Most friendships eventually come to an end.
But it’s usually a gradual, almost unconscious process.
Often, we don’t end friendships so much as move on to new ones. Lives and circumstances change – that’s just the way things are.
Every once in a while, however, we have to consciously de-couple from a friend after things turn toxic.
That’s what these 16 AskReddit stories are about:
1. Otherwise Engaged
I was engaged and I asked a guy who I had been really good friends with for several years if he would be one of the groomsmen at my wedding. He started laughing out loud and just said, “No, I’m not going to be one of the groomsmen at your wedding.”
His response shocked me, and it made me feel really embarrassed for having asked. Haven’t seen him since that day.
2. Racism!
In 2012 I reunited with an old gf from high school through fb. She was moving back to town and needed a place to crash. I offered my couch, and she moved in. This led to a relationship fairly quickly, against my better judgement. One night we’re watching tv and she says, “I was looking at your Facebook and saw that your last gf was black. Did you actually sleep with her?”
“Yes”
“That’s so. Fucking. Gross.”
“Have you never dated a black dude?”
“Well yeah, but that’s different”
There were other factors at play, but she was shown the door shortly there after.
3. JEEEZ
At the pub one night with a group of friends. This guy I kind of know was there with his fairly new girlfriend. This black guy comes over and talks to her for a minute, just saying hi how are you doing kind of thing.
Guy says to his gf ‘how do you know him?’. Gf says ‘we used to date a few years ago’. Guy looks really uncomfortable, pauses for a minute, then blurts out ‘did you fuck him?’. Gf says ‘lets talk about this later’. Guy says ‘because if you fucked him we’re through, I don’t take any n****er’s sloppy seconds’.
4. “Batshit”
Many years ago when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, my sister found out she lost her baby at the same time. To keep my family from worrying about me and to give my sister time to emotionally heal, I decided to wait til the 12 week mark to tell my family.
I couldn’t keep the news to myself though, so I told three of my friends and told them to keep it a secret and why they needed to.
The 12 week mark rolls around and my parents say that they already know because one of my friends told them. I confront this friend, she denies it. Another friend who knew called her on her bullshit, so she finally admitted it. She said she thought my parents deserved to know and that I wouldn’t even have to keep a pregnancy a secret if I “weren’t such a slut who got pregnant only months into marriage”.
Then she went batshit, broke into the home of the friend who called her out and stole a ton of stuff. So she lost two friends that day. And from what people tell me, she’s been slowly losing the few she has left.
A few weeks later I actually ran into her roommate and she stopped me because she told her roommate I was pregnant I guess. I told her how everything went down and she said it was weird that she would consider that slutty behavior because she had recently started a “mission” to sleep with a different guy each week, and had gone above and beyond by sleeping with a different guy every few days.
5. How effing rude
They said it was too awkward for them to be my friend because my dad had cancer.
6. Best/Worst
“It’s probably best that she miscarried – I don’t think you guys should be having kids together.”
Good-fucking-bye, former best friend. Good-fucking-bye.
7. Owed
I had a friend who let me sleep on her couch after my chemo treatments when my husband was at school.
She told me i owed her.
8. “Mates Rates”
She asked for a favour, and “mates rates” when she was getting married – for me to do her wedding photography. I agreed and did her a really cheap deal, but I worked full time at the time, so told her it’d be several weeks before I’d be able to get through editing them all. She was impatient, bitched about it on Facebook, and complained when they weren’t ready after she came back from her honeymoon.
Once I’d given her the photos, I cut her out of my life.
9. Bad Credit
One of my best friends asked me to buy a shirt for him on my credit card. Ok, he said he would pay me at the end of the month.
Between these dates, we went out one day, and, by the end of the night, he said he lost the shirt (he brought it along, because he was going to change later).
The next day, he would say he lost it in my car, and, since i didn’t find it, he wouldn’t pay me because he lost IN MY CAR.
Ok then, fuck you too.
10. A Few Doors Down
A guy I had know for 3 years (all in college, met him as a freshman) and was a fraternity brother of mine texted me one morning with pictures of a drunk girl that had passed out in his fraternity room on his bed. “Selfies” of him grinning like an ass and groping her as she lay on his bed, passed out.
Completely severed a 3 year friendship to the point where I couldn’t even talk to him, and he was only a few doors down the hall from me.
11. “No room for her…”
One of my friends once insulted my sister, and I gave her a warning. She did it again a little while later and I got pissed and called her out. The next day at lunch (this was highschool) I invited my sister to come sit with us, and my sister sat in the place this girl usually sat. There was no room for her there any more and she had to go sit at another table.
No one talks shit about my sister.
12. Thief!
My roommates and I had a bad habit of leaving our door unlocked in our freshman dorm. One day our friend comes over noticing the door is unlocked comes inside to hang out assuming someone is there. Upon realizing no one is home he decides to take my laptop.
Now in possession of my laptop which is registered with the university because all computers that connect to their wifi have to be. He without changing ir erasing anything connects to the wifi and begins using away. He was promptly caught and arrested. And my laptop was returned to me.
I have no idea how he is doing now because he got shunned and I quite frankly don’t care.
13. “Little did he know”
A colleague I knew through university and I became pretty okay friends over the course of our 2 years together in school. One day we were hanging out at lunch and a transgender woman in the beginning of her transition walked by. My friend said “Ugh, what the fuck. I didn’t know we let fucking trannies into this school”.
Little did he know that I myself am transgender and that woman he insulted was a close friend of mine that had just started coming out to people with me being one of the first. At that point I decided to end the friendship because I’m not gonna stick around and deal with someone that hates me for who I am.
14. Penny-Pincher
I had a good friend who was just too damn picky about money. He’s a great guy: smart, affable, funny, and otherwise generous. But when it came to dollars and cents, he was like Ebenezer Scrooge.
If we went out to eat, the bill had to be calculated to within a penny, with a thorough and careful accounting of who ate what, how much was tax, how the tip should be tabulated and who should pay a larger or smaller percentage because of fiscal considerations A, B, and C.
I usually busted up this process by throwing bills on the pile and “just covering it” so we could all move on to the next portion of our lives. My life is too short to quibble over $0.18.
One day we agreed to go to a rock concert. We wanted seats together so I casually mentioned we’d order together and pay individually for the seats. Next day, he calls me to tell me he had purchased seats. I owed $xx for the seats plus tax. I also owed him $yy for the costs of the monthly interest on his revolving credit card, which he had used to purchase the tickets. He also wanted me to pre-pay for one half of gasoline expenses for the 200 mile round trip, including a small mileage fee for vehicular wear and tear.
This is where I lost it. I told him I’d pay for the tickets, cash. Rounded up to the nearest dollar. I told him to suck up his revolving credit interest; it wasn’t my problem. And I would drive us there and pay for all the fuel myself because I just don’t give a fuck.
This began a long discussion face to face, replete with calculator. I hand-waved all of it, just throwing cash at it because $1.12 here and $0.73 there means nothing to me. I don’t give a shit. I just want to go see the show. But he returned repeatedly to “the budget”.
It got so complicated I gave up. I threw him $100 and told him to sort out the change when he had the time and inclination. It was an interest-free loan until he figured out the details. He got back to me days later with an itemized invoice and the change. We went to the show with another friend. We wanted drinks, so I went up for them and paid for them myself to avoid the cost/tax/tip argument in the middle of a stadium.
After that show, I was pretty much done. I never wanted to haggle over pennies ever again. We stopped hanging out. I moved to another state. To this day, I don’t give a flying shit about $0.72. I throw more than enough cash to cover a restaurant tab and move on to the next problem in life. Penny-pinchers drive me insane.
15. Not a Joke
A few years back I had just gotten out of the hospital for an attempted suicide. I didn’t tell very many people, but I did tell one of my good friends at the time. For the majority of my first week out of the hospital, I remained very isolated, trying to get accustomed to my new surroundings again.
The first weekend, I woke up on a beautiful Saturday morning, unusually warm, and walked downstairs to where my parents were charging my phone (wasn’t allowed to have it at night. Made perfect sense). Checking the messages, I found a text from that very friend saying that she was going to kill herself, thank God for life insurance, and that she’d see me in Narnia.
Well, shit.
I jumped in my car and drove the five minutes it took to get to her place. Knocked on the door. Her mother answered (background: she and her mother didn’t have the most positive relationship). I explained that I was looking for her, but her mother explained that she was not currently in the house.
Well, shit.
I went out on a limb and told her mother the story and showed her the text. Her mother was legitimately concerned, and together we formed a list of where her daughter might be and went to those locations, one after the other. I didn’t find her on my list, so I went to another friend’s house to cool down and relax.
I remember my friend calling me. I immediately teared up, seeing her name on the screen, because I had been so worried about her. I answered the phone rejoicing that she was okay, oh my god, what happened–
“Can’t you take a fucking joke?”
I was confused. I said, “What do you mean?”
“For God’s sakes, ___, you’re a fucking idiot. Nobody fucking sends texts like that.” (I did.) “And you’re stupid for telling my mother, you’re stupid for hunting me down. You’re a terrible fucking friend, because now my mother is angry at me for all this, and it was all supposed to be a joke.”
I tried to explain my reasoning: “What if it hadn’t been a joke and I had done nothing? I couldn’t live with myself. You’re my friend, I wanted to help you!”
There was a pause.
If it hadn’t been over before, here was what ended it for me, forever:
“Well, you were stupid. But that’s fine. You’ve always been a bit slow on the uptake. That’s why you and I are friends, right? So I can teach you.”
“…”
“So, we’re good, right? I’m happy that you care about me. You were just stupid about it. I should teach you about jo-”
And I hung up.
She texted, emailed, called me, for the next month or so, first wondering why I had hung up, then calling me stupid, then wondering what was up. I deleted her from everything.
I never saw her that day in person and I will never see her again.
16. The gift that keeps on giving…
Yes. Female friend found out she contracted herpes from her ex. Didn’t stop her from fucking new guys left and right.
When I asked her “Do you tell these guys about your herps?”
She goes “ah..they probably have it already..”
Shook my head and stopped talking to her.
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