Some friendships will last a lifetime; others have a considerably shorter shelf life. When a friendship becomes toxic, it's best to cut it off right away before it poisons more of your life. That's what these people had to do, and they all wish they had done it before they saw their "friend" do something so messed up to someone who didn't deserve it.
He Got Taken Advantage Of At His Most Vulnerable
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“I had a dorm party in college. One of my male friends was wasted and needed to sleep, so I let him have the spare bed. Another male friend drank too much and asked to sleep on the couch, I agreed. I woke up the next morning and found my couch friend in the spare bed, but the bed friend was gone. His shoes were still here, though. He avoided me for a few days. Finally, I ran into him on campus. I asked if everything was alright,and he told me he woke up to couch friend sucking him off. He pushed him off and stumbled back to his dorm room. He was so disturbed, he distanced himself for the rest of the school year. I felt terrible, and told him I would help him press charges if he wanted. Needless to say, I never talked to couch friend again.”
He Was Just Going To Waste Her Time To Get What He Wanted
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“I was visiting a friend in the town where he went to college. He introduced me to his girlfriend, who lived in the apartment right above him. Being the shallow 21-year-old I was at the time, my first thought, unfortunately, was, ‘Wow, she’s homely!’ My next impression of her, however, was that she was extremely friendly, funny, and smart. Great conversationalist and incredibly charming.
When she went back upstairs, I told my friend that I liked his girlfriend. He said, ‘Yeah, I wanna break up with her.’ I asked what was stopping him and he explained that they were going on a vacation to Costa Rica in a few months and that she was paying for it.
I said, ‘So you’re just going to string her along for three months to get a free vacation and then you’re going to dump her?’ He explained that he planned to dump her one month after they got back. He had it all planned out. He was going to waste between four and five months of this girl’s life, pretending to love her, just to score a free trip. It was at that point I realized he was well into his transition from ‘kinda sketchy’ to ‘total piece of poop.'”
Smokey The Cat Deserved Better Than That
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“My ex-girlfriend killed my cat after I dumped her for cheating on me. It’s been over a decade, and I’m still reeling from it. The cat’s name was Smokey, and he loved her. He was one of the sweetest cats I’ve ever met.
I’m not going to divulge how she did it. It wasn’t quick; it wasn’t gentle. I was at work at the time, and she sent me cell phone photos of the act while I hurried home to try and stop her. I didn’t make it in time. She was long gone by the time I got home, and Smokey was dead in my garage.
I filed a police report and outed her on social media. She tried to claim that I was the one that did it. In the end, nothing came of it.
She has two kids now and works a dead-end job at a restaurant. She occasionally pops up in my life and asks how I’m doing, where I work, who I’m dating, etc. I ignore her.”
They Thought It’d Be Safe For Her To Sleep It Off Upstairs
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“I was at a house party a good decade or so back and one of the girls was wasted, so a few people took her upstairs to sleep it off, made sure she was well looked after and safe and left her be.
One of my friends went upstairs to the bathroom, snuck into the room where she was sleeping, and proceeded to assault her.
When she woke up part way through and tried to stop him, he beat her unconscious and carried on. Some of us heard the commotion and ran upstairs, caught him mid-act with her bloodied and unconscious.
We grabbed him, kicked the heck out of him, took him downstairs, bound him, and called the police. The police were told he was caught assaulting a girl and fell down the stairs trying to run off. He didn’t dare state otherwise.
He got 15 years in prison and put on the offender’s register. The worst part of it all is he’d always been a decent guy, had a girlfriend and was fun to be around. This was unexpected and out of normal character for him.
We later found out he had a crush on the girl for a few years and she’d previously turned him down. No matter the reasons, there’s no excuse for what he did. The assault alone was terrible, but the state he left her in with the beating added to it messed her up for years. She was only 15 at the time and he was 17. She’s 28 now and doing better, but still has mental health issues.
It goes to show that no matter how well you know someone, some people are capable of stupid things that you could never imagine them doing.”
His Newly Divorced Friend Would Always Listen To His Tales Of Marriage Woes
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“I was married for 10 years. We had this other couple that we became friends with for about six months. They got divorced. The guy said he couldn’t deal with her anymore, and to be honest, she was and still is a pain. About two months later, some existing problems between my wife and I started coming to the surface and it was not letting up. It kept getting worse and worse, and I couldn’t understand what was happening. Usually, something would happen, we would figure it out, and move on. But this time nothing was working.
My wife suggested that we should take a break from ‘us’ for a bit and split up. I decided to go out for some much-needed drinks, and the newly divorced friend asked if he could come. We went out and he bought me drink after drink until I was close to blacking out. I could barely walk. He then asked me what all I would do to try to make things right with my wife and repair our relationship. So I told him about dates she wanted to go on, plays she wanted to see, and classes she wanted to take that we just hadn’t gotten to do yet with kids, life, and whatnot.
I soon found out that she was cheating with this friend. We started the divorce process, and next thing I know, they were going and doing all the things I told him I would do to reinforce my marriage. I had never felt so betrayed. Two months after the divorce, they were living together, a month after that they were engaged, and about two weeks ago, they got married.”
Jake Used To Be A Good Friend Until He Became An Addict
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“A friend of mine since middle school, we can call him Jake. Jake started smoking with the rest of us, but unlike the rest of us, he was instantly hooked on the mystique of that whole culture and the feeling of being out of himself.
While the rest of our friend group generally kept our stuff together and started our careers/lives, Jake got deeper and deeper into the subculture. He started doing and selling painkillers. Got arrested a couple of times and went to jail.
Last winter, Jake got into an argument with our other friend Matt in the middle of the night. They were roommates and had been up for a while. Jake was doing something strong at the time and was easily set off.
Jake stabbed Matt about a dozen times.
Matt ended up in the hospital for a couple months; a rollercoaster of getting better and getting worse until finally he contracted pneumonia and died.
Jake is doing life.
I miss them both.”
He Was Wrestling Issues Off The Mat
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“I was a wrestler in high school. I was one of the better wrestlers in the state, so the younger kids liked to talk to me. Our team had gone to a wrestling camp and there was a small freshman kid on our team. I think he wrestled the 98-pound weight class, so he was small.
As we were going up to camp, he was talkative, but coming back he was quiet. I started talking to him on the bus about it and after a while, he told me that these bigger, older kids would come into his cabin and mess with him. One of the nights, they were getting rough and he tried to leave because he was scared. They grabbed him and beat him up. Then one kid took a baseball bat and they shoved the handle up inside him. They were all laughing and scared him so bad that he didn’t want to tell anyone. Mostly, I think, because he was embarrassed. I’ve never felt so bad for someone in my life.
I told my coach, who told the police, and those kids all got charged. I was a senior that year, so I couldn’t befriend that kid any longer than that year, but I made sure he had other friends on our team. I’ve seen him a couple times since then, and he seems to be doing well.”
He Acted As If He’d Done Nothing Out Of The Ordinary At All
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“I was 18 or 19, my friend was a bit younger, probably 17. I was hanging out at his house one day and his mother told him to do something. Something pretty small like, ‘Take the dishes out of the dishwasher.’ So as she walked past him, he grabbed her hair and yanked down so hard she fell on her butt. He dragged her by her hair backward about 10 feet.
Then he looked at me like, ‘What?’ as if it was a normal thing.
I stopped hanging out with him after that and I talked to a couple other friends about it who were like, ‘Why don’t you hang out with Alex anymore?’ But they didn’t believe me. I was weirded out by it. He told all of them that I was a ‘weird guy.’
I guess not beating your single mom is weird. Oh well.”
They Were A Group Of Good Friends, Until Infidelity Tore Them Apart
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“I was close friends with a married couple during grad school. I hung out with them several times a week. One summer, the husband was away doing fieldwork in Honduras. The wife spent a ton of time hanging out with me, and her husband had no worries about anything untoward happening between us. The wife was doing her research at a giant manufacturing organization nearby and often went to after-hours work events with some of her coworkers. She was a social scientist, so spending time with factory workers and such was critical to her work. Well, turns out she was sleeping with some upper management guy and using me as her cover with her husband. She was cheating on him, using me, and lying to me about it. We were close enough friends that she could’ve talked to me about it and I would’ve understood. Worst part? This was happening while her husband was trying to escape the coup in Honduras at the time. He was being smuggled out of the country under tarps and produce in the bed of a pickup truck while his wife was busy betraying him at home.
I haven’t talked to her in years, but I’m still close with her now ex-husband.”
He Slipped Something Into His Own Friend’s Drink
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“I had a friend, Mark, who tried to pressure his friend, Josh, into taking some Adderall. When Josh refused because he had heart issues, Mark crushed up the Adderall and slipped it into Josh’s drink while he was in the bathroom. He then ‘joked’ with Josh about slipping it into the drink he’d just finished. Josh got mad and Mark told him that he was just joking and that he didn’t actually do it. Josh left after that. Then Mark admitted to me that he did slip Adderall into Josh’s drink. We’re no longer friends.”
Poor Jim Was Never Treated Fairly Or Kindly By The Teachers Or The Students
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“This is one of those memories where every time I think back on it, it makes me cringe. My class went on a trip to the Pittsburgh Natural History Museum in third grade. We had a mentally challenged boy in our class. I’ll call him ‘Jim.’
Jim talked and moved in slow motion and got a lot of crud for being mentally challenged. Even the teachers were rude to him. I remember Mr. Warden, our music teacher, screaming at the kid for not being able to keep up with the songs we would sing. This was the ’80s and times were different then.
We walked through the museum, looking at all the dinosaurs and animatronics and had a great time. It was perfect for third-grade boys.
Lunchtime came and everybody brought a packed lunch. My friend (the perp) and I were both into Ghostbusters and each had an Ecto Cooler packed in our bags.
If I remember correctly we were sitting on some circular stairs near the entrance and eating our lunch together. Jim was sitting two or three stairs in front of us. My friend grabbed his unopened Ecto Cooler and SLAMMED it into the back of Jim’s skull as though he were spiking a football. Jim recoiled and slowly put his hands over his ears, mumbling to himself.
I was in third grade, so I didn’t have the social skills to call him out for his heinous act. But I spoke up and asked him why he did that – and I remember my friend’s response verbatim: ‘It’s okay, he can’t feel anything anyway!’
I remember thinking, ‘He probably feels more than any of us.’ It hurts my heart to this day.”
They Caught Him Red Handed, But He Still Tried To Deny It
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“I was at a small party at my friend’s house with maybe 15 people. I went into his bedroom to charge my phone and walked in on one of our friends going through his dresser.
I didn’t ask him what he was doing, I just screamed for my friend to come here. This thief of a ‘friend’ tried playing it off like he was looking for ‘something.’ When we asked him what he was looking for, he said, ‘Well, what were you coming in here for?’
I just walked over to the charger, plugged my phone in, and said, ‘That’s what I was here for. What about you?’
My friend checked his dresser to make sure nothing was taken. He said he was missing a couple hundred bucks in cash he had there. The would-be-thief pulled it out of his pocket and left.”
Sam Truly Didn’t Care If Her Actions Hurt Her Friends
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“Sam and Hazel (both girls) were best friends from day one in high school. I’d been friends with Sam since middle school, and I knew she was a narcissist who believed she was the most irresistible catch. This not only led to her sleeping with a 19-year-old when she was 14 years old. Once he got married, she got into sending him pictures of her bare as a minor. Then she dropped a tip to his new wife that he had pictures of minors on his computer. The wife snooped and found it. He got dishonorably discharged from the marines and incarcerated.
That was Sam in a nutshell.
So, when Hazel decided she had a crush on Alec in our school, Sam decided she wanted Alec first. Hazel, however, got to Alec and they dated for a year. Then Sam got to Alec and he started cheating on Hazel with Sam. When Hazel found out, she ended things and told Alec to go stuff himself. Alec stayed with Sam for a few months, found out she was cheating, and eventually got Hazel back.
Hazel and Alec dated for another year before she ended things for good. Before she jumped back into the dating pool, she got herself tested. Lo and behold, she had gotten an incurable, lifelong STD. She told Alec, Alec got himself tested and found out he had it (Hazel had never had been with anyone else), and they both realized that since Alec had only been with Sam prior to Hazel, Sam had to be the origin point for theirs.
Hazel was livid and also devastated. The worst part was that Sam confirmed to me later that she knew she had it when she was dating Alec, and he had gone back to Hazel. Specifically, I told her, ‘Hazel got an STD from Alec, Sam. You need to go get tested because they think they got it from you!’
I could barely get the whole sentence out before she went, ‘Oh, I gave that to them! I know.’ And then she paused for comedic effect, went, ‘Oops!’ in a cutesy voice and laughed. She then admitted she had unprotected relations often because it ‘felt better.’
I have never been more done with a person in my life.”
That Friend Would Fly Off The Handle For Any Little Reason
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“I used to have this friend in high school. I had known him since the third grade but never became his friend until high school.
One day, we were cruising around town with a third friend in tow. It was the middle of winter and it got quite cold where we lived. We were on the outskirts of town, say five or six miles from any houses. The third friend started arguing with the first friend about something dumb, like the correct context to use the word ‘whom.’ The first friend got so irate that he slammed on the brakes, hopped out, pulled the third friend out of the car only to jump in, and start driving. I was in the passenger seat saying, ‘What the frick? Are you going to go back?’ He threatened to pull me out of the car too, so I told him to take me to my vehicle. I called up the third friend and picked him up. He had been outside in the subzero weather for half an hour by this point. I didn’t talk to the first friend for a while, but eventually, we hung out again, where the final straw occurred.
We were at first friend’s parent’s house. We would hang out in the basement, play video games, jam out (we are all musicians), etc. The third friend (who had made up with the first friend) was outside smoking when the first friend started freaking out. The third friend came back inside and immediately got punched in the face by the first friend. The first friend started accusing him of a bunch of stuff, none of which he did. He screamed at the third friend to get the eff out of the house, etc. The third friend was confused, asking what he did. The first friend grabbed a banjo and proceeded to smack the third friend over the head with it. The third friend ran out of the house with no shoes or jacket. The first friend was being a piece of poop, not letting him grab his things. I told him eff off, that I was going to grab the third friend’s things and take him home, and that he better not try and hit me with that banjo.
Since that day, I haven’t hung out with the first friend. Last I heard, he’s been arrested a few times and has a drinking problem. The majority of his friends have stopped talking to him for various reasons.”
He Was Willing To Let A Stranger Pay The Price For Something Someone Else Did
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“An ex-roommate and ex-friend of mine attempted fraud. Some years back, his sister backed into his front bumper. It caused some obvious damage to the tune of over $1,000. My roommate disregarded the damage because he could still use the car. The damage was cosmetic.
Some months later, another person backed into the same spot, felt bad and left a note with a phone number. My roommate showed me the note and was ecstatic, as ‘No additional damage was caused to the car.’ I asked him if he understood that he was going to defraud the guy and he was fully committed to sending the stranger the bill for the damage. He didn’t care.
I was bothered by this situation and I figured I had only one option. I called the number and explained to the stranger that while I wasn’t there, my roommate was confident that no additional damage was caused to his car. The stranger was thankful, and to my surprise sent me a thank you note along with a couple hundred dollars.
The kicker for me is that my roommate’s mother was a detective and encouraged my roommate to defraud this guy. Real shining example for the police force, that one.”
He Used His Disease To Get Away With His Slothful Lifestyle
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“I had a friend that had a mild case of Crohn’s disease. It was a problem that flared up when we were teenagers and he had attempted to kill himself by downing 50 Tylenol PM capsules when a girl dumped him. That event jump-started his intestinal problems (a genetic disease, mind you), but I remember going to all of the doctor visits with him (he never got his driver’s license, so I played chauffeur) and the gastrointestinal doctors kept saying that his case was 100 percent manageable with a diet change.
I let him live with me over the years as we ventured into adulthood, just being best friends. I was a nicer person back then and took care of him as best I could, not forcing him to work or contribute as I felt pity for his illness and also hey, he was my best friend, I wanted to have his back. Well, he took full advantage of that free ride for as long as he could.
He never attempted to change his diet, only sought medicine from the local ER and doctors offices so that he could continue to eat garbage like Burger King and Taco Bell without consequence for years. He would force himself into poor health states so that he would get admitted to these hospitals and could use the trips as excuses not to work. I found him several jobs and even used a connection my mother had to a local community college to get him some scholarships. He threw it all away. He became addicted to Demerol and codeine. Eventually, this led to the hospitals in our area putting him on a blacklist for substance abuse behavior. When he would get himself in this extremely poor health state, the hospitals would essentially keep him overnight and administer no pain medication, just get him rehydrated and his vitals looking good, and boot him to the curb. He had no health insurance since he did not work and did not qualify for Medicaid/Medicare since he did not have a valid reason to not be working. Essentially, he was just wasting the hospital’s resources each time he would go.
One day, he texted me a long story about how he had infiltrated these colon cancer support groups on Facebook and other websites. He was in a cancer group, a severe Crohn’s group, ulcerative colitis groups, you name it. He went into all of these groups where people who DID change their diets and followed their doctor’s instruction had severe complications that altered their lives. They took pity on whatever story he had spun them. He started a GoFundMe page that stated he needed the money to afford his medications since he had no one that would help him (total bull).
Well, he got his money, about $12,000 in donations from strangers and people in our town that didn’t know the extent of his exaggerations. He texted me a list of all of the things he had purchased when the money cleared: a PS3, a laptop, a tablet, band shirts, a television; it went on for a while. Not a single penny spent on his health. I did not talk to him again after that. Last I had heard, he was addicted to methadone and living on someone’s couch.”