21 Subtle Moments That Made People Realize Their So-Called "Friend" Was A Horrible Person
Some friendships just naturally end as people grow apart, but sometimes, something happens that makes you suddenly realize that your "friend" was never really a good person to be around. Recently, people on Reddit shared the moment that made them realize their friend was actually very toxic, and some of their stories are pretty subtle. Here's what they had to say:
1."I realized I only knew bad things about all her other friends. When her best friend started icing her out, it only took two days for her to start sending me screenshots of their personal conversations. I quickly knew that if even her best friend wasn't exempt, anyone could be the next hit. It says much more about the character of the gossiper than the person being gossiped about. So I set up some boundaries, and sure enough, starting to hear things said about me and mutual friends of ours pulling away as well. I don't mind at all because my conscience is clear, but damn, good luck to them all."
2."We lived in the same dorm and worked at the same place. I gave him a ride to work because he didn't have a car daily for a few months. The thought never occurred to me to ask for money because it I was going there anyway, so why would I? He got a car, and my car broke down. I asked for a ride. He asked me for gas money."
3."He was caught stealing from another friend, and instead of even pretending to apologize, he came up with a convoluted excuse to justify it."
4."I had a 'best friend' who would always tell me to 'just stop thinking about it' any time I would share issues I was having. It was like, 'Thanks for the insight, best friend.'"
5."I'd always bought my best friend lunch in high school, like everyday. Every when he had detention, I'd come by and drop him off food. This one week, I lost my wallet, so no money. Surprisingly he he had money that week I didn't have money. I asked him if he could get me lunch, and he straight-up said no. I thought he was joking and then he just bought food and ate by himself. Made me really think people can be so greedy to their best friend. I stopped hanging out with him after that, and I didn't buy him food anymore."
6."We went out for Halloween together, and I was wearing a dress with a pair of nude spandex shorts underneath. The entire night, she kept grabbing at my dress and lifting it up, and I kept asking her to stop because I didn’t want people to get the wrong idea since my shorts were so close to my skin color. She had the audacity to bring it up to me the next day, telling me that I was 'being rude to her all night.' No SHIT. To top it off, at the end of the night, I started talking to a guy, and we were really hitting it off. She came up and embarrassed me in front of him and insisted that we kiss and made it awkward."
7."When I got a big promotion at work and she said, 'What, did no one else want it or something?' Knew right then she didn’t think I was deserving or qualified. Really took the wind out of my sails. She was one of the first people I told because I was excited about it."
8."When called out on a lie, they just kept digging. Made me realize that they were likely a compulsive liar. I was right. Ditched 'em."
9."When he baselessly accused me of having an affair with his wife, who happens to be one of my closest platonic female friends. This was with my wife and his wife present, too. When we all flatly denied it, he threatened to punch me in the face if it turned out to be true. Our theory to this is a projection as he stays away on 'business' an awful lot."
10."My friend owns a very popular food truck. She needed help for a big event, so I went down and worked for her. I worked with one of her regular employees, and I asked how the tips were usually split up. The girl told me that my friend keeps every single tip and that she’s never seen one. This girl is 20 years old and in college, and my friend is still taking a few hundred bucks from her. That money is a drop in the bucket for my friend, but life-changing for that girl. At that point, I realized true greed. Haven’t talked to her since."
11."When she told me I wasn’t fun anymore because I wouldn’t smoke weed or drink myself into a coma. Fun times."
12."When he asked me to lie and say he was with me when he was cheating on his girlfriend. Ended our friendship right there."
13."Moved into our first apartment together, and at first, he was a great roommate. Over time, he started working extra shifts and spent a lot of time at work, so he was really only home to sleep. He started to get very passive-aggressive about things like the electric bill because of this, to the point where he would seemingly wake up from a dead sleep to turn off lights when I left a room for more than a minute or intentionally make things inconvenient around the apartment to 'teach me a lesson.'"
"The point where it got malicious was that following winter. I like to sleep in colder temps, so not having the heater on all the time really didn't bother me much, but one day, as I was leaving the apt to get groceries, I peered into his room and saw him packing up a space heater. Knowing what he was doing, I asked him why he had a space heater. He said he tried to use it to heat his room, but it did not work well enough. I just laughed in his face. He was so determined to enact his own form of retribution over the electricity bill that he arguably made it worse by using a space heater in an attempt to make a point. He never actually had a face-to-face conversation about it with me, and after that night, I didn't care.
Ultimately, we went our separate ways, and he moved out of state. I understand where he was coming from in retrospect, but if he had just done the bare minimum and had an honest conversation with me, I would have been receptive. Instead, he treated it like a game."
14."Been friends for 20 years. Recently, he kept drifting off while I was telling him something, looking at his smartwatch, or getting distracted by someone/something. He never asked me to finish what I was saying or asked a follow-up question. It was clear that, despite him inviting me out, he no longer cared enough to even engage fully. So I stopped answering his invites."
15."After I had an abdominal surgery with potential future infertility, she was constantly bragging about her kid and motherhood. I was still in recovery. When I told her that this brings me so much tension and pressure at the moment, she called me bitter and jealous."
16."None of them came to my birthday celebration, which I tried to make as casual and easy to attend as possible. I even had it at everyone’s favorite bar despite my being 5+ years sober. It wasn’t until my then-boyfriend, now husband, pointed out to me all the other times that my friends were pretty shitty to me that I was ready to accept it."
17."There were a lot of moments, but I chalked it up to the guy being younger and mentally and emotionally immature. He and I work in the same office, but he makes at least $20k more than me. We went out with a group of other people to celebrate a mutual coworker's bday, and since no one else offered to pay, I did. I was trying to calculate how much to request them to pay me back via Venmo, but before I could do that, he decided on a lower amount than he should've paid. Then another person paid me the same amount. Thankfully, the other two people in the group paid me a little more, but honestly, I paid for more of the meal than I should've."
"Mind you, everyone in this group makes more than me. I know for sure this dude and two other people make almost twice my pay, maybe more.
Anyway, since then, I've decided that I'm not going to hang out with him unless the other people are there. The other person who paid the same amount as this guy no longer works with us and lives farther away, so I don't have to worry as much about them."
18."My body knew before my brain did. I all of a sudden stopped enjoying being around my 'best friend' and always felt drained around her. I didn’t understand at first why I was always feeling this way until I stopped and really thought about it. I was like, hang on, you’re actually a bad person. She would always look down on people. She would talk absolute shit about everyone, even her own closest friends and family, so she must be talking shit about me to everyone else, right? She acted like the world only revolved around her and would just lie about EVERYTHING, even the smallest mundane things. The list just goes on and on. I’d be here all night typing out the conniving shit she does. The more I got to know the real her, the more I distanced myself."
19."When she stopped talking to me when I was going through the toughest time in my life with health issues."
20."Wildly, the first thing that tipped me off was when I realized that when our group of four adult women would make plans (even down to what movie we watched), we ALWAYS ended up doing what she chose. There was always a discussion, but we always had to do it her way. The first time we managed to make plans that weren't what she chose to do, she didn't go, and then she was genuinely pissed to find out we went without her. She fully assumed when she said she wasn't interested that the three other adult women just... wouldn't go?"
21.And finally, "She constantly lied; most of the time, it was little white lies, but there were a few big ones. She was also so mean to her husband. He is a sweetheart, so he was blind to it. Lastly, she talked behind people's backs and would gossip about things they had told her in confidence. It was hard letting that friendship go because I knew I'd lose so many other friends in the process. I don't regret it at all and have found much better, healthy, and supportive friendships."
Can you relate to these stories? Tell us about a time when you suddenly saw your "friend" in a new, worse light in the comments or via this anonymous form.
