober moment, she is still the kind and wonderful person I remember. But as of right now, the substance use and the drinking really take away from that goodness.”
A Roommate With No Respect For Boundaries
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“My girlfriend at the time (now wife) told me that my best friend, who was also our roommate, had been making demeaning comments about me and advances on her behind my back. I hadn’t seen it yet, but my girlfriend said she would let me know when it happened again. After a night out, I guess the friend was wasted enough to try. He said to my girlfriend—all while I was standing five feet away—that she shouldn’t be with me because I wasn’t good for her and he would be much more successful in life than I would. I lost it, yelled at him, and moved out with the girlfriend after about a month of him never apologizing or feeling like he was wrong in the first place. He was my best friend since middle school, which was about eight years ago. I haven’t spoken to him since that went down, six years ago.”
Sometimes, It’s Best To Just Walk Away
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“She was my best friend for my entire life, until about four years ago. Her mom dated my dad when we were younger, so we grew up together and she’s about two months younger than me, physically, but she’s emotionally stunted after her father violated her at a very young age. His whole family helped cover it up by blaming my father first and when it was proven that he didn’t do it, they tried to accuse me. If you remember, I was the same age as her, so about 5 years old.
Anyway, flash forward to fourth grade. Our parents had split and I moved away for a while (we stayed in touch) but moved back for fourth grade, and she was a very emotionally unstable girl and didn’t know much about social cues or boundaries. The kids in school were brutal. I soon figured out that if I was around, they’d leave her alone (for the most part) and I just got into the habit of protecting her from everything. Her mother was crazy. Irrationally protective, which I kinda understand considering what happened to her, but still. The only person her mom would trust to not let her get hurt was me. They were both incredibly emotionally dependent on me and it was weird, though I didn’t really realize how weird until years later.
So anyway, we grew up and stayed friends. She calls me her sister and in high school, I finally got her out of her shell enough that she didn’t have a total meltdown at every harsh word said to her. Except she took her newfound confidence too far. She started making friends with all these younger kids in like 6-9th grade (we were juniors) and just ripping them apart. Verbal abuse, just constant bullying. She was also leading guys on for their money, cheating on her boyfriends with my brother (remember, she called me her sister. Ew).
Then, to top it off, she moved in with her father and started a HUGE fight because I expressed concern about that decision. She pulled her ENTIRE family into it so they could verbally attack me for being worried about her. I stopped talking to her for a long time, then she moved back in with her mom and tried to reconnect. I was talking to her and realized that she wouldn’t ever grow up and it’s not my responsibility to make her live her life.”
A True Freeloader
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“Whenever he was broke and needed money, I would lend it to him and let him take as long as he needed to pay me back. Sometimes he took that for granted. Once, I waited two years for him to pay me back, and I had to watch him buy iPhones, an Apple watch, iPad Pro, TV, and a PS4 and loads of games, all while claiming he didn’t have the money. But whatever, he paid me back eventually, and we laughed about how bad he was with money.
But now I don’t have much money, and he knows it, and since that’s been the case, he has treated me like crap. There could be a bag of sweets that has been sitting untouched for days, and if I take one, he starts going on a rant. He’s my housemate, so I saved him money on taxis by driving him around. Eventually, I fought to have him pay me gas money, but he refuses to even pay what he uses and should I point these things out, he loses his mind.
He has made me feel useless. He threatens to leave and stop paying rent if I put up too much of a fight.”
She’s Always Blamed Her Addiction On Her Friend’s Relationship
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“When we were roommates, she developed an addiction problem after I began to date someone. I still spent a lot of time with her, but I guess that wasn’t enough?
She got angry that I was spending so much time with this guy (whom I’m still with after five years). I made time for her, but she decided to stand me up or blow me off when I did, which was a lot. So I stopped trying.
She then began to drink a lot with our other two roommates, then they all moved onto hard substances as well. She stole a lot of my jewelry to pay for it. I don’t own much jewelry, all of what I did have was given to me by people who were important to me. It really hurt that she did that.
She also began to say terrible things about me to everyone she could. It sucked terribly. I cut her out of my life. LinkedIn tells me she occasionally looks at my profile now, but I don’t think we’ll ever talk again, especially after my older sister found out she robbed me and told the girl never to contact me again or the only thing she would see for a while would be a jail cell.”
An Explosive Personality
“I started fearing their reactions. My ex-best friend was physically huge with an explosive temper and had gotten in trouble in the past over his behavior. I often found myself disagreeing with their actions, but was too scared to openly disagree. Something that sticks out was this pregnant woman in our town being murdered by her boyfriend and this friend said, ‘We don’t know what really happened in that relationship, it’s not nice to speculate.’ As someone who has always wanted to prosecute domestic violence offenders, I started finding it incredibly difficult to reconcile my principles with his reaction. He had a God-complex and he always was the saint or savior in his story. He could never hold down a job without his anger getting in the way.
I once tried to bring up this flaw of his as kindly as I could and I found myself sweating profusely in fear that he would snap at me, which he did. It wasn’t until a recent spat after my birthday when he turned the situation into how I’m an ungrateful, bad friend that I realized I had to slowly end the friendship. I had an honest and open conversation with my mentor about the situation, who bluntly asked me whether I feared for my physical safety and it put things into perspective for me. It sucks, but I’m a lot better off.”
“Give Me Your Tickets, I Swear I’ll Share!”
“I had a childhood friend when I was younger who would manipulate me into helping him do things, and I was oblivious to it. When it finally occurred to me what he was doing, I was probably around 8 or 9 and had just won a bunch of tickets at a children’s playground type of thing similar to Chuck E. Cheese. He convinced me to pool both of our tickets together to get one big prize and share it. As you can guess, he never shared it with me, and that’s when it occurred to me that he was not very nice. He’s a cop now and I haven’t really spoken to him since I was around 11 or 12.”
Stealing From The Sick
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“My mother was slowly dying of cancer, so my friend and her idiot boyfriend took the opportunity to steal money and jewelry and who knows what else from me. Another friend of mine eventually caught her in the act, and shortly after, we parted ways. Nearly a decade later, she contacted me and admitted to everything, so I forgave her but kept her at a distance because she still seemed like a sketchy, shallow person. About six months ago, another girl I know was emotionally victimized by her and I flipped out. If I see her, I’m afraid I might rip her throat out. Like, I understand flawed human beings, but being a downright evil person for the sake of being an evil person is just so disgusting to me.”
She Was Too Good To Dance With Him
“My best friend and I were 21 and had finally gotten into a nightclub. I watched a guy watching her from across the dance floor. He approached several times, then would veer off pretending to be going somewhere else. Eventually, he worked up his nerve to come to our table and ask her to dance.
She very dramatically looked him up and down and, voice dripping with disdain, said, ‘Why would I want to dance with you?’
So instead, I danced with him all night, met him for brunch the following morning, and dated him for six months until graduation.”