Stop the friendship bracelets, it turns out these so-called friends are some of the worst people imaginable. The people in these stories were forced to deal with such shallow people at what might be the worst times imaginable. Content has been edited for clarity.
The Worst Time For Rejection
“I had twelve hours before I deployed to Afghanistan. I lived about six hours from my point of departure (the airport from which I would fly into theater), and my friend/ex-girlfriend had committed to driving me there on that day. After I was all packed up, dressed, and had said my goodbyes, I took an Uber to her house, bringing all of my gear and baggage along with me. I knock on the door and she answers in her robe. I ask her if she was about ready, and she proceeds to tell me that she forgot, after we had talked about it only two days prior. Apparently, she really wasn’t feeling like driving that distance.
Utterly shocked and confused, I explain to her that if I miss my flight, it’s considered a ‘failure to report for duty’, and I could be considered a deserter or even AWOL. There were heavy consequences for it either way. She told me to figure it out and closed the door. At that point, I had no idea what to do, so I called my first sergeant. We worked in a very remote location, and he was the closest person to me at that point. That man drove the three hours from his home to get me, and then the other six hours to the airport. He even bought me dinner and got me tipsy before I had to get on my flight. I had the stunning realization that day that you really can’t trust anyone, but I gained a lifelong friend as a result. I still talk regularly with that first sergeant to this day!”
The Biggest Betrayal
“It happened on my tenth birthday. I was all set to have a big group for this party. There were going to be around thirty kids at the park with t-ball set up and some fun picnic stuff. My best friend at the time said he had a surprise for me in one of the fenced walkways leading to the park. That was where he sucker punched me. He also (along with his other friend) jumped on me and kicked me all over. After a few minutes another kid from the party saw, ran them off, and took me back to my mom away from the other kids, so I didn’t have to be too embarrassed. It was so long ago and kind of normal for a shy poor kid with a weird last name in a very rich area, honestly.
My friend at the time was the kind of guy to spray paint caterpillars to watch them die, shoot pellets at stray cats, and stuff rocks inside snowballs, only to then laugh at someone getting hurt. No, he didn’t get in trouble, because no one else saw what happened, and I never said who did it, even if my mom knew. His mom tried almost everything to make him behave: he was just that bad. The upside is he regretted doing that to me for years afterwards, and when he finally apologized to me, he was a totally different person and has been since. He is still a little atypical, but not malicious at all. He told me why he hit me was because the other kid wanted to be his new best friend, and he was angry at me for criticizing him about how cruel he could be. I had, however timidly, told him so before.
The other kid, ‘Steve’, hated me for being poor basically, and he pushed my friend to hate me too. It being my birthday didn’t matter, because I really wasn’t friends with anyone. I was really trying to make some new friends for the first time (which might have set Steve off, come to think), and there were loads of families in the area, so it was really a case of throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. The boy who stepped in and I didn’t really know each other, he was the guy everyone else was afraid of because he was pretty big. I’m fortunate enough that this became a last straw for what I would put up with. I know that doesn’t happen for everybody who has to deal with being bullied quite so hard.”
Caught In A Web of Lies
“It turns out that he lied about every single thing. We were friends for over a year, but it felt like we had known each other forever. He would always make it a point to let me know that he trusted me, and that I was the ‘only’ person he had. He would tell me that ‘everyone’ leaves him, and that ‘he always hurts people’. My response to all of this was to make sure that I would never leave his texts unanswered, and to promise to be there for him no matter what. One day, out of the blue, he tells me he that our friendship is over. I remember feeling like my heart was shattered. I cried for weeks, trying to figure out what I had done wrong. Our mutual friends assured me that he must have a very good reason for doing this, and he would be back to being my friend soon. So I began waiting, constantly worried about him. He told all our mutual fiends what was wrong, except me, and he instructed them not to let me know. Finally, my best friend calls me one day and tells me that he’s lied to every single person he knows, and nothing we thought we knew about him was true at all.
Turns out that he told everyone that he’d been diagnosed with cancer and had to take time away from everyone. During our friendship, he opened up to me about his extremely abusive household, and most of our friendship was me letting him know that he deserved better, and I would do anything to help him out of there. None of what he said was true. The truth came out because one of my friends caved and called his sister to find out how he was doing. She was confused because he was absolutely healthy, and when asked about their parents’ separation, she confirmed that their parents were indeed together, and were never at risk of divorce.”
“That Was The Worst Day Of My Life”
My friend and roommate ditched me after she agreed to be my chaperone for my surgery. In college, I was in a hit and run car accident and needed surgery on my skull. My parents couldn’t afford to fly out to be with me. When I shared this with my friend, she insisted that she would take care of me that day, and I wouldn’t have to worry about anything. I did not ask her. She volunteered. When my other friend said he was going to figure out how to get off work that day, I told him not to worry about it, because my friend already had me covered. It was the evening before the surgery, and I was incredibly nervous. It was the first time I was having a big medical procedure done without my family present. My friend wasn’t around. So I texted her, asking where she was. She said she was going to sleep at her boyfriend’s house that night. The nature of the surgery meant that I wouldn’t know the exact time of the procedure until 5 a.m. the next morning. I told her it might cut things close if she’s not with me. She said it would be fine and stopped answering my texts the rest of the night. I sat there alone and afraid the night before my surgery.
The next morning, at 5 a.m., I get the call that I need to be at the hospital in forty-five minutes and in the operating room by 6:30 a.m. I call my friend, but she doesn’t answer. I text her that I’m taking a cab, and we will swing by to pick her up at her boyfriend’s place. No answer. Now I’m worried. I need someone there with me, or else I won’t be allowed to leave the hospital. I run out of time waiting for her reply, so I rush to the hospital and check in. The nurse asks where my chaperone is. I lie to her, saying she’s in the bathroom, so they let me into the changing room. At this point, I’m desperately texting everyone I know, begging them to come to the hospital to pick up, but nobody replied. Finally, I have to put my phone in the plastic bag and lie on the bed. I get the shot and go under general anesthesia. About six hours later, I wake up to the same nurse I had lied to earlier. She is angry, because there is nobody here to pick me up. I describe my friend to her, and the nurse goes out to look for her. Then I had to get dressed by myself. After that ordeal, I still stay for another hour alone, just coming off general anesthesia. Finally, my friend arrived with her boyfriend.
Apparently, she got to the hospital about two hours after I was put to sleep. She got bored and started walking around, totally losing track of time and getting lost. She found me fully dressed when she finally made it back to where I was. We checked out of the hospital and I bought us a cab back to our house. When we got back to our house, my friend and her boyfriend sat with me for about twenty minutes before leaving me alone again and going back to the boyfriend’s house. They didn’t have any plans or anything. They just wanted their privacy I guess. That was the worst day of my life.”
Double Crossing Ran In The Family
“We were friends since we were babies, because our moms worked at the same place. My mom saw him as her own child, and he frequently stayed at our house after school because his mom was kind of absent. His family moved out of the state, but we kind of kept in touch. He came back while we were on our twenties, right as my mom was going to remodel the house. He insisted on helping us, since he was working for a construction company. Long story short, he said he needed some money from us for the construction permits. In hindsight, it wasn’t even that much, but he took the money and we never saw him again. He even blocked me on social media. We later found out that the permit costs were a fraction of the money he took. The biggest pain in my heart was watching my mom crying, disappointed that her ‘own son’ would do that to her. So forget him.
We were never sure about his motive in the first place, but we wondered if it was fueled by an addiction. Years later, his sweet grandma ended up going to jail because she and another woman defrauded hundreds of their colleagues. Maybe stealing was in his family’s genes? The contact we had with his family was already minimal, and then the grandma fraud happened, and they all kind of disappeared from public life. My mom and I saw the grandma (yes, she’s free now, that old thief) and said hello, but she didn’t mention anything about her grandson. Honestly, I hope he doesn’t come back. Knowing my mom, she’ll just forgive and give him money again. The whole thing leaves a scar that goes beyond the money. Feeling used is so awful.”
How To Stop The Party Immediately
“My first roommate was one of my best friends from high school. Aside from being a poor communicator who would leave her phone at home and then disappear with her boyfriend, she was actually a great roommate. She went through a rough patch at work where she was basically working over sixty hour work weeks, dealing with customer service issues for a store credit card. She was miserable. When she got a week off after working, she wanted to throw a party in our house to relax. She promised to host, clean, and handle it all. I was 19, not being expected to do anything, and I wanted to go to a party. So heck yeah! Everything with the party was a blast until towards the end, where people started asking me to help out. I was totally wasted and told them to ask my friend who put it all together. That was when I found out that my friend had been getting hot and heavy with her boyfriend, but two of our wasted mutual friends were sleeping in her bed already. The two lovebirds directed partygoers to me for anything, and they left to go to my friend’s boyfriend’s place for the night, DURING HER PARTY. She left her phone, and he didn’t answer his.
The following night, when she didn’t come back, I cleaned everything up with a few members of our friend group, who also couldn’t believe she had done this. She wasn’t wasted or on anything, and she had specifically encouraged me to drink and have fun, saying she wanted to enjoy the hosting experience. She said that it relaxed her more than drinking would to see me and our other friends having fun, and then she bailed and left me with a ton of leftover food and piles of trash and dirty dishes in the sink. It took five hours for five people to clean everything up! And we were actually good cleaners! She came back two days afterwards, while I was at work. She apparently was hungry and just put full pizza boxes in the oven and nearly started a small fire. My dada had to come by and take them out to save the apartment! The day after that, I finally managed to confront her about it. She was so upset over this confrontation that she packed everything and moved out. Just like that. She ended up cutting all of our friends off, and we realized she had some other things going on in the background that were extra shady. But yeah, whew!”
Caught Red-Handed
“He stole my Christmas and birthday present. I had him and my other friends over a bunch because my family went on vacation without me (I was only about 16-17 at the time), and I was home alone. I woke up one morning to grab the gift card that was supposed to be my big present, and I found out it was gone. I knew every single person who was over and treated them all like they were my brothers. I called up the Best Buy to see if someone used the gift card and found out that it had indeed been used already to buy a car stereo head unit. I got the specific model of the stereo. Then I called up my one friend’s girlfriend and asked her if he had bought anything at Best Buy lately. She said he had. I asked if he had used a gift card. She said he had. I asked if he had bought a head unit of that specific model. She said he had.
Me and my other friends then got in our cars and drove over to his house. Looking into his vehicle, we saw the brand new head set installed in his car. I really wanted to trash his entire car right then and there. That guy didn’t understand why I didn’t want to talk to him ever again. I mostly hate my birthday and Christmas now because of that. Also both of my grandpas were diagnosed with cancer on my twenty-first birthday, so that didn’t help either.”
That Was The Last Straw
“I gave her a birthday present, and she just said to me that she didn’t like it. I actually found it in her thrash when I visited her afterwards. She would always be late to everything. She got tickets to an Incubus concert and a meet and greet. It wasn’t in our city, so I saved all of my money to be able to afford the trip. A week before, she texted me saying she was going to Disneyland instead, so she sold the tickets. I painted a whole big beautiful mural in her room, and two months later she just painted over it with purple, because apparently she got bored.
She invited me for coffee, and I got really excited, because I hadn’t seen her for a while at that point and had a lot going on. I was almost homeless at the time, so I took the little money I had to pay for my coffee. I got there, only to realize it was a MLM recruitment session with six other people. They were all just as disappointed as me. That was the very last time that I saw her. I don’t know why I thought that one time would be different based on what she had shown me before. Believe it or not, this friend’s parents were just like her. They would never commit to any event and were always late. My parents didn’t like them either, so that was a weird parallel. On the bright side, my best friend now is an amazing girl who I consider family. We have both done so much for each other. There really are some quality people out there waiting for you!”
The Day I Gave Up
“He ghosted me after over twenty years of friendship. He was my best friend for as long as I can remember, but at some point he just stopped saying yes when I suggested getting together. We could have a conversation about anything, but the second I brought up doing something, it was total radio silence. He finally agreed to something, then blew me off like an hour beforehand. No raincheck or suggestion that we try again. I was depressed for days, but that was the day I just gave up. I don’t know why he was so reluctant to meet up. I asked on more than one occasion if there was something wrong or something I did, but the answer was always, nope, everything’s fine. We knew each other well enough that I hope he’d be able to tell me if something was actually wrong. It would have hurt, but less than it did this way.
I did ask him if I had done anything, on several occasions. It was always met with some variation of, ‘Everything’s fine. You didn’t do anything to upset me.’ The list time I asked, I prefaced it with, ‘Listen, I feel like there’s a reason we don’t get together anymore. Have I said or done anything that I can address or apologize for?’
He was the best man at my wedding. I loved him like a brother and still hope he’s doing well and happy. But the rejection hurts so much that I just don’t try anymore. I’ve mourned the death of our relationship and am done with it. And I still don’t know why. Even after I gave up on ever having a close friendship, I still wish him a happy birthday, happy anniversary, and send holiday cards. I truly wish him a happy life even if I’m not in it.
No Way To Excuse Their Behavior
“My (at the time) best friend made the worst possible first impression on my (at the time) new girlfriend, who is now my wife all these years later. We all went out to dinner, and my girlfriend is shy and quiet while my friends are loud and rowdy. My friend’s cousin kept messing with her and being obnoxious, despite her very much telling him to stop. At one point, he made inappropriate comments about her chest, and it got to the point where she ended up crying and walking out of the restaurant. I followed her outside, but then my friend (who had been in the bathroom during this) called me to ask what had just happened. I told him how his cousin had been acting, and he replied that it was my girlfriend’s fault. Apparently they had been trying to get her to talk more, but she was ‘giving them the cold shoulder’ and wasn’t welcome to their outings anymore. He went on to apologize much later, but he was having problems with addiction, and we drifted our separate ways before long.
It was an awkward situation I wasn’t expecting, as they hadn’t acted that way around any of my previous girlfriends before. When I noticed she was getting annoyed, I asked her to come sit next to me, but she doesn’t like attention drawn to her and stayed where she was. Then I told that awful cousin to leave her alone, but his smarmy response was to lean in uncomfortably closer to her, and that’s when she left crying. My first response was to follow her out to consolidate her, but I called that cousin some very rude names on my way out. That cousin later tried to apologize also and blamed it on being wasted, but I just yelled at him again. Not only was that so-called best friend nasty, his family was too!”
Three Confused Victims And A Baby
“I was just trying to be a decent friend and help babysit, since I knew my friend and her husband were having a tough time. I agreed to watch my friend’s baby for about six hours, just long enough to let my friend chill. Or so I thought. I pick up the baby and get the car seat in after half an hour of struggling with it. Only then did I realize my friend hadn’t given me a diaper bag. That was the first red flag. By that point, my friend was already gone, which was another red flag. So I called my mom for help. She was livid, but we were the only people that could take care of the baby now. Neither my friend nor her parents were answering the phone. It was up to me to rush over to the store and buy my own baby supplies. That was the third red flag.
It was fairly smooth at first. I had no idea how to care for a baby like this, and my mom had to teach me a lot on the spot. She was so mad at me for agreeing to do this. After the original agreed upon time had passed, I didn’t hear back from my friend. My mom yelled at me about that too. It was almost 10 p.m. by now, and no one was answering my calls! I still have this baby, and the only thing I can really do is to take care of it and desperately try to call these people. I’m still calling at midnight and no answer. One of our other friends knows my friend’s grandmother, so they agree to call her. The grandma was so upset to be woken up like this, but she was unable to get her granddaughter to answer. The grandma also lived two hours away, and it would have been really difficult to get her grandchild and one in the morning. I was stuck with this baby the entire night.
The next morning at 11 a.m., the grandma and my friend’s mom show up to help with the baby, both insanely upset and taking it out on me. They wanted to know where my friend was, why I have this kid, and how I even know this friend. They were yelling so loudly in my front yard. I don’t know where my friend is! She totally abandoned me with her infant at 3 p.m. the day before, that was all I knew. They finally take back the baby and all of the supplies I bought for it. My friend reappeared the next week, but she desperately tried to avoid me for the next solid year. I am convinced that I would have been stuck with that baby for an entire week unless someone was able to contact that friend’s grandma. I’m also convinced that memory is what drove me to avoid ever having a baby of my own. It was such a massive disaster.”