Some friendships can last a lifetime, but some fizzle out and fade, usually for good reason. These people lost their best friend, the person they were closest to in the world, and now they're sharing the heartbreaking reasons why. Content has been edited for clarity.
He Was Always Looking For A Handout
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“He was a close friend for about a decade, but he was perpetually broke and was in the habit of calling me at odd hours whenever he needed to ‘borrow’ cash. This one time, he called and it was late, so I answered ‘What?’ in a gruff tone.
He was taken aback and said, ‘Why are you so upset, jeez, just go hang yourself’ and he hung up.
At that point, I felt bad because maybe he wasn’t going to ask for money. So I called him back and said, ‘You woke me up, so I was groggy.’ Then he proceeded to ask me for money. At that point, I said, ‘I knew you were going to ask for money and that’s why I sounded irritated.’ I told him I was sick of getting calls like this, especially late at night.
He blew up at me and told me to bug off and that I’d never been a friend to him. The next day, he sent me a long rambling email saying that he doesn’t think he should be friends with a ‘washed-up loser’ like me. I sent him a short reply back saying that I accept his unfriend request.
That was about ten years ago now. I’ve since moved away from where he lives. He tried to contact me once since then (late at night, of course). but I didn’t answer.”
He Was Still Reeling From His Mother’s Passing When His “Friend” Said The Cruelest Thing
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“A few weeks after my mother passed, I was still in shock. This resulted in me being quiet and unenthusiastic.
This bothered my friend because I was always quick to laugh and up for a good time. He said I was using her death as an excuse for my behavior. I got in my car and never talked to him again. I now wish I punched him.”
It Hurt At The Time, But It Was For The Best
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“He turned his life around. He almost killed himself in a car wreck while driving under the influence. Then his fiancee got pregnant. He got sober, but I was still running with the same crowd. When he re-evaluated his priorities, there was no room for someone like me who was sure to get him in trouble again. Now that I’m sober, I’m glad he made the choices he did.”
Her Workplace Romance Drove A Major Wedge Between Them
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“I was best friends with this girl for around three years. She even left her job to come and work at the same place as me. This is where things slowly went downhill. We ended up spending so much time together in and out of work and even formed a little group of friends made up of people from work.
I ended up getting together, briefly, with one of the guys in the group on the down-low. Even though we agreed to keep things hush-hush, I told my best friend. She went ballistic. I had no clue she would react like that, I would’ve kept my mouth shut had I known. Anyway, her reaction just came across to me as pure jealousy, even though she had her own boyfriend that she’d been with for a year or so. She put it down to the fact that I’d messed up the friendship group (in her eyes) and that she didn’t want her two best friends hooking up because it was ‘weird.’
Fast forward to a work party. She told everyone the secret and ended up confessing her feelings to him, resulting in him pushing me away and choosing her. Now she and I just awkwardly avoid contact at work.”
He Knew She Had A Soft Spot For Him And He Used That To Manipulate Her
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“We were best friends for seven and a half years, and for the last four and a half years, he was emotionally abusive. He knew I had feelings for him, but whenever I would try to move on and date someone else, he would get upset and tell me how whoever I was dating was all wrong for me. He even tried to deliberately sabotage one of the relationships. After the first time I got in bed with someone, I called him afterward, crying because it was so bad. He came over and said to me, ‘Well, maybe if it had been with someone like me, it wouldn’t have been so bad.’ I was upset at the time. I would have given anything for it to have been with him. The line for me was when he started texting me telling me about how he wanted to get busy with me, how he wanted to see me naked, even though he had a girlfriend. He would say things like, ‘It would probably be so good, but I don’t have feelings for you. You’re just my best friend.’ Again, he knew I had feelings. And he knew that I was trying to let go of those feelings to move on, but every time I would make a move to try and move on and get over him, he would try and pull me back in. He just started crossing so many lines. I couldn’t deal with it anymore. So I blocked him on all social media and completely cut him off. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it was also one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”
He Was Willing To Take Advantage Of A Stranger
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“His sister hit his new car, damaging his bumper and a side panel. A few months later, a stranger backed into his car at the same spot but added no new damage. The stranger left a note apologizing and saying they’d pay for damages. My friend was happy because he knew that this stranger caused no damage but would likely be paying over a grand out of pocket to fix his sister’s mistake.
He shared the stranger’s note with me, and when he went to the restroom, I took a picture of it. I called the stranger the next day, told him the situation, and cut off all communication with my friend. If a person is willing to treat people like that, I don’t want to be friends with them.”
Not Only Was She An Addict, But She Also Got Her Friend Involved In Her Illegal Schemes
“She got addicted to prescription pills.
Then I found out that I had unknowingly purchased stolen goods from her. I felt like crap and gave the stolen things back to their original owners, but it ended up costing me upwards of $200, which I, of course, will never see again.
When she ended up out on the streets, I offered her a ride to the grocery store to buy her some dinner or snacks, and instead, she asked me for $100 cash.
Forget that.”
He Had Been So Sure He Was Going To Be In The Wedding Party
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“We were best friends for ten years. We’d hang out nearly every week. He moved off to go to school and met a girl, who he proposed to. But that wasn’t the issue. My thought was, ‘Oh hey, he’ll probably ask me to be his best man, we’ve been best friends since we were small.’ Instead, he got some new best friend he made at university and asked him to be his best man. I wasn’t even considered as a groomsman. It may sound selfish, but that hurt. It’s one of his most significant events in his lifetime, we’d both called each other our best friends through pretty much our entire lives, and I wasn’t even considered significant enough to be acknowledged. I only got an invite to his wedding because his mother invited me. I denied it as it was a few provinces away and the whole circumstance made me feel awkward. I haven’t talked to him since, and he hasn’t bothered trying to talk to me.”
It Wasn’t The Fact That She Slept With Her Boyfriend, It Was All The Lies
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“We were friends for 16 years. Found out she was sneaking around with my boyfriend of two years behind my back right after he dumped me. I was depressed and devastated because he ended it suddenly and never gave me a reason. I started to piece it together because they were always together. She tried to hide it from me. I gave her three chances to tell me the truth and she lied every time. I then found a (secret to me) social media account filled with photos of them vacationing together and making out. All posted over the last six months. I printed out everything and asked her to lunch. I asked her again if anything was going on with him. She denied it. So I put the folder on the table and slid it towards her and said, ‘I hope he’s worth ruining a 16-year friendship. I could have gotten over this, with time. But I will never get over you lying to me.’
I haven’t seen her since. They moved in together (something I had asked my ex for shortly before he dumped me) and dated for three years. Rumor has it she cheated on him. But now she’s engaged to someone else.
I still don’t forgive her. And I don’t want her in my life. But I do hope she’s happy. I’ve moved on and gone through a lot of changes and ended up with a better guy who’s wonderful, and I ended up with better friends because of it. In an odd way, that traumatic experience of betrayal and depression I felt from both my ex and then her, catapulted me into being a better person. So for that, I’m thankful. Most days, I’m okay, and I don’t think about her. But, just like everyone, I have bad days. And I still really hate her for causing me so much pain and being dishonest for so many months. Mostly, I just really hate her for lying straight to my face all those times. It’s that push/pull I struggle with, wanting her to be happy, but also wanting to punch her at the same time.
I have a habit of holding grudges. Working on it in counseling.”
She Always Blamed Her For Everything That Went Wrong In Her Life
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“She spent years talking crap about me and making up rumors. When I called her out on it, she cried and claimed that I’d been trying to make her miserable for years. Because the entire world revolves around her. According to her, I majored in economics because I wanted to make more money than she would with public relations. I got a standalone, rental house for $50/month cheaper because I wanted her to feel crappy about her duplex. I offered to help her get a job where I worked since she hated the job she already had; she accepted the job but told everyone I helped her get it because I wanted to assert my dominance. I started dating a guy that was cute and a former football player, and I did so because I wanted her to feel like her pudgy boyfriend wasn’t good enough. My parents invited her to the beach with us because they wanted to show off how they had more money than hers (not true, my parents just wanted me to have a friend at the beach that was two hours away, it’s not like we went on some extravagant thing). I got a ‘new’ (used) car because hers was crappy, not because my power steering stopped working and I needed to get to school. I started working out daily to make her feel like crap about her body, not because I was sick and tired of being on the sidelines with asthma-stunted lungs. I got a dog because I wanted to show that I had more time and money otherwise I would have gotten a cat like she did. I went to Disney World with her roommate because we wanted to exclude her, even though she was invited, but never asked for the time off to go.
The list just goes on and on. She can never take responsibility for herself or understand that other people are just out there living their life for THEM, not for her. I felt bad for her when I first met her, it seemed like her family was just mean to her. They weren’t, she spun everything to match her victim story. They tried to include her in things, but she would flip out. Sad thing is, her family is pretty nice and treat her way better than she treats them.”
They Gave Her A Place To Stay, And She Gave Them Nothing But Trouble
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“My best friend of ten years moved in with my husband and I while she was going through a divorce. She had no job and was living off her disabled mother and some guy she had been dating for two weeks. They paid her rent. I didn’t charge her half of what she should have been paying. She was just paying a portion of the rent, portion of the groceries, and nothing for utilities or internet because I figured she had fallen on hard times. So I wanted to give her a break and she’d pay what she could when she could. I was also just out of university, did not have a good job lined-up, and was tight on money myself.
She sat around for two months and didn’t get a job. She whined when I criticized her applications because they looked like something a sixth grader would submit. She eventually got a job, after having her mom buy her a car, even though I walked to work, and though both of the jobs she got could be walked to.
When she got a job, all of a sudden she didn’t want to pay bills. I gave her a breakdown of all the bills and what she should be paying, which was a third on everything except pet rent because the cat was ours. She told me she didn’t use the TV and didn’t want the home security, so she didn’t want to pay them. She also said I was crazy for expecting $125 to $150 a month in groceries because she ‘could live on $10 a week for groceries.’ She also said she didn’t have money for utilities because she ‘needed to make car payments,’ but she had money for Harry Potter t-shirts, nose rings, eating out every night, and going to conventions.
She also said she would have her boyfriend sit down with us to figure out how to do our finances. Her boyfriend was 30 and lived at home with his mom working a crappy job with FedEx. They were both the type that constantly posted online about how college is a scam because you can make $80,000 a year without it. But both of them worked crappy jobs, because it’s not as easy as it looks, even though they are so smart. Her boyfriend loved to brag about his IQ.
Anyway, after three months of living with us, she got a call about the divorce and started panicking. She had not filed for divorce yet, and her husband’s family said she was taking too long, so they were going to do it. I asked where she was in the process, and it turned out she had not even looked at the website for how to get a divorce in our state. She started going off about how she ‘didn’t have anywhere comfortable to land after the divorce,’ and how she’d ‘had to pull herself up and make stuff work,’ so she didn’t have time to fill out the divorce papers. She was jobless for two months, and the only chores she did were dishes, wiping down countertops, and sweeping our incredibly small kitchen.
She moved out at the end of that week and moved in with the boyfriend. Funnily enough, she still had the audacity to ask me for money before she left. Not happening.”
When Friends Become Bullies
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“I had this wonderful friend who we’ll call L. We were close enough that I had a bed at her house, my mom drove her to school, we walked home together, and had sleepovers. L had transferred to my school in sixth grade from a charter school. At the end of ninth grade, she decided she couldn’t handle the big school anymore. She was going to transfer to her old charter school and I wanted to transfer with her, but my mom wouldn’t let me. L ended up transferring to an alternative school and I didn’t try to transfer with her like I would have with the charter school. L asked me through the whole process if I thought she should go. I told her it was her choice, that if she felt she would be more successful to go for it. She asked if we would stay friends and I told her I would try my best, but the main time we hung out was at school, on the way to or from school, and during the fall because I was in plays and musicals with late rehearsals. I told her I would do my best, but we could no longer hang out daily.
This upset L, so she started to spread lies about me before leaving our school. It was mainly in our choir class. She was always blaming me for anything that went wrong in our section, even when I had laryngitis and wasn’t even singing, just following along in the music. When I informed her of that little fact, L said my voice would always be inferior to hers and challenged me to a singing competition where her new friends from her new school would be the judges. I told L, no and she called me ‘a cold, heartless person’ for not competing with her.
L started bullying me to the point other mutual friends turned against her, telling her she had chosen to leave by herself. She had been trying to get them to turn against me, but the lies she was telling people were ones that could be proven false by those who had known me more than five minutes. One mutual friend, who was usually calm, was sick of seeing me cry every day at lunch and called L, cussing her out and telling her to stop. I was pulled into the dean’s office and they said they knew I hadn’t done anything, but that I needed to be the bigger person and just stop responding because L’s mom had already called the superintendent, dean of the school and the cops.
L was told to leave me alone, and she did for a while. She has tried to become friends again. I was friends with her on Facebook for a while, but she was just as drama-filled as ever. I ended up deleting that Facebook account to make a new one instead of trying to unfriend all the toxic people I had on there. She had an app that told her the second someone unfriended her, and instead of listening to the fact I was trying to limit Facebook to just family after some personal stuff, she started cussing and trying to spread the rumor about me again. She eventually listened to one of our few mutual friends that I was going through a rough patch and had gotten rid of anyone not related to me that I hadn’t hung out with since high school. L has tried to friend me again, more than once, and I ignore it every time.”
She Just Called To Break His Heart
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“My ex-girlfriend was my best friend. I told her everything that was on my mind out of the trust I had for her.
We broke up when she had to leave to travel for work. I was ok with that; wished her the best and hoped to remain friends. A few weeks later, she called me in the middle of the night and kept me up all night, telling me that she never cared about me, but was just using me for a place to stay, my prescriptions, and to not feel alone. She also used all the insecurities and faults I confided with her to break my spirit by putting me down for all of them and calling me every insult under the sun.
I try to be friendly towards her, but she doesn’t see how her actions hurt me nor understands how I can possibly still be affected by it a few months later.
It’s not the kind of hurt you can just shrug aside and move on from in a matter of days. Instead, it’s the kind of break of trust that affects all other friendships or interests. How do I begin trusting someone after the last person I trusted completely, used that trust to hurt me in such a way?
Don’t get me wrong, I put myself out there and make attempts every day at finding something better. Just, that fear is there overshadowing everything that I do.”