When you find that person that knows you better than anyone else, you think it’s going to last forever. The truth is, though, not all friendships are built to last, and sometimes it even turns out to be a good thing, cutting people loose who don’t have our best interests at heart.
That said, it still sucks to realize your best friend isn’t going to be your best friend forever. These 12 people remember the exact moment it happened…
#12. We haven’t spoken since.
“We were both in the military when we were younger. I still to this day owe this guy a debt of gratitude. I was a pretty shy kid growing up but this guy, I’ll call him A, would always pump me up by quoting the movie Swingers and telling me: “You’re so money. You’re so money and you don’t even know it.” Maybe he was paraphrasing. We got into our squabbles as young guys in the military will do, but for the most part he was an absolute standup guy.
The years progressed and he visited me at my next duty assignment on the west coast; we were originally on the east coast. We didn’t see each other as much but when I deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan he’d always let me stay the night with him in his apartment, taking me out on the town and just being a really good dude.
The years continued to go by and he even came out to stand as one of the groomsmen in my wedding, giving me a great toast and telling me how proud he was of how much I’d changed since we first met.
But when I got stationed overseas back in 2011 we really lost contact. We talked off and on for the 3 years I was away but when I got back I heard from his sister what happened.
He got out of the military and took a job as a civilian contractor. He was doing well but had to take a lifestyle polygraph test in order to get a better job. He failed miserably. He lied about soliciting prostitutes and smoking weed after he got out of the military. The polygrapher knew was lying and then he admitted to it, thus screwing himself even more. Not only did he not get the clearance but he lost his existing clearance.
He left the east and moved down south, trying to finish his masters degree. But he couldn’t. Strike number two. He failed out of that program. He was still able to get a decent job working at an IT company but he got fired from that after it was found that he was behaving inappropriately with a few of his female co-workers. He was always a lothario but apparently had gone too far in this case.
This all ended up with him getting super depressed and threatening to kill himself, pointing a gun at his head while the cops stood him down. He was involuntarily committed to a mental institution and was just never really the same.
I was flabbergasted when I heard all of this and immediately tried to make contact. A kept avoiding my calls but I was finally able to get a hold of him. He just sounded so different and distant on the phone. I told him I was here for him and would do whatever he needed, but he told me in an ice cold voice something that still kind of haunts. “I’m not the same person that you used to know.”
And he was right.
I kept trying to engage with him over the next couple of months but he’d never pick up or answer my calls. Finally I was able to get a hold of him when he was able to get in work in Texas but he was gone by this point. But I told A how much he meant to me and still means to me, how he brought me out of my shell and was a big part of becoming the person I was today. He didn’t really care one way or the other and after that day (which was around 3-4 years ago now) we haven’t spoken since.”
#11. Of course, word spread.
“We were best friends from preschool to 8th grade. One night while her parents were at a wedding, her older cousin was staying the night with. Her cousin was downstairs all night and my friend invited her friend (boy) who was two years older than us over. I was already a little uncomfortable because my friend lied to her cousin saying this boy was the same age as us. While we were upstairs in her room, we were listening to music and reading magazines. Out of no where my friend took her shirt off and was dancing around in her bra. This boy told her to dance in her underwear too so she did. He asked me to and I said no. My friend started making fun of me and calling me a prude. He then held me down and kept trying to yank my pants off, I kept kicking him, so my Friend started helping him. He got my pants half way down and he kept reaching in my underwear and under my bra. So I started yelling for him to stop and I kicked him hard in the face. He stopped and went home. when he left I got in a fist fight with my friend. Her cousin (who was asleep the whole time) never found out. I walked home and I was too embarrassed to tell my mom. The next day I felt like I needed to talk to Someone so when I went for a walk with another friend, I told her what happened. She told her mom, her mom called my mom, and we went to the police station (bc my other friend told the boy my mom called her mom and told her what happened, so his mom ran to the police station to press charges on us for making up lies about her son). Of course, word spread around school and I was completely embarrassed and depressed. My friend lied to everyone saying that I was the one who was taking my clothes off and trying to get him to have sex with me, and he didn’t want to so I made up lies about him. Ended our friendship and it made it hard for me to become close to any other friend again.”
#10. What bothers me.
“I let him stay with me for a week while he was in between apartments. 3 days in, he loses his headphones but doesn’t tell me, and 2 days later he looks through my stuff and finds my pair of headphones of the same brand, takes them, and claims they’re his. I ask for them back and he says I can borrow them. The next day he marches into my room at 1AM and yells at me for 10 minutes about how I’m an asshole for stealing his headphones and I’m a terrible friend and I’m an idiot, etc. He leaves for 2 hours and then comes back like nothing happened. I give him the headphones (they were only like $30, I just bought another and didn’t care too much) and politely tell him that our friendship means more to me than headphones, so he can take them but can no longer stay with me due to his behavior, even though he only had a couple more days. Haven’t talked to him since, but several mutual friends are pissed at me because he told everyone I stole his headphones, yelled at him, and then kicked him out for no reason. Fun.”
#9. As long as she’s happy.
“We’d been best friends for 20 years+ years. Knew everything about each other. Our fears, our hopes, our dreams, our kinks. About the only thing we didn’t know is what the other looked like naked.
We were always there for each other. Every time she met a guy, dated him, and ended up dumping him or getting dumped i was there for her.
Then she hooked up with her current guy. He’s someone we’ve known since high school. They dated for about 6 months, then got married back in March.
She hasn’t spoken to me since. I’ve tried calling her a couple of times, but she won’t answer her phone. I’ve texted her a few times, no response.
I miss my best friend, but as long as she’s happy I won’t press the issue.”
#8. She didn’t believe me.
“She never believed I was sexually assaulted as there was no video proof of it happening, and she has continued being friends with my assaulter, even after the assaulter is now stalking me.”
#7. It’s none of my business.
“I knew my best friend since middle school. Went to the same college and graduate school. We both moved across the continent to Silicon Valley. We’d go out biking every weekend and sometimes even during the work week in the early morning or afternoon.
After his girlfriend cheated on him (baby included) he decided to stay with her. No problem for me: it’s not my woman… We’d still hang out once per week for a couple more years, though I never once saw her or the new kid. It was as if he was leading two completely separate lives.
We could finish each others sentences.
And then, 4 years ago, they got married and she decreed that he couldn’t see me anymore. She’s so insecure about her earlier cheating that she thinks everyone of his friend judges her for it. I’m truly indifferent about it. It’s none of my business. Whatever makes them happy.
A few times per year, we do a short lunch bike ride. She doesn’t know about those. (Those are his only rides on Strava that he marks as private so she can’t see them.)
But I’m essentially out of his life. He hasn’t been to the new house that we bought 3 years ago. I haven’t even seen his new kid yet. (He’s 2 now.) My request to visit them due to the new baby was rejected. (“Maybe later…”)
I still bike multiple times per week, often the same trails as the ones we did together. It still bothers me that this was taken away from me.
(When I’m in a really bitter mood, I wish she’d cheat again. I’d be a bad Nelson Mandela.)”
#6. I never heard from either one again.
“I had 2 best friends through grade school, middle school and the start of high school, they didnt know each other, two unrelated friendships, but basically when i was doing something i was with one of them or one of them were at my house. My parents had pointed out a few times that I was always the one to call them (this was before mobile phones and texting), and why did they never contact me to play over (or hang out as we got older). It started gnawing at me and at one point I decided to see if these guys who called me their best friend cared enough to contact me.
So one day I stopped calling them to hang out. Weeks went by and then months. I never heard from either one again. I guess we weren’t that good friends or there would have been some contact.”
#5. Drugs.
“Drugs. Promised we wouldn’t let that ever come between us. We did. But now we’re both trying to put it back together again. This time without drugs.”
#4. Money.
“Money. As we got older money borrowed didn’t get paid back and the person started treating me like a second income. Forgiving past debt didn’t do it, but cutting them off from using me as secondary income did.”
#3. No regrets.
“My best friend of almost 20 years told my 13 year-old child that she’d need plastic surgery, to diet, and an entire new wardrobe to fit in at her new school. He also tried to convince me that I wasn’t an addict, I had 2 months clean at the time and was fresh out of treatment. Multiple times offered me numerous substances trying to get me to break. He had agreed to let us move in to escape the unsafe home we were in but he went maniacally insane. The last straw was him making some off the cuff remarks to me about “not wanting to associate with anyone who didn’t fit his image of celebrity”.
I wrote a Dear John note, packed my shit and took my kid while he was at work. Blocked him on every conceivable social media and haven’t spoken to him since. No regrets.”
#2. He cut me off.
“He came up to me at lunch one day and asked me if I knew a girl. I said no and he said that he thought she was super hot but had no classes with her, no friends in common, nothing to talk to her but he found out that she goes to the church his mom goes to so he asked if I wanted to go to church so he could get at her. Go to church to pick up girls? My sixteen year old mind thought that was fucking genius. So Sunday rolls around he picks me up and we go.
He was a good looking guy, super athletic but socially awkward. I’m okay at best looking, pudgy, but pretty outgoing so pretty solid combo when it comes to spitting game, he brings them in I keep them entertained. So we spot her and we join the group get to talking and making friends and it was actually really cool so we went back the next week and the week after that. All of a sudden it’s been six months and we’re heavily invested in this church youth group. That girl turned out to have a boyfriend but we liked all the other people anyway.
I’m an atheist so I was just there to kick it with my boy and other people my age but he got super invested in the religion aspect. Decided he wanted to be a pastor and started cutting off all our friends besides me since they were in his mind the cause of sin in his life. He then would only ever talk to me about God not our actual shared interests so eventually I told him I wasn’t going to attend the youth group anymore. He got furious and cut me off too. I kept being friends with a few of the girls there but not him. The friends that he all cut out and I got even closer after Highschool and now he’s in the navy.
Tldr: Went to church for the pussy, he stayed for the religion. I left.”
#1. New friends.
“We went to college, and she found newer “cooler” friends and froze me out. Sucked since we had been friends since kindergarten and lived together in our first dorm freshman year.”
h/t: Reddit