The first impression isn't always accurate. In fact, it can take a long time to realize someone might not a great person. Some people find out that their friends, families, or significant others aren't exactly what they're pretending to me. The real them slips through the cracks and the real them is a bad person.
These people found out the hard way that people they were once close to were not good people. Content has been edited for clarity.
Take A Hike
“My best friend left me at the top of a mountain with a twisted ankle and no food, no water, and no phone to call for help.
I should have seen something like this coming because of my best friend’s toxic and selfish behavior, but I was naive and quick to forgive so I didn’t. She begged me to go on this cool hike with her and some guys we had just met. I initially refused because I am absolutely horrible at hiking and she’s extremely experienced so I was concerned she’d ditch me. But after several promises to the contrary, I agreed to go. I came to find out that the hike was MUCH more intense than she described. I don’t own hiking boots and my dinky sneakers were definitely not up to the task. I fell eight times on the way up, twisting my ankle the last time. I begged her to help me down but she said that ‘going slow was boring’ and she ‘came on this trip to have fun.’ I think she was just more focused on staying with the guys than anything else.
So she left me. She took our shared pack with her that held all our food, water, and cell phones. The hike down was supposed to be 2 1/2 hours for an experienced hiker, in hiking boots, with no twisted ankle. It took me about 4 hours. She didn’t even wait at the bottom. She met up with some other friends to go get In N’ Out.
Yeah, we weren’t friends after that.
I also told our mutual friends about the situation. About half of them were like ‘that’s messed up’ but the other half stuck with her. I didn’t want it to split the whole group but that’s what ended up happening. I do think she got her karma though, she didn’t get into any of the grad schools she applied to. She now lives with her parents and works a job her mommy got her.”
This Player Had A Big Secret
“I started a training program and became friends with a classmate who came from another city.
He was a cool guy. He became pretty popular right away amongst our colleagues. He was a fairly good looking guy and very charismatic. I went out with him a few times and knew he had pretty good luck with the ladies. I knew for sure he slept with another girl in our program several times.
About six months in, we were going to go out one night. He showed up with this cute girl. I kinda gave him a side eye type of thing to say, ‘another one eh?’ He introduced her as his girlfriend from his hometown. She was in town looking for a place to live to be closer to him again.
It had been six months and he had never mentioned her one time to any of us. We never even knew she existed. He slept with lots of chicks. He and his girlfriend live together and are engaged now.”
The Honeymoon Phase Ended Quick
“I realized this about my husband on the return layover from our honeymoon. We were in Atlanta waiting for our baggage so we could go through customs but there was a delay. It was getting close to our outbound flight to get home and my husband of eight days turned to me and said, ‘If we don’t have the bags in another 15 minutes, I’m going ahead to catch the flight home. You can wait here and take the bags through customs and try to get another flight tonight or tomorrow morning.’
I was shocked. Our first argument ensued right there in the ATL hallway. We fought about what his rush was and why would he just leave me there to figure it out alone. Did he expect me to be sleeping in the airport in a chair? He didn’t care at all either way. He didn’t have to be back at work. His boss wouldn’t care if his flight was delayed. One week in and I looked at this man thinking who the heck did I marry?”
Doggy Deception
“To make a long story short, a friend and his wife moved into a new house with a beautiful backyard. They had two dogs, one small dog and one that was about 60 pounds. One day, about a month or so after they moved in, my buddy called me and told me the big dog attacked their 5-year-old daughter. He went on to tell me that he couldn’t trust the dog and had arranged for it to go to a rescue shelter where it could be adopted by someone without kids. He asked if I would take the dog since I had an SUV that could easily fit the kennel. I said I would. When I got there, neither he or his wife would go with me. They had excuses that, at the time, seemed fine. I took the dog, said goodbye to it, and it went to the shelter.
About a year later, my buddy was wasted and telling a story. He ended up talking about getting rid of the big dog because it was digging up the yard. I asked about the daughter and he said it didn’t happen. The dog was just digging up the plants in the yard and he didn’t want to have to deal with it. They lied to me because they didn’t think I would take the dog if I knew the truth and they were too cowardly to do it themselves. To make it worse, I then found out that the ‘shelter’ was actually a kill shelter and the dog was put down about 10 days after I dropped it off.
When I got very angry, he didn’t understand why. The dude and his wife had basically turned me into their dog’s executioner because they didn’t want to train it to not dig in the flowerbeds. We did not remain friends. A few weeks after that party, once I had contacted the shelter and found out the truth, I confronted them both about it. They came clean. But they tried to put it off as if they were too busy for training and that they thought it was a no-kill shelter. I didn’t believe them and pushed for more answers. Eventually, my buddy just said something like, ‘Dude, let it go already.’ He refused to talk about it anymore.
This was about five years ago. We still have mutual friends so I end up at events with them and see them around sometimes, but I haven’t been to their house or had a meaningful conversation since.”
Her Presence Was The Worst Present Of All
“A friend of mine always talked about how she puts so much thought and care into choosing presents for her friends while they’d always give her a pile of garbage back. Early in the friendship, I was sympathetic and agreed, generally, that it does suck when you buy gifts and the other side doesn’t seem to put in the same effort.
Then I realized she said the same thing about every single person, on every single occasion, for the past eight years. Nothing was ever good enough, no one was ever as kind or thoughtful or caring as she was. All the gifts she got were always so terrible and cheap and worthless. I also realized she never seemed to have any of the gifts I got for her and I always put a lot of care into my presents.
You shouldn’t constantly live your life expecting things back from others just because you did something nice. She was just a jerk and it still being a jerk to others, as I hear.”
“What’s The To Me?”
“I was talking on the phone to a ‘friend’ I’ll call Nancy. I told her that a lady I knew had just lost her little boy. Nancy said, ‘What do you mean – he died or she can’t find him?’ I said that he had died. She then laughed at her own joke. I remained friends with her stupidly. Then I got a life-threatening illness.
I had another phone conversation with her. She was yakking on and on for an hour about her stupid, incompetent co-workers. I let her rant and then said, ‘Listen, Nancy. I think I’m seriously ill.’
She sighed loudly and said ‘AND? What’s that to me?’ Later that evening, I sent her an email telling her never to contact me again. She hasn’t.”
An Invisible Tip
“I noticed a friend of mine would pay for his food with a credit card and under the line where it said ‘tip,’ he’d write ‘cash.’ The problem was he’d never leave cash.
As we were leaving a restaurant one day where I had seen him do this, I mentioned to him that he’d forgotten to leave a tip. I watched him put on the most insincere look of surprise. He didn’t go back to leave a tip either. Cheap jerk.
I never understood the thought process, either. I guess he wanted the server to think he tipped, but suspect that someone else stole the cash before they got back to the table. Or that it blew away in the wind. He was already going to be out the door by the time your server saw the check, so why did he want to give them the impression that he tipped when he didn’t? In fact, I think it’s crueler than simply not tipping. He put extra confusion on the server and maybe even gave them the impression their tip was stolen. That would tick them off way more than a non-tipper would.”
Grandma’s Mean Streak
“My grandparents babysat me nearly every day as a child. They lived in a house right behind ours, so I have always been pretty close to them. I knew my grandma was a little crazy, but I never thought much of it until last week.
My grandpa had his defibrillator replaced right before Christmas. Since he’s old and has had heart issues in the past, their three kids were all in town to help out and basically make sure everything went smoothly. I went over to check on my grandma one night when she was home alone and my grandpa was still in the hospital. I heard her on the phone complaining to her friend.
She said that none of her children loved her. She said that the only reason they came down to help him was that ‘he controlled the money’ and they were only looking out for their eventual inheritance. That definitely isn’t true. She also told her friend about how my boyfriend was in town, so of course, I wouldn’t be around anywhere to help. I was the main grandchild helping out. I gave up one of my only weeks I had to spend with my long distance boyfriend over the break.
When my mom/uncle/aunt found out about it, they just said she was being ‘her usual crazy self’ but I’ll never be able to unhear the awful stuff she said.”
Only Room For One Grieving Friend
“A girl I knew lost her father and went into intense grieving. That was normal and fine, so I stayed by her side, supporting her.
Over the years, however, it became all she could talk about. This led to many friends dropping contact with her, and as a cyclical effect, she then began not only talking about her grief but also played the victim card about how everyone abandoned her because of it. The thing was it’s totally ok and healthy to grieve, and express grief but after a few years, I started to also want to talk about more light-hearted things than her loss, and the ‘bad people’ who walked out on her. But I stuck by her because I didn’t want to be that person who bailed. I’m a people-pleaser.
As an important side note, my husband and I don’t have children, so our pets are like kids to us.
One sunny, fall day, my dog – the most bonded I’ve ever been with a non-human – got suddenly ill. The next day we had to put him down. I was so grief-stricken that I didn’t eat for days.
I messaged her to let her know what had happened. As someone who had known intense grief, I hoped she might be a safe place. She wrote back with a quick, sympathetic note. She immediately followed it with a list of things she needed help with over the coming days. I could not, for the life of me, believe that someone who had been such an advocate for her own long grief process was expecting me to do anything for her when I could barely breathe from my sudden loss.
I quickly pulled away from that self-centered negativity. Now it’s been eight months since I’ve heard from her. I’d be happy if I never did again.”
Between Your Boss And Your Mentor
“I had a mentor at work a few years back who I deeply admired. He took me under his wing, taught me everything he knew and seemed to genuinely care for me. We had a very strong connection and he was the only true source of education and leadership in my workplace.
However, he had an ongoing feud with the owner of the business where we worked. She began to dislike me through association with my mentor. It started out innocent enough. We spent a lot of time together on various work projects and I became like his unofficial apprentice. Then he started filling me in on things about the business that I had no business knowing, such as the owner’s financial irresponsibility and details about her personal life. He would spend over an hour each day venting to me and preventing me from getting work done. Meanwhile, the owner, who was very passive-aggressive, began to catch on and build up resentment towards me. She gave me dirty looks yet made no efforts to confront me. The tension built up to the point that I was a nervous wreck torn between pleasing my mentor or my boss. I eventually left my job because I had a nervous breakdown.
Looking back on everything, I’ve realized that my mentor used me as a pawn. Although he never admitted it, I started putting pieces together that he and the owner once had an affair, leading to their mutual hatred. He probably only worked closely with me to make her jealous since I was a naive and doting early-20’s girl at the time. He used me as a captive audience for venting his frustrations. If he truly cared about me, he would not have done anything to put my job in jeopardy, but he did exactly that. It sucks because I looked up to him so much during that time and allowed myself to get sucked into his drama.”
“Blood Is Thicker Than Water”
“I made a decision not to allow my abusive mother to be unsupervised with my daughter. She could visit or we would visit her. She just was not allowed to be alone with her. My grandmother told me she left her children with her abusive mom because ‘blood is thicker than water.’ That’s what she said I should do, too.
Since then, the whole family slowly stopped talking to me because my mom made her rounds, crying about how I wouldn’t let her see her granddaughter. I always thought my grandparents were cool. It really bums me out. The whole family thinks I am a stuck up snob.”
Fond Memories With Grandma
“My best friend was a top-tier national model. An 11/10 and smart as a whip. Time after time, relationships he had with certain friends of his devolved into them calling him a terrible person. I chalked it up to these people being jilted at not getting to sleep with him (many people tried to get into his life to do just that).
Come to find out, he had been stealing things from his friends (and $10,000 from his boyfriend) to fund his addiction.
I was crushed. I missed all the warning signs. By the time I knew, it was far too late to help.”