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Here are 34 toxic friendships that went from ride-or-die to absolutely not in the blink of an eye.
1. "We were completely inseparable throughout middle and high school and had always planned to stay together through college. She didn't get into my choice schools, so, being an extremely dumb and anxious teenager, I foolishly agreed to attend a second-rate school with her instead so I wouldn't be alone. Shortly before the start of our freshman year of college, she informed me that she was no longer going to school with me and was instead moving to NYC to live with a guy she had met on the internet. She'd known this for months but neglected to tell me until it was too late to do anything about it."
2. "I was best friends with someone for 12 years, and we did everything together. Well, everything that she wanted. It was always about her and her schedule, and she never compromised for me. I went to every event she had, even her parents' anniversary dinner. One year, my mother had just passed away, and I was home alone. I asked her to come over, and she said she was going to a friend's house to party because she had broken up with her boyfriend. We haven't spoken to each other in probably two years, and I've never been happier."
- oskatuna
3. "I tried to help her with her drug addiction, and she cut me off. It's been six years since I last talked to her, and I just found out that she died. I've known her since I was 16, and I'm 54 now. It was very hard to watch her change from a sweet girl into a completely different person."
4. "My best friend since sixth grade and I were planning to go to college together. I only applied to the one school she applied to, and we were both accepted. In May, before graduation in June, she started dinking around, skipping classes, and ditching me. We graduated, and she started hanging out with a bunch of sophomores from our high school marching band. She crashed her car while driving around like a maniac and blamed me because I wasn't there to be her conscience. We were supposed to be roommates at college in September, but she didn't speak to me the entire summer. It was super awkward moving into the dorm together, especially since she invited those sophomores to help her move in and hang out."
"Then she spent our entire first semester barely on campus. She ended up dropping out after that semester, and I've only talked to her a handful of times since. That was 13 years ago now."
5. "Best friend since kindergarten. First friend I made in my new town. Freshman year of college, I was home for break, and he was over at my house with another friend. I went upstairs to talk with my parents and left them downstairs in the den. When I came back, I couldn't find my phone, so I checked upstairs again. When I finally gave up and came back downstairs, I noticed it poking out from under the couch. Sweet. They left pretty soon after, and shortly after that, I got a text from my college friend, who has the same name as the other friend who was over, saying, “Hey, uh, your gf is pretty, but I'm not sure why you sent me a bunch of nude pics of her. I'm gonna go ahead and assume it was by accident and delete them.”"
"Turns out my “friend” took my phone, found my gf's nudes, sent them to themselves (or tried to—they picked someone else with the same name), deleted the outgoing message, hid my phone, let me look for it, then planted it where it could be found.
The only reason I ever found out is because my very gay friend from college was open enough to message me about it. I never talked to those other two again. I feel a primal rage whenever I think about the kind of pathology it takes to do something like that. They're not my people."
6. "Two of them at the same time, actually. I'd known both of them since early grade school. They came over to my place, and then I drove us downtown. We were bar-hopping but ended up at a show. None of us were messed up yet, so I asked, “Hey, can one of you guys drive? I wanna take this Molly, but I'm not going to if you can't drive.” My buddy grabbed my keys and assured me he'd be fine to drive, so I dove in. Unfortunately, I had a bad reaction and got sick, so we left. Once we got to my car, I laid down and blacked out. The next thing I knew, one of my other friends who'd been at the show was knocking on my window. Turns out, the two of them got too drunk, took an Uber back to my place, and got their cars. Instead of taking me home, they left me blacked out in the back of my car in the middle of downtown."
"They literally took an Uber home and left me there. I haven't spoken to either of them since, and I probably never will again."
7. "She couldn't stop smack-talking me to everyone. She had incredibly low self-esteem, and when I met her, so did I. But with every step I took toward becoming more confident in myself, she saw it as a threat. I started working out and losing weight? She told everyone I was trying to look better than her. Eventually, that turned into, “She stopped going to the gym and just did coke to stay thin.” I started seeing this guy who was really sweet and nice to me, and she said I was only seeing him to show her what a jerk her boyfriend was. I was getting a dog after moving out of our apartment, and she said I was doing it to taunt her because her new place didn't allow dogs and mine did. My parents rented a place at the beach, and I invited her along and told her they'd cover the expenses because my parents remembered being poor college students and wanted us to have good meals and fun."
"She went, but later said I had invited her because I wanted to show off my family's wealth.
She reveled in being a frenemy, and I thought I had a friend. I distanced myself, and she went nuclear. I had friends send me screenshots of the insane messages she was sending them about me, completely unprovoked. We haven't been on speaking terms in almost a decade."
8. "I got ill, had regular doctor's appointments, and didn't have the energy to do many activities. They just stopped talking to me and blanked me whenever they saw me. I did try to reach out to my friends both at the time and later on, but unfortunately, I was just blanked and ignored. If I saw them on the street or around college, they'd just look straight through me."
9. "They stopped putting in the effort to hang out. I was always the one trying to get together, and they would blow me off almost every time. Finally, I stopped trying, and now we don't talk at all!"
10. "After several years, I finally realized that I always felt awful about myself after leaving his and his family's presence. Our mutual friends even had a saying: “It's not a trip to XXXX's house until you get criticized.” It could be anything, from the clothes you were wearing to how dirty your car was. Just a barrage of shit. The final straw was when I was dating my now-wife. We went to hang out at his house, and he immediately pounced on my appearance. I'd been wearing a hard hat all day, so my hair looked a little funky. Then he handed me a bag of aluminum cans to recycle “and put toward my house fund” because I was in deep saving mode. Fortunately, my wife was a good sport, but I finally realized what the hell this guy was trying to accomplish: embarrassing me in front of someone I was interested in for absolutely no reason. I walked out after that and never looked back. Cut him out completely."
11. "My best friend of 11–12 years slept with my girlfriend of six years. Now they live together with my old dog. Hurts, man."
12. "Religion. We'd been friends since we were 11, and he was the main reason I even considered joining the Mormon Church. I waited until I was 18 because my parents didn't approve. He and I remained best friends until we were around 30, despite him moving around the country for school and work. But then I became disillusioned with the Mormon Church, and I started feeling uncomfortable even just hanging out with him because his life is so saturated in the church. You know (or maybe you don't), conversations about callings, high priest councils, how the Adversary is making the world go to pot, and the blessings in his life. I don't have the heart to be honest with him because it's fairly common for people who are deeply involved in the church to ostracize those who no longer believe, even if they're friends or family. So, I keep it to myself and don't talk to him."
13. "She changed completely our senior year of high school. We were practically the exact same person, loved the same things, and got along like sisters. Then she started preparing for her freshman year of college at a Southern school and completely overhauled her life to look “perfect” for the sororities. She started partying, only hanging out with the “cool kids,” refusing to let me tag her in photos, and becoming really focused on her appearance—not just physically, but on how her entire life looked to an outsider. It was like she was living her life as an Instagram model. Everything had to look perfectly perfect. We just gradually faded out and stopped talking because I didn't fit into her new life."
- notplop
14. "Knowing that he emotionally abuses the absolute hell out of every girl he dates. He started dating the sister of the girl I was seeing. It all started out fine, but then they were constantly fighting, with him gaslighting the shit out of her over things like “going through his phone” when she confronted him about trying (and failing) to cheat on her. This is only the tip of the iceberg, by the way. He doesn't work, and she pays all his bills. He gets mad at her if she doesn't cook his food or clean his apartment. He just sits at home and does nothing while she does everything, and he still treats her like shit. After I saw how he was treating her, all his stories about how all his exes were “psycho” started to fall apart, and everything started making more sense."
15. "Alcoholism, drugs, robbing his family blind, trying to rob me—and even though he had $800 of my cash stuffed down his pants, along with two gold chains sticking out of his pocket and a gold-and-diamond ring, he still denied it. I beat the crap out of him, took my stuff back, and brought him to his house so his parents could deal with him. They tried shipping him off to the Army, but he failed the drug test. He wound up moving to another state and becoming an alcoholic bartender."
16. "I moved in with one of my best friends at the time. We'd lived together in college, and about a year after graduation, we had the opportunity to get a really cheap apartment. I moved in with her and her boyfriend, and it very quickly became apparent that she was going to treat the place like her Barbie dreamhouse. She complained about anything I brought into the space as “going against her vision” and tried to get me to contribute to the expensive furniture she wanted to buy. You could never say anything negative around her without her going on about “negative energy.” She was constantly complaining about everything and reminding everyone how many hours she worked and how no one worked as hard as her. I tried to ignore it and play Good-Time Charlie."
"Then she joined an MLM. It was one of those health-and-wellness product lines, and she pushed it down EVERYONE'S throats. Hard sell, 24/7. She even forced her boyfriend to sign up. She started taking over the living room as her “workspace,” meaning the TV and radio had to be off and no one could talk while she listened to conference calls about the wonders of this scam company.
As we got close to the end of the lease, she started talking about renewing. Then, about three weeks before it was time, she decided she was bored with her boyfriend or something and just disappeared. She stopped talking to both of us and started taking “mental health days” from work to do drugs and go around the city with another friend who was putting her up because she didn't want to be around us. She also left her two cats with us to take care of.
She eventually came back because she had to return to work. She acted like a total martyr, saying no one could complain because “it's hard for everyone, okay?” She acted like everything was just happening to her, rather than acknowledging that she'd caused most of it herself.
She went back to doing her own thing until it was time to divide everything up and move out. She sent me a message asking if we could still be friends, and I sent her a bullet-pointed list of all the reasons I couldn't do that."
17. "He essentially chose his girlfriend of four months over me, his best friend of about eight years. The last thing I said to him was, “I hope she's worth it.” About three months later, I woke up to a voicemail from him. He sounded very drunk, and the only thing he said was, “She wasn't worth it.” Then he hung up."
18. "He ghosted me after 15 years of friendship. One day, I went to his house to ask if everything was okay and if he was going through something. He told me everything was fine and that he was just busy. As I was leaving, I told him, “Text me.” He smiled and went back inside. That was the last thing I ever said to him. I haven't seen him in over three years."
19. "She blames me for her abortion because I was the only pro-choice friend who supported her decision. She claims I made it easier for her to go through with it and says that every time she looks at me, I remind her of what she did. So, I just don't talk to her anymore."
20. "One of my best friends from high school did this. We'd make plans, and she'd text me maybe an hour beforehand saying that something had come up. On the rare occasions when she did show up, she'd be one or two hours late. She would ask me to sew her daughter a dress or invite me to her daughter's birthday party, and that would be the only time I'd see her. The last straw was when she bailed on our mutual friend's wedding for honestly no reason, with about a week's notice. Our mutual friend was really hurt. Sometimes I hang out with other mutual friends, and if they invite her, that's fine, but she usually flakes on them too. Plus, she's changed a lot and has become a very negative person. She mostly just leaves weird comments on my Facebook, like “Where was this?” but never comments anything nice on life events or anything. I know she probably needs to see a therapist, but honestly, I still don't want to be treated so poorly."
21. "I came out as a lesbian in my early 20s, and my BFF, whom I'd known since kindergarten, didn't take it well. She stopped talking to me, and eventually, I gave up trying to reach out to her. It broke my heart because we'd been close for so long, but I was okay with her going her own way if she couldn't support me for being myself."
22. "My best friend during middle school abandoned me once we entered high school. Even though we came from wildly different backgrounds (she was from an affluent Jewish household, while I was from a lower-middle-class Vietnamese household), we had been inseparable throughout middle school. When high school rolled around, she'd spent the summer hanging out with a new crowd. She eventually told me I was too boring and that she wanted me out of her life. The pain and confusion of being abandoned left me in a bad place during my first few years of high school, but I eventually came into my own and realized with confidence that I wasn't a boring person. Fuck you, Michelle."
23. "We grew up together just two houses apart, but then I moved. We went to the same school, although we had different friend groups. It was just really hard to hang out with her because she was so emotionally negative and took things to the next level. For example, when I told her I had lost my virginity, she immediately called me a whore, and she was completely serious about it. It felt really weird after that, so I just stopped telling her things. Eventually, we completely disappeared from each other's lives. The last time I tried to reconnect was a few years ago, when I went to her house to trick-or-treat (this used to be OUR thing), and her mom came to the door and explained that she was sick and couldn't come to the door."
24. "I had a friend I always hung out with in high school. We were absolute best friends and did everything together. After high school, I attended the local college while he went into the workforce. He started spending more and more time at a local gaming place called Fragz. Almost any time he wasn't working or, on the rare occasion, hanging out with friends other than his fellow gamers, he was there playing an MMO. I can't remember which one, but it was really popular at the time. There had been a few occasions when he blew off spending time with me, but no big deal. I understood that he had his own things he wanted to do, even if I wasn't really into them. However, there were a few other times when we made plans with friends, and he just... forgot."
"One day, I got tickets to see a comedian we both liked who was performing locally. I had just two tickets, so it was just me and him. We made plans to see the performance, and I went to pick him up at his place about an hour before the show. I got to his house, and his family hadn't seen him. His sister said, of course, “He's probably at Fragz.” I headed there, and sure enough, he was there, but he'd gone to grab food with other people and had no plans whatsoever to meet up with me. I got so mad in that moment that he would just blow me off like that.
I guess everything just kind of blew up at that point, and his behavior made me switch off. I went to see the comedian by myself and sat alone, which wasn't much fun. Those are the kinds of experiences you want to share with someone, you know? He never even tried to get in touch with me until about three days later, when he called my house. I told my parents to tell him I wasn't home, and I never spoke to him again. That was about... 18 years ago now."
- kertrats
25. "A few years ago, I saw one of those Tumblr posts that went something like, “Don't cross an ocean for someone who won't cross a puddle for you,” or something along the lines of reevaluating friendships if you're always the one reaching out. So I stopped being the first one to message her, and immediately, our communication dropped off. When she did message me, it was always to ask me to drive over an hour to pick her up and then drive another hour to take her somewhere so she wouldn't have to use the bus. She never repaid me with food or gas, even when I asked, so I made myself less available. Most of the time, I was genuinely busy trying to manage two jobs. As soon as I stopped being her free taxi, she no longer had a use for me. The last time she reached out was two years later, when she wanted me to donate money so she could buy a tablet."
- IAmBabs
26. "She strung me along as her third wheel when she needed me, then basically dumped me too when she broke up with her boyfriend and made an entirely new group of friends. It was lovely. Still hurts."
27. "I broke off all contact with my best friend of 22 years after I fell into a pretty severe depression, and she showed no sign of caring. I mean, I didn't expect her to nurture the devil inside me, but she expected me to function just as I had before I got sick. Whenever I dared to say something was too much for me to handle, she'd get really offended. After unsuccessfully trying several times to explain what was going on, I finally had to give up because every time we met, I'd feel physically ill. The weird thing is that I don't miss her at all. I'm actually glad she's no longer part of my life."
28. "We'd been best friends for years when I started dating a guy, and she was horrible about him. She said he wasn't good-looking and didn't want him coming on nights out with us. I really liked him, and her behavior made me see her completely differently. Seven years later, I still haven't spoken to her, and I'm still with the same guy. We have a son together and are getting married soon."
29. "Every single time we had the slightest issue, she refused to explain what was wrong, despite continuously bringing it up whenever she got the chance. It was always “Let's drop it” or “Knock it off,” even when I tried my best to reach out. Eventually, I had too much going on in my own life to keep guessing what was wrong at the expense of my sanity. The last time she told me to “let it go,” I simply responded, “OK, then,” and that was it. I'm not a fucking mind reader, Ginger. Get your crap together."
30. "I asked him to be the best man at my wedding, but he didn't show up."
31. "She went crazy after she got engaged. She chose a girl she'd known for a shorter period of time to be her maid of honor because that girl was also engaged. They took “wedding ring selfies,” and it seemed like their only defining characteristic was that they were both engaged."
- jlk2893
32. "She decided she'd rather date my brother than be friends with me. I never gave her an ultimatum; she just chose to end our friendship. They've been together for eight years and are now engaged. Holidays are suuuuper awkward."
33. "In middle school, I was so unpopular that people picked on him for being friends with me, so he started bullying me harder than anyone else to prove we weren't friends and make himself look cool."
34. "We met because her husband and I were childhood friends. Eventually, my husband, our kids, her husband, and she and I all became best friends. We hung out twice a week. After a couple of years, my husband and she got too close and slept together. She left her husband, while my husband and I reconciled. She and I somewhat reconciled, and her husband and I remained good friends. As time passed, my marriage ended, too. Her ex-husband (my childhood friend) and I ended up spending a lot of time together, and she freaked out. She forbade him from hanging out with me because she was convinced we were seeking some kind of revenge. She and I no longer speak."
- rbr879
I've never had a falling-out with my best friend, but even I can feel the hurt through these stories. If you've ever had a friendship end in a way you never saw coming, tell us what happened in the comments!
Text has been edited for length and clarity.
English (US) 