When we need them the most, our closest friends are always by our sides…except when they’re not. It’s heart-breaking when you realize that the people you considered to be your best friends aren’t exactly who you thought they were.
When the truth comes out, the results can oftentimes be brutal. A few Redditors have shared their horrible friendship stories, and we’ve selected a few of the worst ones to share with you.
I had this best friend for years, and we went through a lot together. I always thought we would be best friends for life, until one day.
She told me that my husband and I would have the worst looking babies because redheaded babies are the most hideous thing she had ever seen.
My best friend and I were BFFs since high school, but during our college years, it all changed. I stopped wanting to be her friend after she informed me that she didn’t like hanging out with any other girls, except for me.
She then told me that it was because she liked being the prettiest girl in the room.
This guy was my best friend for over fifteen years. He was like a brother to me, and I always thought that he would be the best man at my wedding. But it all unravelled one night when he got drunk at one of my parties and told my cousin to kill herself.
He then tried to start a fight with multiple other people at my house, and flipped off my mom. It’s safe to say that we don’t talk anymore.
There was this girl who I’d become very close friends with, but all of a sudden, she started going crazy. Sometimes, she would break into her ex-boyfriend’s house in the middle of the night, just to watch over him as he slept. She would sometime throw bricks through their car windows.
I always knew that as soon as anything went south in our friendship, she would turn on me. When I moved away, I never even told her.
I had a close friend who went onto social media and posted this long rant about how miserable she was with the way her life had turned out. I felt for her, so I left her a message, letting her know that I was always there if she needed someone to talk to.
She responded two days later with, “I’d rather gouge my own eyes out with a spoon. Back off.” I was baffled, so I asked her if I had done something to upset her, and she replied with “No, my problems are my own, just back off.” Haven’t spoken to her since.
It ended when they nearly shot me in the head. We were teenagers, and my two friends were just about to drive me home when I saw them messing around in his dad’s room. Eventually, we get ready to head to my house. I was in the passenger seat while one was driving, my other friend sat behind me. Out of nowhere, it felt like my ears popped and there was just a loud high-pitched ringing that wouldn’t stop.
I looked up and there was a hole in the dashboard right in front of me, just an inch or two to my left. When I looked back, my friend was holding I started freaking out and they got mad, telling me to be quiet about it, because their dad would notice. Their dad mowing the lawn right next to us, but he didn’t hear anything because he had those giant headphones on. They forced me to stay calm and made me swear not to tell anyone. I was scared, so I never told anyone.
We were in middle school art class, and something funny happened, so I let out a really loud laugh. Just then, I heard my childhood best friend whisper to someone else, “Gosh, I hate trader2488’s laugh.” I quickly looked over at him, shocked as I said, “What?” He just looked down at his desk and pretended that he hadn’t heard me.
I felt so insecure about it that it made me change my laugh. It’s completely different from what it used to be.
A few years ago, my father passed away, and I was beyond heartbroken, but not long after, I experienced yet another horrible blow. It was my dad’s funeral, and not a single one of my friends pitched up. It took place an hour and a half away, so when they all made their excuses as to why they couldn’t come, I told them that I understood. I didn’t.
What surprised me was that two of my neighbors, who I hardly knew, did show up. We’re close friends now.
She stopped being my best friend when she got drunk at my son’s (her godson’s) wedding and trashed a hotel room. She called me a bunch of horrible names and even punched me in the face. Later, she passed out in the grounds of the hotel. When she came to, she was busted for trespassing because she refused to leave the premises.
A few days later, she sent me an email, blaming me for everything. She decided that me focusing on the wedding proceedings rather than on her meant that I was secretly “harboring animosity” towards her. I haven’t seen her since.
I was great friends with this guy for years, and when I introduced him to my new girlfriend, I was so glad that they got along. But I didn’t realize how much he actualy liked her.
My best friend sent a naked photo to my girlfriend. When she called him out for being a jerk, he replied with “He doesn’t have to know’!” Spoiler alert: I know.
Friend at a bar tells some people we just met how her mother passed on, later in the night I express my sympathy—now she’s without parents. She’d told me hush-hush a few years prior about how her father had passed. “Wait did I tell you back then my dad passed?
I thought I told you it was my mum! No, both my parents are still alive; when we were in university I just read in a book that telling people a parent has passed is a good way to get sympathy. Ha ha!” Freaking sociopath.
My best friend since middle school had been going through some difficult times, so my family invited him to move in with us for a little bit. He was only supposed to be there for a month or so.
Three months later, he was still there—and he refused to get a job or help around the house at all. We eventually kicked him out, and we haven’t been friends ever since.
I had a good friend who I moved in with in college. We were best friends and also worked with each other. All of a sudden, he stopped hanging out with me entirely.
He wouldn’t hang around the common areas of the house, wouldn’t talk to me at work, and wouldn’t invite me to parties that we would normally have gone to together. I found out years later that he was mad at me because he felt that I “had too much power in the house”—whatever the heck that means.
I gave this person way too many chances. First, she would only have me come over so that she could go to a concert—because her parents liked me and trusted me enough to let us go out, unlike some of her other friends. Then, she stopped talking to me for a while—until she decided to hit me up one day out of the blue, because she was applying for a job and needed to borrow some “clean urine.” We then stopped talking again for another while—until she decided to call and inform me that she desperately needed money to feed her son. I gave some to her.
She used it to buy drugs. I’ve stopped helping her now, and she’s no longer my “best friend.” I don’t hate her. I still listen when she needs to talk or is having a hard time—but I’ve set boundaries. I really hope she gets her life together.
Walked up on a bunch of people who I thought were my friends talking smack about me saying I’m a loser and all this other basic garbage. When they saw me, they fell silent and I just walked away. That really hurt but I got over it eventually.
It happens I guess. Sometimes your friends just aren’t really your friends.
I opened up to my best friend about my postpartum depression. She told me that she didn’t have time for depression and that anyone who suffered from it was merely weak in her eyes. I was never openly vulnerable in front of her, but I was practically dying on the inside.
I needed someone badly, and she essentially told me that she didn’t care. I began consciously shutting her out of my life from that moment on.
We were best friends for a couple of years, but we were in different classes. I wrote her a message one time saying that I would be right over to visit her and hang out in her classroom.
When I arrived, she had forgotten to close the chat window on her computer, and on full display was a conversation in which she and someone else were both making fun of me in the meanest ways possible. We are no longer friends, and I have had serious trouble trusting others ever since.
One year, my best friend hadn’t invited me to any birthday party, but I knew that his birthday was coming up. So, I bought him a nice present and went over to his house to drop it off as a surprise.
I arrive to find him having a birthday party with his (apparently) better friends. That was the last time we spoke.
The last straw for me with my former best friend was when she invited me over for her birthday party. She said that she just wanted to spend the day with me, but then told me that I had to leave by 2:00 for a family party. I was very close with her family and thought that it was weird that I had to leave.
It turns out she was having a bunch of other people over for an actual birthday party, and didn’t want me there. To this day I don’t understand it, but it was very hurtful and I was done with her after that.
When my “best friend” was having marital problems, I was there for him—all through his wife’s infidelity, the divorce, and the brutal custody battle. I testified on his behalf in court and helped him get custody of his kids. Fast forward two years later, when I find out that my wife has been cheating on me.
He’s not really interested in talking to me about it so much, and even acts like he’s not home when I stop by for a visit. And no, he wasn’t the one my wife was cheating with. He’s a good dad and a fun guy to hang around with, but he’s just not emotionally available to help other people out much—and that definitely affected our relationship.
When I invited my bestie to hang out with me at the nearby lake for my birthday, she said that she would get back to me. She never did. Instead, she posted on her Snapchat story about how much fun she was having with her other friends.
I stopped talking to her after that.
I knew this guy for years. He’d met my family, and I met his. We barbequed together, and we shared everything with each other.
I always through he was standout guy. He suddenly ghosted me right after I told him that I had a cancerous tumor. That is not a friend.
I have a friend who is known to be stingy. You can’t split a bill with her at a restaurant because any way you do it, it’s wrong. She bought her girlfriend a pair of sunglasses, and when she gave them to her she said, “I only got you these because they’re buy one get one free and I got one for myself.” (Don’t ask me why they’re still together.) She has a well-paying job, a car, and her parents paid for college. There is no absolutely necessary reason for her to be this way, she just is. But even then, I had no clue how much of a real piece of garbage she truly was. Eventually, I found out that, for her entire college career, she scammed her parents into both paying for her apartment so she could pocket the extra money. Her parents are divorced.
She would call her mom up and ask for that month’s rent money plus some other expenses. Then she’d call her dad and do the exact same thing. She knew they did not communicate with each other about her college expenses because she would ask when she needed money. Her parents are financially sound but not “rich” by any means, but they provide for their family. I have no respect for that friend anymore. Side story: Her mom sent her a hallmark card for Halloween with a nice note, and her exact words after reading it were, “I’m going to have to call her, there’s no money in this card.”
We graduated from high school and she went away to college halfway across the world. Whenever she came back to visit, she always claimed to be busy when I tried to hang out with her. I later saw tons of pictures posted on Facebook of her and other girls having fun together while she was in town.
So I guess that’s what she was so busy with. I left her alone after that.
One year I had a sleepover party with a bunch of childhood friends from the neighborhood as a teen. It was really fun and I invited 15 or so kids. I had to convince my parents and spent a ton of money to make it perfect for everyone. We went swimming in the pool, played dodgeball, kickball, had tons of food, had a Nerf gun war, played pool, played video games, and watched movies. It was a blast and everyone was clearly enjoying themselves. Then they tried to watch a horror movie that my parents would kill me if I saw, and I objected for a while before reluctantly putting it on. I hated horror movies, too, but I wanted them to have fun. It was like one in the morning. They got bored during the movie and asked if we could all go to the community clubhouse to meet up with some girls in the middle of the night.
I said that my parents would never let it happen and that I didn’t want to get caught, so I told them we couldn’t go. After that, about five of them left at like 3 AM to go without me. They said they’d be “right back” and that “one of them needed their medicine so they went to get it.” Within the hour, everyone was gone except me. I was crushed, and too embarrassed to tell my parents, so I finally put on the movie I wanted to watch before going to sleep. In the morning, it got even worse. My parents were furious because over a dozen kids that they had promised their parents would be at their house had disappeared without a trace. Sad and tired me had to call all of them to figure out where they were and let all of their parents know that they didn’t spend the night. Even though my parents made me do it, a lot of them got mad at me for that. The worst part by far was figuring out that they had all went to a different kid’s house to spend the night after leaving mine.
I was acquaintances with a guy who developed feelings for me. I told him from the beginning that I didn’t feel the same and everything seemed fine until he told me that he liked to cut out body parts of women from magazines and put them together into what he figured I looked like naked and would talk to it at night as if he was having a conversation with me. He actually told me this as if I was going to be flattered or impressed.
I immediately got right out of that friendship.
He was the best man at my wedding. Then we both got busy for a while and didn’t have much contact for a few years. Nevertheless, I still considered him my best friend.
I heard about his wedding well after the fact. I guess we’re not best friends anymore…
When my girlfriend, who had become part of the group, started cheating on me with a friend from the group, everyone just said they “didn’t want to choose sides.” Yeah, I don’t want to choose any of you either.
I found out that my best friend was uploading my artwork to a “bad art blog.” I was only 15 at the time and, even though it’s been many years since, I’m still deeply affected by it on an emotional level. If you don’t like someone, don’t pretend to like them and then make fun of them behind their backs. Just let them know you feel and distance yourself.
Yeah, that will hurt in the short term, but it won’t monumentally screw over someone’s entire psyche the way being fake will. To protect the privacy of those depicted, some names, locations, and identifying characteristics have been changed and are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblances to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.