Our friends have a far bigger impact on our lives than many might think. A massive 85-year Harvard study found that positive relationships keep people happier, healthier, and help them live longer. So there are very practical benefits to maintaining deep, strong bonds with an active social circle. However, real friends are quite rare. And in some cases, it can be quite hard to determine who’s only pretending to be your BFF.
We’ve collected some of the most dramatic stories from these two r/AskReddit threads here and here showcasing what finally made people’s friendships fall apart. Scroll down to read about some of the signs of fake pals, and it might help you evaluate your own relationships.
One of the authors of the captivating discussions, redditor u/fusillihair, was kind enough to answer our questions. Check out Bored Panda’s interview with them about the most important qualities for a friend to have, as well as what to avoid, below!
#1
I was in a group of friends who started bullying a person I knew out of nowhere. I told them I was not okay with that. They soon started hanging out without inviting me. I am still very glad I did what I did.
Image source: SqueakyToy7, Keira Burton
#2
I was living with my best friend. Her boyfriend told me he wanted to show me what he bought her for Christmas and that he wanted my opinion. So he trapped me in the bathroom then attempted to shove his tongue down my throat.
I knee’d him in the balls. Told him I was going to tell her. Then I left to go see my boyfriend. I told my best friend later that night what happened. She believed her boyfriend over me.
End of friendship. Many years later, she tries to friend me on Facebook. Are you f*****g kidding me?! Get bent b***h!
Image source: BubblyResident1855, freestocks
#3
I got sober.
Image source: Imaginary-Carrot-424
#4
I lost 100 pounds. She didn’t, and “accused” me of deliberately changing. Well, yeah…
Image source: BakeCrochetGym, Andres Ayrton
#5
After trying for a child for years and years I got pregnant with twins, one of them was in my right fallopian tube and I had to have an abortion to save my life.
Called her to tell her what happened and she informed me that she regretted supporting me through infertility if I was just going to kill the first baby I got pregnant with and that getting the abortion proved to her I never really wanted kids and she couldn’t be friends with someone who would kill their child without any questions asked.
I hung up and we haven’t spoken for 12 years. I missed her for the first year but not anymore, I just feel bad for her daughters knowing she will do the same thing to them if they are ever faced with that choice, I have heard from mutuals she bad talks me every chance she can and says it was my choice to throw away our friendship over my pregnancy knowing her views on abortion.
Image source: AnnaVronsky, Leah Kelley
#6
She let her bf sexually assault me while I was heavily intoxicated, while she pretended to be asleep. She ‘wanted to see what he would do’, I was basically bait.
Image source: ViciouslyJaded, Clay Banks
#7
When I stopped people pleasing and set boundries.
Image source: coconutrush90, Briana Tozour
#8
I came out as bisexual and she accused me of having a crush on her (i didn’t) but she said i made her feel uncomfortable.
Image source: Specific_Shop_3975, Vindhya Chandrasekharan
#9
He tried to sleep with my wife. Knew him for 30+ yrs when he tried to sleep with my wife.
Image source: refugee1971, cottonbro studio
#10
She found Jesus, then lost her mind. In that order.
Image source: shaylahbaylaboo, Karl Fredrickson
#11
I had 3 friends from high school, met up with them again in our late 20s. One was doing well financially, married a well off dude and had 3 kids. She looked down her nose at the rest of us, would insult us, constantly talk about how much money she had and would start arguments in the group chat.
She even told me that the way I dress, I will never get a husband. When I started dating my now fiancé, he’d get sh*tty with me for continuing to talk to her because she’d make me cry. She told me that because I had no kids and wasn’t married, I was immature. I tried to explain to her how her behaviour affected me/the group, but she never changed. I cut her off a few times, but the other girls would guilt me back in.
One day, I was just over it. I blocked all three of them and iced them out. They tried contacting my mother, my partner, calling me from different numbers but I blanked them. The main bitch even messaged me and said “You’re dead to me!”
Guess what, c*nt, you were already dead to me.
Image source: LandoCatrissian_, freestocks
#12
When I realized the friendship was toxic. Whenever I would hang out with her, I would feel drained. I became her therapist.
Image source: twhalenpayne, Priscilla Du Preez
#13
Ah, it was very simple. He was a MAGA supporter and we often talked politics and such. But that wasn’t the cause for ending our friendship. I’m quite tolerant and I know how to separate people from their political beliefs. But come the pandemic, he starts promoting anti-vaccine stuff in his facebook. I lost both my in-laws to COVID and he knew that. I tried to convince him to get vaccinated out of concern for him, appealing to reason and empathy. He called me a shill for the pharmaceutical companies, a murderer and a co-conspirator for genocide.
So, that was the tipping point. I blocked him from all my social networks without any explanation. He can go get lost for all that I care nowadays.
Image source: Impressice-Ad6400, CDC
#14
She promised me that she would pay me back if I bought the tickets for a girls trip that she was desperate to go on. We had everything planned. I did all the work of looking and researching because that’s enjoyable to me and she hates it. She has 3 kids and they’re all smaller than mine – so I told her that I didn’t mind the planning as long as when it was done we would just go and enjoy ourselves since it had been 2 years since COVID.
I bought the tickets and wanted to use my new Amex plat for the hotel bonus points. Keep in mind she makes more money than me – 250K per year and her husband makes $150K. So money was not the issue. Multiple times we discussed the trip, her going on the trip, and that our husbands would hang out with the kids together while we were gone for 5 days over a long weekend + Monday & Tuesday.
When it was time to pay me back she went dark. Refused to answer my texts. Ghosted me for weeks. Mind you, I’ve known her for 4+ years and she was always kinda flakey when it came to texting. So her flakiness was not entirely new- but this is not the way you treat people period.
I finally sent a Venmo request for the portion of the trip that was hers along with the message “please pay me back for your portion of the trip since you will not respond to text messages or calls.”
She then proceeded to gaslight me and tried to tell me via text that she never agreed to go and that I was just misremembering (KIM, our husbands had a weekend planned out with the kids for when we were going to be away, so obviously, I wasn’t “making this up”.)
After that I sent her a farewell and f**k you message and didn’t look back.
I took my other best friend on the trip instead. She couldn’t pay me for half – but she paid for the meals and taxis instead. It was super nice and I’m glad this c**t is out of my life.
Image source: Agitated_Jicama_2072
#15
Me: Rocker chick outcast with purple hair and chain jewelry.
Her: Popular, beautiful, perfect soccer star jock with a new Jeep Wrangler.
We sat next to each other in geometry in 10th grade.
We started with giggling together at a fellow classmate teasing our odd teacher.
I lived far from campus. So one day, I meekly asked her for a ride home in said Jeep in exchange for the day’s homework answers.
We are almost 40 now. She moved to a new city. We became—and stayed—best friends. Real Fox and the Hound situation. I visited her at least annually in her new city. She has a guest room she called “IAlreadyOrderedPizzas’s room.” We’d stay up all night laying in it and talking.
She got into a bad relationship. Not sure if it was that, or her untreated depression, or her slow descent into alcoholism, or a combination. But I quickly became her punching bag when she was having a bad day. Everything from “I was always better than you” to “Well at least I’m not stuck in our home city.”
I recently had to cut her off. It is still the hardest and most painful thing I have ever done.
Yesterday was her birthday.
Happy birthday. I miss you and I love you.
Image source: IAlreadyOrderedPizza
#16
She was toxic and abusive to me for years but I made excuses every time. The last straw was when she was incredibly cruel to one of my other best friends who was actively dying of cancer and then painted herself as the injured party. I put up with being treated like s**t for 20 years, but to treat a dying woman like that? I was immediately done.
Image source: Extreme-Onion6731, Jon Tyson
#17
She got married and cut all contact with me.
20 year friendship tossed aside like a used napkin.
Image source: generic_witch, Alexander Kolomin
#18
They became homophobic, started misgendering our trans friend on purpose, and was overall very hateful and homophobic for no reason.
Image source: LongLiveGermans, Tim Bieler
#19
After more than 20 years of being besties, she just ghosted me. After a year of not hearing from her, despite reaching out, I asked her husband if she was okay. He was confused because she claimed to be talking to me all the time. Whatever. It hurt for a while, but she honestly brought very little to my life in hindsight.
Image source: CunnyMaggots, Priscilla Du Preez
#20
Pathological liar. Told me he was dying. I was so distraught. Complete utter wreck. Nope. Not dying. Healthy af. He’s still alive now 20 years later. Must be the miracle medical intervention he didn’t need and didn’t get.
Image source: KimchiAndLemonTree, Tima Miroshnichenko
#21
My best friend for close to 15 years blocked me. When I got in touch with him I asked what was going on, and he said he was just purging his friends list. Said it was a mistake and unblocked me.
Well I happened to be dealing with the loss of my father (who basically adopted him) and was struggling with alcohol abuse. I reached out to him just seeking a friend cause I was in such a low spot, then he blocked me again.
I totally get cutting off friends who are alcoholics or toxic. But the only time I ever asked him for anything was “Hey man, not sure if you heard but my dad died. I’ve been drinking too much and could use a friend to talk to.”
And he blocked me for that.
Image source: ASemiAquaticBird, Christian Fridell
#22
She was unvaccinated and refused to take a covid test before seeing me. My mother was terminally ill and severely immuno-compromised, so I was absolutely trying to minimise the risk of getting covid so I could still see my Mum.
She refused to take a test, twice, despite kind and calm requests and explanations, on the basis that she “didn’t want to get a sinus infection.” (This was in the time of nasal swabs, not mouth swabs, for covid tests. You know, those nasal swabs that are sterile and can’t cause infection.)
I’m 100% sure that it wasn’t about a sinus infection. It was about control. She had been annoyed because I hadn’t validated her anti-vax stance in the past.
Similarly, I know she wanted more validation for her religious views, which she’d acquired in her 30s and which I didn’t share. I’d told her that I was happy her faith made her happy, but I think she wanted me to truly share her beliefs. I’d also said that her sister’s bisexuality was “fine with me” when she’d stated that a wedding of 2 women was “not what God wants.”
I think all of those different views just threatened the way she saw the world, and how she saw herself.
Her last texts thanked me for “sharing my views” re covid and it’s potential to kill my Mum, then became pseudo-concerned when I didn’t reply. I read the whole situation as “I want to say whatever I want to you, but I want to still feel like a nice person, so please reply and give me that validation.”
I didn’t reply to her, but I still ask myself whether the mature thing to do would have been to clearly reply and state that I didn’t want to stay in contact. It’s taken me until now (over a year later) to see through the pain and formulate what I might have said.
We’d been friends since the first days of high school. 20+ years. In essence we just aquired very different views from each other as adults, but I can’t pretend her attitude towards my Mum, and towards the horrible journey my family had to take, wasn’t devastating.
Life is a bloody painful journey at times, that’s for sure.
Image source: reddit-just-now
#23
She slept with my then boyfriend. The most boring tragedy of my life.
Image source: Particular-Natural12, cottonbro studio
#24
Knew him since elementary school. Always abrasive but, that was just him. He went to Europe to go to college and met some really snooty Europeans and came back a horrible person. Like he used to talk nonstop about debt and how he wanted to start a business and only hire people with debt so that he could mistreat them and they couldn’t afford to quit. Not joking.
So I tried my best to get him to come around, but he was so rude to grocery store clerks, etc. that it was almost a story that sounded made up for internet rage bait.
I was straight out of college at the time, and I accepted a night shift job. I compromised my sleep and I’ll tell you, the job did not pay well. And he kept pressing me and pressing me to ask me how much I made. I finally gave in, and he lorded it over me.
So one night before I punched in for the night shift, we went for coffee and he casually said something like, “Yeah, anybody who gets out of bed for less than six figures is a sucker,” knowing full well what I made.
After about 20 years of friendship, I said I have to go, said goodbye, walked to my car and got in. I turned the ignition and as the car was starting I said, this friendship is over. And I never, ever looked back.
And another friend guilt tripped me about it, said it was awkward that we’re not all friends anymore. This bad “friend” walked into another friend’s butcher shop, used his friendship with another buddy working there, to run up a tab of several thousand dollars and then never paid.
“Oh sorry that’s business,” was his reply.
I’ll tell you, since cutting him out of my life I live much, much, much happier. Had I never stopped being friends with him, I would have never grown so much as a person.
Image source: lazarus870
#25
I was in a horrific auto accident, coma for a week, ICU for a month. The person who was my closest friend never came to see me, when I finally got home, wheelchair bound, when he came over his first question was what kind of drugs did they give me. It was supposed to be a joke but I told him that we’re done being friends and not to come back to my house ever again. That was 17 years ago.
It was very difficult for me to sit there and tell the person that I no longer wanted to be friends and to leave and never come back. I was lucky to have support of close family which help ease the pain of losing a friend. I had a bunch of acquaintances that disappeared after my accident and during my recovery so I took the position of good riddance.
Image source: Tenchi2020, Marcus Aurelius
#26
I had a mate that went through some tough times with his partner. I supported him with late-night chats, gave him a place to stay, and even kept my mouth shut when he cheated on her. Fast-forward a couple of years, I ended up going through some tough times myself and was on the verge of bankruptcy. He didn’t give a s**t. Whenever we spoke, conversations always pivoted to how well he was doing and how much money he was making. I always got the impression that he was glad I was struggling.
Fast-forward another couple of years, and things have turned around for me. I’m doing well, have a new job, and was able to move to a great location outside of the UK. He came to visit once and spent the whole time slagging off where I lived, how s**t my job was compared to his, and even dropped a couple of hints that he didn’t like my girlfriend (who’s now my wife). He went back home, and I never contacted him again. Apparently, he posted something snarky on Facebook about not being invited to ‘his best mate’s wedding,’ but I’m not on Facebook, so don’t care.
Image source: Daddicool69, Nicola Barts
#27
Over 10 years of friendship. We travelled together, worked together, he was the best man at my wedding. We were best friends, the kind of friend you could call any time of day or night and he’d be there to help. I was there for him through difficult times and vice versa. Then he met his now wife…
Suddenly any gatherings at my house they couldn’t attend because she was always sick from “something she ate”…
She was from a wealthy family, the kind that literally owns a small island, and lived in an affluent neighbourhood. It’s not like I was poor or lived in a bad neighbourhood but by comparison, I’m sure the very thought of her being in my part of town made her sick.
Anyway, I moved overseas, received a save the date for their wedding but the invitation never showed up. He reached out asking if I was coming and was shocked I hadn’t got the invitation as he wanted me there but it was too late to make arrangements and a long way to travel.
I received an email from him while he was on his honeymoon telling me how jealous he was of me and my career and new life overseas.
I travelled back to see family and friends a little while later and tried to make arrangements to see him but he was “too busy”… I was literally in the same building as him visiting old colleagues.
I’m convinced his wife is the reason my invitation got lost in the mail and that it all came out on the honeymoon and now he can’t look me in the face.
Image source: Consistent-Cut9230
#28
We booked a group holiday before we all went to University. She picked the place, picked our rooms, who was sharing with who, she planned the whole itinerary, she *told* one of the other girls in the group she was driving the 3+ hours drive as well, didn’t ask, just told her to do it.
She then ditched us every night to talk on the phone with her boyfriend for 2 hours, then go to sleep without telling anyone and was generally a controlling, moody b***h the entire trip.
But the reeeaaal stinker: 2nd to last day she suddenly says work has cancelled her next 2 days of holiday and she has to go in. We all knew she was lying. Next thing she says is she can no longer take any of us back home. The other friend who drove there wasn’t going home when we were leaving, she was driving onwards to see family elsewhere. B***h friend said best she could do was drop rest of us at a train station. Reminder we were 3+ hours *drive* away from home, which translated to 6+ hour train journey with multiple changes.
Ends up with b***h friend leaving 6am the next morning, without a word, and my other friend had to reschedule her plans to drive the rest of us 2 hours in the wrong direction to meet my poor mum, who drove 2 hours to meet us halfway at a service station on a random motorway.
None of us have seen or spoken to her in over 10 years, since she left that morning.
Image source: marvellouspineapple
#29
He cheated on his wife and left her and their two kids.
Image source: K-Dog7469, cottonbro studio
#30
She snuck around for a whole summer keeping the secret that she was f*****g and had a relationship with my dying father. she was of age but he was in his last months of life, not in his right mind. hard to look past, she still reaches out every now in then trying to reconnect but it’s just too damn weird.
Image source: mmolliemae, Marcelo Leal
#31
I found out through one of their friends she thought wouldn’t share. She had slept with my past 3 boyfriends and I was in the same house sleeping one of those times.
Image source: Dewdlebawb, Sinitta Leunen
#32
One of my best friends in high school; he knew I had a massive crush on a girl. He was well aware that I was a bit awkward and not very confident, so he offered to help me out. He invited the young lady in question and me to hang out at his place, to get us in the same place and give me a shot.
Then he had sex with her while I was in the next room. I realized what was happening, and just sat there, unsure how to process what was going on. At some point I left. We never really discussed it.
The friendship puttered along for a short while longer, withering away after that. That event, along with a few other earlier experiences made it so I’ve never been quite able to trust other guys and form friendships with them as anything more than acquaintances.
To this day (I’m 38) I don’t have a single close male friend. One of the few things I dislike about myself.
Image source: Smug_Capybara
#33
I’m not completely sure. Our mothers have been besties since elementary school, and they had us a month apart; while we were night and day, personality-wise, and probably should have been the complete opposite, we were besties, too, closer than sisters, from birth until we were 25. She had gotten married a few years before, moved a couple hours away and had her first baby, so naturally, our dynamic had shifted some, but I was still under the impression that we were as close as ever the night she called and told me that her life had changed, she no longer had time or energy for a friendship like ours, and that she pretty much just didn’t want me in her life, anymore. There was no falling out, we hadn’t had a fight since we were teenagers, there was nothing that I could pinpoint (then or now) that led to her decision, but it broke my heart and I grieved the loss for years after.
Image source: eva_rector
#34
He became addicted to [drugs] after his father died. It warped his personality, and he was constantly angry and bitter. He was unpredictable, and genuinely scared me because it felt that it would be very easy for him to do something that would ruin his life in an instant. Also refused any help offered. The only thing I could do was move on.
Image source: wheresmychin, christopher lemercier
#35
Not being invited to her wedding after being close friends for nearly four years. The other two people in our friend group were bridesmaids.
Image source: shark-giraffe, Deepak Khirodwala
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