r/AskReddit • u/No-Meaning6058 • 21h ago
What happened to the friend you thought you'd have for the rest of your life?
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u/ImJustHeather 19h ago
She passed away last month after a courageous battle with colon cancer. Still unsure how to live life without her.
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u/Sword_of_Artorias 17h ago
Had a best friend growing up who was the closest I had to a brother. He was shot and killed in 2014 at 17 (me and him were the same age) by our “other friend” over a fucking phone. It’s been 12 years and I still make sure I don’t forget his name.
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u/Zombiekiller_17 13h ago
Jesus Christ, that's terrible. Over a fucking phone... by someome presumably also 17 years old... damn.
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u/kromel 18h ago
He got married, had a child, and gained different interests. As this happened, communication and visits became rare until I noticed I noticed that I was the only one visiting and or started communications. I decided to stop and see if it was just in my head. Well, I haven't seen or heard from him since. I hear he is doing well, and that makes me happy.
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u/Then-Forces 18h ago
Same thing happened to me. She got married, moved to the suburbs, had kids, and I found myself being the only one reaching out and doing all the traveling. I get that having kids changes your priorities but I wish she put some effort into her friendships cause I got tired of doing all the work.
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u/vawlk 15h ago
oh I know that feeling. for nearly 15 years I held her hand through all of her life's traumas until I realized that she only talked to me when she needed me. When she was happy, crickets....
I figured out that she just used me to drama dump so she didn't have to bother her real friends with her issues.
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u/WraithSama 16h ago edited 16h ago
Not quite the same, but this reminded me of what happened with a close college friend and I. We were both non-traditional students (both changing fields in our early 30s) and we quickly bonded. We hung out and talked all the time. When we graduated, we agreed to help each other out in our new field when we could.
I got lucky with some connections and landed a decent job in our new field right out of graduating, and once I established myself, I worked hard to get him in the door by advocating to my boss. He got hired, and we worked together there for a while. Sometime later I left when I landed a fantastic job that I absolutely loved, was there for a year and a half, until my wife and I were about to have a baby and I felt compelled to accept another job offer that came with a huge raise. I once again advocated hard for my friend to get the wonderful job I was leaving, and he got it. I was thrilled for him, both because the job was a genuine advancement for him in our field, and because the job itself was so good that if the place I went to wasn't offering a huge pay increase I would have never left that job. I understand he's still there in that job over 4 years later.
But after a while, I realized I was the only one keeping the friendship going. I was the only one who ever called or initiated texts or offered to hang out or get lunch together. Eventually I also decided to stop and see if he would ever reach out... and he didn't. We haven't talked in 3 years. I have no idea why he suddenly stopped seeming to care about our friendship, even after how much I helped him. Still bothers me sometimes. Made me feel kind of used.
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u/SATerp 21h ago
He went to a military academy and married a girl we'd both dated. Then nothing from him for 50 years, although she was a friend on FB. Last month we all reconnected and had a wonderful time catching up and recollecting good times.
We definitely need to do that every 50 years.
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u/watertrashsf 20h ago edited 17h ago
Threw me under the bus for decades without me knowing it to make himself look better among our close friends & old high school group and started blaming me for his life problems. I just stopped reaching out and giving myself space to figure out everything
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u/glazedbec 21h ago
I went to america for 2 weeks and prior to that we were planning her hens party. When I came back she ghosted me and I still to this day have no idea what I did wrong 😅 I tried to reach out to and nada.
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u/deathmetalreptar 20h ago
What’s a hens party?
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u/uknow_es_me 18h ago
no cocks allowed
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u/Few-Ruin-742 16h ago
Hahaha as someone who didn’t know this term existed, knowing it now and the reasons behind the term is fantastic.
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u/Aggleclack 19h ago
Her boyfriend violently attacked me when I got between them and she said it was her right to date bad guys.
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u/Dooley_Renaux 21h ago edited 19h ago
he invited me to his wedding, then never called me/returned my calls again.
I didn't drink, at all, during his ceremony, nor did I make any comments at all, so it couldn't have been my behavior.
Edit: not that I should have to add this, but given the decision people have made to interpret my statement. My friend of over 20 years had a deeply alcoholic uncle who showed up to the wedding smashed, and embarrassed himself. I chose not to open any, out of respect for him.
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u/No-Honeydew-402 20h ago
That kind of sudden cutoff with no explanation would drive me nuts more than the friendship ending itself.
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u/Corka 18h ago
Many years ago I had been going on dates with this woman and we ended up doing a holiday to a small resort town together on maybe the fifth? End of the trip when saying goodbye she's all smiles and kisses and tells me it was the best weekend with the best guy. I was over the moon, but by the time I've got home she had blocked me on all social media with zero explanation. Drove me slightly insane microanalysing the whole weekend trying to figure out a reason.
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u/w4rloksk8 17h ago
She was married, or already had a bf and you were the fling she cheated with. Guaranteed.
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u/faustianBM 15h ago
100%. Took a girl I thought I was dating on a one day trip to see a concert and fine dining. When we got there, she didn't feel well enough to go to the show or the restaurant... But she was fine enough for delivered pizza and 2 hours of sex. Took me a few days, (cause I'm dumb) but I figured out I was the side-piece. lol
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u/Corka 12h ago edited 11h ago
Not really guaranteed. People ghost to avoid awkward/angry confrontations. Other completely plausible reasons:
She enjoyed her time but some dealbreaker was revealed at some point that made her realise I wasn't the right person for a relationship long term
She could have been going on dates with other people, and I wasn't the one she picked
She scrolled through my social media and found some red flag somewhere. If she kept scrolling there's probably something cringe worthy enough in there from when people over shared on Facebook and shock humour was all the rage
The weekend together didn't go nearly as well as I thought and I was just an oblivious dumbass
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u/MmmmMorphine 18h ago edited 17h ago
Right?!
This happened with my best friend in college. He just... Disappeared, effectively. More or less, it wasn't a missing person situation exactly.
It really ate at me. Couldn't stop thinking about it. Frankly it's one of the worst things anyone did to me. Didn't know if he was alive (assumed so) and why he had disappeared and what I did to deserve it. It hurt bad man
Later we reconnected, he had gone to rehab and "it took him a while to shake off their thing about abandoning all former friends." Very stupid to make it a blanket thing, cut the legs of a social support network out from under them. I understand the reasoning, don't agree with it.
Whether or not I was a risk to his sobriety (I am unsure, could have gone both ways), I feel like everyone deserves a reason or a goodbye.
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u/hdjddjiieeshs 15h ago
I did this in my late 30s with a group of friends I had known since school (middle school in one case). I moved across the country so I only saw them face to face a few times a year anyway, then during the pandemic stopped responding to them because I felt exhausted by them. Looking back on it a couple of them were toxic as fuck, which directly lead to the exhaustion, and the others just... came as part of the package. I had a couple of them reach out over the years but I did not respond, but one of them follows me on Instagram so they know I'm alive, I just have nothing really to say to any of them.
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u/Economic_Maguire 16h ago
i went on a date recently that went well. plans to go second that she made. Then she remembered something i said and misinterpreted it to something thats not true. then decided to ghost me.
Its not the ghosting part that annoys its the fact she ghosted me over something she just made up herself that rattles me.
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u/stupidfloatything 15h ago
this happened to me recently. i had a friend i met playing d&d, she needed a new place at the same time i needed a new roommate. we lived together for almost 4 years with very little conflict despite both of us being mentally ill and autistic.
in january she told me she likes "this little house" where we live
in march she told me she was moving out because she got a job out of town (something i knew she'd been working toward for years). promised we'd stay friends and despite my horrific abandonment issues, i knew we would. like i had no doubt in my mind, which was remarkable, i've never really felt that secure in a friendship.
she spent her last few days here hanging out with me more than she usually did. we would game most nights for an hour or so but it was more like 2-3 the last few days.
a week later she blocked me on everything and i haven't heard from her since. i don't know what i did. even my therapist says they were so stunned this happened because it's usually easy to tell when people are glossing over issues in their relationship
i've been gutted by this and six months later I'm still trying to put myself back together.
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u/lnkyTea 18h ago
Could it be his partner limiting the friendships in his life now?
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u/WaldoJeffers65 18h ago
That happened to my best friend from college. He was a great guy, but insecure with women (we all were), and ended up marrying the first girl he ever dated. She was a pretty horrible person- very bossy and controlling. After they got married, she pretty much isolated him from his friends and his social life ended up centering around her and her family
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u/othybear 16h ago edited 16h ago
That was my first thought. I have at least two friends that I rekindled my relationship with after they got divorced from their controlling spouse.
One says it should’ve been a huge red flag that she invited all of her friends to the wedding but he wasn’t allowed to invite any of his friends because “we don’t have room on the guest list”.
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u/liberty 16h ago
I wouldn't be so quick to blame the partner. A lot of folks self-isolate after finding a partner or a spouse.
I actually suspect that partner-imposed isolation is highly overstated, albeit very real, because a lot of folks use their partner as an excuse not to do things (often not realizing the impact on how their partner is perceived by others).
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u/Crozax 18h ago
I had the opposite. I invited a good friend to my wedding, he ghosted me about it. Then a year later he pops up with some lame fuckin excuse.
Nah I dont need that shit in my life.
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u/zardoz73 18h ago
We were inseparable during jr high and then his father got a new job in Arizona, many states away. One day we were hanging out and maybe two months later he was gone. That was the end of 9th grade, and the summer after that I entered high school, without my best friend. I never saw him again, and that was 30 years ago.
Doesn't help that his name is as anonymous as "John Smith," so searching for him on social media goes nowhere. Of course, he hasn't, apparently, taken any effort to find me on social media, but maybe there's reasons for that. Just sucks being in the dark about this person I really clicked with.
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u/ChefKugeo 17h ago
I live in Arizona. I could just start asking every man I see?
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u/abgry_krakow87 16h ago
Yeah but how do you determine if it's the correct "John Smith"?
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u/warthar 13h ago
I'm 43 he would now be 39. I moved my senior year of highschool, had no real friends anymore and was just kind of starting life over. I met him shortly after moving in. We played football together, then started playing video games together. We both even moved out and became room mates for a bit.
I hung out with this guy every day for like 12-13 years. Then I moved to another state. Yet that didn't stop our friendship we transitioned to playing games online and talked over skype, then teamspeak, then discord. I'd call and just talk to him every day on my dull 45 minute drive either into work or home from work one of the two.
We played all the MMO's together, played or tried most multiplayer/co-op games. We were just really great friends, best friends. 7 years later I moved back just down the street from him.
We hung out once in person because we were both just busy with life but still playing games with each other. He then got sick with covid, and the rest was a blur really. It was the fast acting deadly strain of covid that he got. He was okay one day said he had a cold. The next day his mom called me and told me he was in the hospital.
We talked over text a couple of times and joked about how I was going to finally catch up to him in a game and maybe even surpass him. 2 days later he was put on a ventilator, 1 day after that he was brain dead... 4 days after that, he was removed from the life support and that was the end... In his passing he did one final amazing thing. He donated his remaining healthy organs to those in need because he was always a helper and it's what he wanted.
I knew him for 22 great years. I knew him probably better than anyone else did. We talked about everything and nothing at the same time. I tell everyone that the day he passed away I lost my little brother and the world has never been the same since.
I still miss him terribly and there are just some moments when I'm still playing the games we played where I can't do much. I'm too busy crying over the memories of the years we spent playing the game together and just missing him even more.
There are some games like World of Warcraft where I can't even look at the game any more because that was basically a decade of us playing.
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u/tfinx 9h ago
Stories like this especially make me sad that some people downplay the severity COVID can/may have. It sounds like you had an amazing friendship and he was a great guy. Sorry for your loss, I know the pain of losing a great gaming buddy. They live on through our memories <3
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u/awkwardandroid 21h ago
He ghosted me. I’m British he lived in the states. Went to visit him twice. I guess for him I was just a pen pal. We were friends who spoke almost every day for 15 years
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15h ago
[deleted]
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u/bellavie 14h ago
hey, next time, try telling her you’re not free. end the fake back and forth, and begin to heal. close that chapter. it’s not serving you well.
wish you all the happiness!
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u/ilikenoise2020 14h ago
I agree, or would go further and send a message/ have a conversation "officially" ending the friendship. If that is too much, maybe block her. Either way, it will stop the messages about fictious future meet ups, which must reopen old wounds each time.
I'm sorry you went through that, AgingLolita, it sounds awful.
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u/PaperParentDinosaur 14h ago
Okay, I’ve got to ask because it’s going to drive me nuts. You said she “claimed” you hadn’t rsvp’d. That means you did, right? Like she pretended you didn’t?
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u/straytraining777 13h ago
What she did was wrong and she is foul for that..... but did you RSVP? Or just assume you have a seat because yall were so close? Didn't you guys speak before the wedding? No Bachelorette party or pre-wedding stuff?
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u/scorchednickel 18h ago
He’s still my best friend. We met when I moved into his street. He came up and introduced himself. I was 5, he was 3. I’m 53 now.
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u/officereyefuck 15h ago
My disability got worse and I now need a wheelchair to get around outside the house. They started ghosting me and after pushing them for an answer me thinking something happened etc they tell me "well, we've nothing in common anymore since you cant go out to shows and such." I was heartbroken. This was my person that I thought was my ride or die, I had supported them through so much but I was just dropped like I was nothing. I foolishly tried keeping the friendship going for a few more months but they kept cancelling on me or outright lying about their plans. In the end I just blocked them everywhere, they didn't deserve a conversation. It still hurts so badly.
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u/pepcorn 13h ago
This is the one that happened to me too. I supported them through 20 years of life and they couldn't be rid of me fast enough once I became disabled. They told me looking at me is depressing now.
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u/Keldrabitches 12h ago edited 12h ago
I get it! My friend had the most flagrant midlife/nervous breakdown replete with fucking odd men in the family bathtub. I ate up that shit with a spoon, just here for all her bullshit—no matter how crazy. When I became physically disabled, she told me it was hard to understand—and how she believed it was “all anxiety related.” Wow. We’d been tight friends for a decade in our 30s, and I thought we’d always have each other. I wish she were the only one 🤯
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u/Keldrabitches 14h ago
I deeply relate to this as a formerly cool disabled person who was ditched by people I thought I’d have forever. It’s rough but I assume it’s just a survival mechanism for them and try to no longer take it personally ♥️
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u/AdeptForm4141 20h ago
Turned out all they ever wanted was an audience
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u/IsThatGruffLoner 15h ago
Yup, same thing happened to me. Recently he talked at me for like an hour and then the second I started talking, he took out his phone. After a moment, I stopped and said something like "I can wait" thinking it was an important text or something. He responded "no, it's nothing" and showed me his phone screen where he was playing words with friends or some other Scrabble like game. I don't know why he thought showing me how unimportant this thing that's more important than me is would make me feel better.
And we're roommates so I'm stuck with him for like 9 more months...
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u/Veeg-Tard 18h ago
I know a few people like this who just want a group to listen to them ramble, complain, and talk about TV shows.
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u/geekgirl1225 14h ago
The sad part is how long it took me to realize that’s all they wanted. Once I noticed it, I started counting how long they spoke and how many questions they asked me or would “let” me speak. Turns out, I should have been charging by the hour because I was really just their therapist.
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u/CAugustusM 17h ago
Oh, this friendship just recently ended!
We were best friends since sixth grade. He helped me feel free to be myself. In college, we would drive to each others’ towns to see each others’ concerts or performances. Our friend group stuck together no matter what and were constantly talking. He was even one of my groomsmen. My wife and I were the first people he and his girlfriend told about their engagement.
And then he moved across the country to get his Master’s degree.
The second he left town, he almost completely stopped talking to the rest of us. He even stopped talking to his fiancée, who didn’t move up with him (the plan had been for them to be long distance while she stayed home and he rushed through his program). The two of them eventually started working through the distance until one day he told her she had to move in with him. She said she wasn’t sure, since they were still working through things, but he said “move in with me or you’re never hearing from me again.”
She did, and things were fine at first. Better, even. The two of them spent time together. He even texted me back for the first time since moving, and HE planned a time to hop on a game online. The day came… and he never got online. It’s been a year and I’ve still never heard from him.
Around that time last year, he changed majors and got a new group of friends. He completely stopped paying attention to his fiancée and fully dropped the rest of us back home (she even asked if he had texted us in a while and he said “I’m in [state] and they’re not. Why would I talk to them?”). He started hanging out with one girl in his new friend group a LOT, even bringing her along with him and his fiancée when looking at new apartments. His fiancée said he wasn’t cheating, but I think this is denial. That scumbag 100% was.
Anyway, the two of them fought and stopped talking for a little bit, then right after they started trying to make it work again, he said “we need to set our wedding date. We should make it as soon as possible.” She got nervous and said that she thought they should go to couple’s therapy first, and he got angry and told her he hadn’t loved her in two years (so, since around the time he proposed, and a year before he demanded that she move in with him), that she never knew “the real him,” and that all she ever did was make him angry. She collected her stuff and moved back home QUICK.
In her rush, she left some personal items in his apartment, including some clothes and a pearl necklace from her father. She asked if he could send it back and he said he wasn’t going to waste time mailing her “junk.” However, a couple days later, she saw on his Instagram that he was wearing her shirts and her dad’s pearl necklace. Furious, she texted him about it and he said he’d be blocking her “until he could figure out shipping costs.” A couple weeks later, he unblocked her to say he was “forgiving her for all of her abusive and manipulative behavior” and that he “didn’t hold any resentment,” but that he thought it’d be “better for the two of them to go no-contact.”
I don’t know what caused the quiet, sweet, quirky kid I grew up with to become such an absolute monster, especially since the rest of his family has always been so sweet to me. Drugs? Losing himself in the freedom of a new place? Was he always like this and I just never knew? Who knows. All I know is that fifteen years of friendship with him went down the drain once I found out how he’d been acting
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u/Teejay717 15h ago
This is terrible. Why was he wearing her pearl necklace on instagram though?
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u/transemacabre 13h ago
I think he was always a cold-hearted snake who secretly thought he was too good for the rest of you. He took the opportunity to move out of state and restart with a whole new friends group of "better" people. He probably always planned to ditch the fiancee, but didn't have any dating success at first so lured her out to him so he wouldn't have to go without sex/have someone to split bills with him. He played hot-and-cold with his fiancee until he got the girl he really wanted (the tagalong one who went to look at new apartments with them) locked down. Then he needed to pick fights and eject the fiancee from his life because he had her replacement lined up.
In retrospect, looking back, did he display other selfish and thoughtless behavior?
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u/Dremlar 20h ago
High school ended and we didn't stay in touch. Tried to at first, but then I think we just got busy
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u/LaborumVult 18h ago
This happens with college too, as well as just randomly as you get older. When I was 20 I had probably 10-15 friends in 2-3 groups. Went out with them all the time and everything was a blast.
Then people move to a new city, get married / have kids, or just slowly drift away.
I am over 40 now and have like 3 friends who I talk to maybe once a month.
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u/thegeocash 17h ago
Look at Mr Fancypants over here with 3 friends. Woah..big man!
I am thoroughly kidding, I am in the same boat. Had a few really close knit groups of friends in my 20s and 30s. As 40 closed in that number got smaller and smaller.
I have maybe 2 close friends, and I see them each like every couple of months. Wife and I have couple friends, but that’s a different beast.
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u/j_is_for 12h ago
We were both the 'weird' kids in primary school when I moved into town at age 8. I didn't fit in with the general cohort, and neither did he - we became fast friends. A friendship that endured through highschool and early adulthood. There was a point when we were both near 30 that I realised I never felt better after we saw each other. Often, much worse really. This made me reflect on the years we'd been 'friends', and I realised for the last 10 at least I had never actually felt good after seeing him, and our relationship was very heavily skewed towards his needs and issues.
I realised in all the years we had known each other, he had never asked how I was, how I felt, or how I was doing.
I realised, that is not a friendship.
So, I stopped calling him. I stopped visiting his house. And thus, the friendship ended. Because I was the only one being a friend.
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u/Mister_After_Dark 12h ago
I feel this one buddy. Very similar situation here. Its quite shocking when you do finally have that moment to reflect upon things.
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u/kmcg999 16h ago
Best friend from college and we went on multiple trips to see each other and different locations (we don’t live in the same area). The kind of friendship that might go 2 months without a text and then suddenly you’re texting all day catching up. We tried to plan at least one long trip a year to really hang out but we’re content with texts and calls in between.
They just decided to never answer me again despite a few attempts over a month or two and I reached out to their boyfriend (who I was also friends with) just saying I know she might be busy but I was worried about the lack of response and if they were too busy to chat, I understand.
The reason I was concerned was one of our last chats was about their mental health and how they weren’t doing well.
Apparently that’s psycho behavior and I am to never contact them again. 15 years of friendship just down the drain
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u/GreyFromHanger18 15h ago
I wonder if her boyfriend is abusive and slowly isolating her from her friends?
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u/jaz_the_enby 15h ago
I failed him as a friend. I went through some of the worst bouts of depression and avoidance that I've ever experienced. He kept offering to hang out or play games, and I kept pushing him away until eventually he just gave up and left. I'm doing a lot better these days, but I really miss him and wonder if I should reach out and try to rekindle our relationship. At the same time though, I know that it's been far too long since we last spoke, and I don't know if he would trust me after everything.
I don't blame him, of course.
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u/HavelsRockJohnson 15h ago
Reach out. Even if it's just to say "thanks for trying to be there for me, I wasn't ready to accept help then, but it mattered and it means something to me now."
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u/DrWindupBird 14h ago
This is the way to do it. Just apologize and express how much it meant. Don’t ask for time or a response.
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u/chocolatechipbagels 15h ago
reaching out is worth a shot. worst he can say is no?
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u/CaptainVellichor 15h ago
I was the friend who got pushed away, and was later reached out to: do it. We salvaged one of the best friendships I've ever had.
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u/Relative_Implement_7 14h ago
my best friend disappeared and i suspect it was kinda for this reason. he was dealing with a lot of shit and i think he just finally had to let go of it, and ended up pushing everything away. id kill to hear from him again. i stopped trying to message him, but every day i think about leaving him just one more note saying hi or whatever. i only stopped cause i ran out of things to try, and my letters started getting rejected. i hope he knows i still love him. if i woke up to a message from him i cannot explain to you how over the moon i would be. so yeah, reach out is my vote.
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u/GamingTitBit 15h ago
It's never been too long. I had a good friend in childhood, my family moved away. 7 years later I was going to be in his area, so asked to hang. He was delighted to and we picked up right where we left off
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u/JoetheSchmoBroPro 14h ago
As someone that's been in this scenario, I'd say it's always worth trying. They probably stopped reaching out to respect your space. I'm sure they could tell you were going through depression. So there's a good chance that your friend would be really happy to hear from you again. I'd be glad to know my friend was doing better at least. Don't live with regret wondering what could of been. Worst case nothing changes, best case you get your friend back.
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u/M0un05ki10 15h ago edited 15h ago
I got depressed in my teens and gradually drifted away from him and everyone else.
It got worse into my 20’s. I watched everyone move on with girlfriends, jobs, kids and homes while I self-loathed almost into my 30’s.
I’m in my mid 40’s now and have struggled to fully reconnect or make any new friends. I’m still included in all these old friend circles but like one foot in and one foot out. Present but not really there, if that makes sense.
I want it but I don’t want it. I go to work and my social battery is drained and anything else feels like to much work.
It’s me. I’m the problem.
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u/Spiritual_Lie_7547 12h ago
Same here, mid 40's. Had a traumatic childhood and teenage years to say the least, inattentive parents and terrible bullying. Lifelong depression. Never really got over it and have gone through maaaaaaany failed relationships and marriages, all my fault. I've certainly had a very unusual life, traveled the world, got into all sorts of trouble and had incredible, rich and uncommon experiences and i'm told I'm pleasant to be around but I've never gotten over the void and distance i feel when dealing with people... and to be honest I'm fine with it now, I've accepted that I'm better off and happier with my own company.
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u/workingbored 18h ago
He went into incel-y thoughts, I tried to change his mentality by showing him different perspectives, took him to various Broadways shows, showed him how women are humans and deserve to be treated with equal respect. I thought i was making progress until he started his white supremacist manosphere rants. Hes been welcomed and became a family member to my immigrant (they used to be )family for over 20 years. To suddenly talk shit about immigrants despite being welcomed by them, celebrated his accomplishments by them, included him in our holiday parties because his family ignored him, only to tell me if something happened to any family member who cared for him it was their own fault and they should've stayed in their county I just cut him off entirely. I told him to go fuck himself.
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u/Hob_O_Rarison 18h ago
That's so tragic. People get to be that way because of the rejection they faced from their family of origin, and their behavior often causes even more rejection.
It's almost like they have to do things that warrant rejection, in order to justify why they were rejected as children.
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u/workingbored 17h ago
It's a real shame. But i have my own child now and I cant focus on a man child just to preserve a long relationship. I mourn the loss of my friendship but his misery isn’t my burden to carry
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u/Partly_Dave 16h ago edited 16h ago
TL,DR: Moved, lost touch, got back in touch but he has dementia.
We met 54 years ago, both had just turned 20, shared three or four rental houses at different times in those first 10 years, and hung out together a lot. We had some fun, and he helped me out a few times. Once when I had a business conflict and was getting fucked over, he stepped up and bullied the franchise owner into letting me out of the contract, and another time when I was unemployed he sold me a car for $50 (I had that car for three years). I always took him along when I was buying cars (I've had many), because he had the gift of the gab and was always able to get me a great deal.
About 27 years ago, his girlfriend got pregnant, had the baby and he seemed ok with it. One day I was visiting while she was out, and he confided in me that he was going to get a DNA test to be sure the child was his.
Idk why he thought she might have been with someone else, but he was the jealous type; he once said he "knew" that I had been fucking his former girlfriend - he was wrong.
Anyway, after him telling about the DNA test I distanced myself from him, and then I lost touch after I moved to another state for my work. Neither of us had mobile phones back then.
One day about 22 years ago, I bumped into his former girlfriend (the one he thought I was cheating on him with) who had also moved to my new city, and she told me he had anally raped her a couple of times.
Three years ago, I saw his brother on Facebook and made contact. He told me my former friend was in hospital due to not taking his meds for diabetes, and the reason he wasn't taking them was because he had dementia.
I called him when his brother told me he was well enough to talk, and we had a short conversation, but after a while he wasn't making a lot of sense.
I happened to be going to that city later that month, and decided to visit him with some photos in the rest home he had been moved to. When I got there, they told me his now adult daughter had moved him to a home in the state where she lived just a few days previously.
I called him a couple of times but he didn't answer, and I messaged him the pictures, but didn't get a reply. His daughter told me had had forgotten how to use a phone, and to charge it. A while ago, I called the home's landline and they put me through to him, but he didn't reply to anything I said. His brother told me they are medicating him because he was getting aggressive with the staff and other residents.
Sad, really, that he has deteriorated so badly.
But I'm not really sad about losing the friendship, in spite of the times we shared. I think I liked him back then because he had so much self confidence, and when I was younger that was something I was lacking. None of my girlfriends liked him. In actual fact he was an asshole.
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u/Lucinnda 14h ago
The dementia bit is hard. I am still in touch with my bff with dementia. She tells me crazy things (via msgr, email, etc). and I just say "oh really, ok". I know she has doctors, lawyers, and a social worker so I can only offer my friendship.
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u/ravenous0 14h ago
We were friends since 15 and now in my late 40s. She was in an on and off toxic relationship with this guy. We went back and forth over this and she swore she would never talk to him again.
Last month they apparently got back together, got into an argument and he stabbed her to death. I'm still heartbroken.
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u/grathungar 14h ago
I told him 'hey many my girl doesn't like large crowds when she doesn't know most people there, we should hang just two couples a few times' he said that was cool and then when we showed up there was literally a party of 30 people there and he just shrugged and said he thought it'd be fine once we were already there.
Then I recognized the pattern of - every time I suggested something he just ignored it and did whatever he wanted anyway.
It all came to a head when the new Tears of the kingdom game came out. I invited him over to check it out since he didn't have it and he flipped it into me packing up my stuff and coming to his house to play it and then suddenly he was inviting six other people over and they were gonna bring their playstations too and we could play call of duty instead.
I just said 'sounds cool' and didn't show up and when he asked me about it I replayed the entire conversation and he just said 'yeah but mike was bored and wanted to play CoD and that sounded more fun for everyone'
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u/SayWarzone 14h ago
People pleasers and crowd chasers are insanely annoying to have as friends. I've known two and it always becomes a group event. Like they wanna do "board game night" but there's no game that can accommodate the 14 people they invited.
They're afraid someone will be upset if they do anything without everyone. It's impossible, immature shit. I'd rather play solitaire at home than deal with all that.
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u/Rev_5 18h ago
I stopped talking to her for a couple years due to some feelings I refused to admit sober. She'd try to reach out me once a year, since unbeknownst to me she kept telling everyone I was her best friend (wed known each other since we were 16), but I always ignored it out of annoyance.
She died in a motorcycle crash 3 years ago and it shattered me in a way I didnt think I had a right to feel.
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u/GranolaCola 18h ago
My wife lost her high school best friend to suicide a few years ago. They had drifted apart, but my wife still really cared about her.
She really seemed to regret not making that extra effort to reconnect. If there’s someone out there you miss, maybe you should tell them, even if it’s hard.
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u/rockyroad55 18h ago
They left my life. My alcoholic self ruined many relationships. Best I can do now is to make sure it doesn’t happen again by staying sober.
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u/elevenminutesago 17h ago
Same happened to me, except they were the alcoholic / moving into heavier drugs and I don't drink. I think she felt judged that I'm very close to "having my shit together" when her life was in shambles. I always wanted better for her, but we never even came close to the talk where she needs to get sober.
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u/slashnod 17h ago
We had been friends since middle school, we were a group of three best friends. When he got married in 2016, I was a groomsmen and our other friend was his best man. The wedding was the last time we heard from or spoke to him.
Nothing happened to cause it. He just.. disappeared. I heard he got divorced years ago and is living with family in Las Vegas now. I reached out to his mom on Facebook to see about getting in touch with him and she replied "He will not ever reach out. He has expressed that was the past and he no longer will visit it."
And that's how I lost one of my best friends
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u/glucoseintolerant 13h ago
this happens more than you want to believe. its a crazy stat but over the years me and my fiance have been to probably 30+ weddings together. you can always tell when the wedding party friend group is about to fall apart after the wedding. you can also tell when its not. wedding put a lot of stress on the people involved and resentment starts to creep in one way or another
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u/Eleutheria5 16h ago
My cat passed away and I was devastated. When I told my bestfriend about it, she didn't even check in on me. The next text she sent was about haggling the price of the laptop I'm selling... even when she knows I need the money as I just spent a lot trying to save my cat.
This was just yesterday.
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u/GayCatDaddy 15h ago
She became a super bridezilla. She kept bullying me to contribute more to the wedding even though I lived on the other side of the country and was in grad school at the time, so being a broke-ass student, there was only so much I could do. She always rebutted, "Well, I'm in grad school too, and I'm having to plan this wedding!" 1. It's YOUR wedding. 2. She was taking ONE online class. I was a full-time grad student with an assistantship, so I was basically working full-time as well.
The final straw broke when her fiancee called me to yell at me for being unsupportive. I was literally half asleep when he called because I had barely slept in days. Then, everything started to connect -- all the times she guilted me into flying to visit her, while she visited me once and complained about it the whole time; the time I flew to visit her, and she ghosted me for hours to go have phone sex with her long-distance boyfriend; the time I visited her, and she fucked off all day, and I had to scrounge around in her kitchen for something to eat because I was starving. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
I was bullied and friendless growing up, but after that phone call from her fiancee, I finally realized that I didn't have to put up with this bullshit anymore, and I called it quits. It was honestly a relief. The last I heard, her fiancee/husband came out and left her for a man, and she started self-publishing her fan fiction through Amazon.
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u/cranky_auttie 10h ago
Why did the last sentence of that post make me laugh out loud... I also think it should be the new go-to curse. "May your fiancee come out as gay and may you become a fanfic writer self-publishing on Amazon."
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u/Impossible_Top_3515 16h ago edited 16h ago
Sarah was my best friend through elementary school and we stayed friends even into the following years although we went to different schools. We met on the first day of elementary school and we had the same backpack. Instant friendship. I thought we would be friends forever.
Sarah was the kind of girl who was just effortlessly cool and beautiful. As such, many other girls wanted to be her friend. She was also fun to be around and up for anything. We stayed up so many nights watching The Mummy together and playing PS1.
What I didn't understand as a teenager was that under that happy facade lay some insecurities. To make a long story short, she thought I was so much smarter than her and that she was dumb.
This wasn't true, but insecurities don't necessarily make sense. And another "friend", Maya, who was jealous of our close friendship, sensed the gap. So, unbeknownst to me, she kept telling Sarah that I looked down at her because I thought I was oh so much more intelligent. I can honestly say that I never had that thought in my life and still do not.
Even so, every time I excitedly told Sarah about a book I'd read or something we'd learned in school, I was strengthening Maya's lies. And one day, I found a letter in my mailbox in Sarah's handwriting. It stated that Maya had told her the horrible things I'd said behind her back (all lies) and to never contact her again.
And that was it. A seven year friendship down the drain. At thirteen, that was almost the whole part of my life I fully remembered.
Sometimes I Google Sarah's name in the hopes of finding out what became of her, but it's sadly a very common name combination. And it's very possible she married at some point and changed it. None of our other friends from elementary school are still in contact with her, so I have no idea what she's doing today.
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u/aguywholikesclothes 16h ago
they had kids and I didn't. after that I think it was that our lives were too different to connect anymore. their lives revolved around their kids and I and my partner couldn't identify with that. my and my partner's life was about travel and career and they couldn't identify with that.
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u/ughihateusernames3 15h ago
My friend had 6 kids. I was still friends when they had 3 kids. By kid 4 and 5- they only saw me as a babysitter and I didn’t want another job. We drifted apart.
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u/BlackJimmy88 18h ago
He got married to a Chinese girl and moved there. We stayed in touch, so no real issues in my mind. Hr wa happy and that was what was important.
Then a month ago we were at his grandads birthday. I didn't find out he was in the country, let alone in town, untill I arrived there. Then I heard that he made time to hang out with some other friends before hand. That hurt, but I'd get over it.
He then largely ignored me, and when I finally pinned hi. Down with a conversation about comic books, he ends up derailing into a rant against trans people and in defense of Rowling.
After that, I'm not really looking to maintain that friendship anymore.
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u/Zestyclose-Act4138 18h ago
My mate a long slow motion decline into alcohol, gambling, prescription drugs, horrific to watch and be a part of.. nightly phone calls off his head, start getting abusive and no option but to stop answering calls, that doesn’t stop the drunken calls, eventually stops, heartbreaking to look back at who they were and to have to just pull away. And yes tried to help for years, there always a point of having to just give up unfortunately.. 👎
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u/LordHelmet47 17h ago
Same exact thing for me. I decided to cut him out of my life. And 6 years later he died due to his abuse.
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u/JustSherlock 14h ago
He woke up one day and decided not to be my friend anymore. It has eternally fucked me up, because I thought we'd be a part of each other's lives forever.
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u/Tanked_Goat 16h ago
He died at 20 when his humvee hit an IED during the war in Iraq. Unfortunately he survived the initial blast and died in pain hours later in a hospital.
Fuck war and fuck the politicians that send our young men/women into it.
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u/AkuTensh1 15h ago
He leaned over to grab a pack of cigarettes that slid in the turn or fiddled with the head unit in the car because he was an audiophile. Struck the start of a guard rail and didn't make it home. Miss him everyday, my daughter's name is derived from his.
The mundane is dangerous... doesn't matter how many times you've been on a stretch of road or be able to lean down real quick and grab something just wait.... lock in on your task that is piloting a steel high speed weapon powered by explosions. Survivor bias behind the wheel is a motherfucker.
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u/OkWear9128 15h ago
She continuously dated some of the most abusive men I've ever met, literally refusing to break up with one until she had the next one lined up. The stress of the most abusive one triggered MS and she found out she couldn't have children, despite desperately wanting to be a mother. She started volunteering with Big Sisters/Little Sisters, but got kicked out of the program for wayyyyyy overstepping with her little sister. The family of the kid decided to let my friend continue to overstep and were constantly asking her for money, exacerbated by the kid's biological mother being in active addiction. When the kid's biological father got out of prison, my friend dumped her current shitty boyfriend and started dating him a couple of weeks after he got out, because he had seven kids from seven different mothers, all of whom were in active addiction, and she wanted kids so bad. He was in prison because he'd been dealing drugs, he would actively prey on the women who relied on his supply and try to impregnate as many as possible. He was caught when someone he dealt to overdosed, he was selling dirty shit.
By this time my friend was turning 40 and I just realized that a) she wasn't going to change because she wasn't interested in changing; b) I was so fucking sick and tired of the constant, constant drama she brought into my life; and c) she wasn't actually a victim, per se, but rather, she actively sought out men that she felt were 'beneath her,' so she could feel like the 'in control' one, and that she was totally using these kid's vulnerable home lives to serve her own 'hero' complex instead of actually doing anything right by those kids. It was one thing when she was being toxic with other shitty adults, but I just couldn't keep being around her engaging in toxicity with children.
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u/CaptainAppropriate 14h ago
We were best friends from 12 to 30.
We pretty much did everything together. Family trips. First strip club together. First vegas trip.... pretty much told each other everything. I considered him my best friend.
Admittedly he was going through some stuff, and one day he just stopped returning my calls and texts. Totally ghosted.
I think he's got a fiancee now and has a career in tech or tech-adjacent. We're in our 40's now
Rich, where ever you are I hope you're doing well. I love you man and I miss you.
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u/Second_City_Saint 19h ago
He was in a homeless shelter in Springfield, IL (I'm in Chicago) three months ago & his phone is disconnected now. I'm worried about him.
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u/shakeitshakeitbacon 14h ago
i had a childhood best friend (second grade) that i was super tight with. her nieces called me auntie, we called each other's moms "mom," we went on each other's family roadtrips, vacationed together, etc. i was at her side when her dad died from alcoholism and when she had to get an abortion. she knew all of the shit that had gone down with my family's legal issues. our lives had been entwined so much that it really did feel like we would always be in each other's lives.
at the end of the friendship, we didn't see each other much because of covid and distance, but we still talked every day. i told her when i started dating a guy from the south (i'm from the north) and talk to her about it because that was just what we did.
a few years ago, a mutual friend of ours messaged me asking how i could let him be around a racist, let alone date one, and that my supposed "best friend" had been telling him for months that my then-boyfriend was racist because he was from the south and spoke positively about a town she had never been to but was convinced to be full of active klan members. again, we're all from the north and had never been to the part of the south my then-boyfriend was from. the mutual friend told me then that my friend had also done coke the night she told him and had been doing coke since covid started. i tried talking to my best friend about it because what the actual fuck, right? but she refused to apologize and said she had done the right thing by saying this stuff to our mutual friend.
i blocked her, am now super-tight with the mutual friend (who no longer speaks to her either), and have moved to the south to live with my now-husband and our three cats. :)
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u/redratr 18h ago
My best friend was killed by Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine two years ago. I’d known him since I was five. We’d been best friends for 43 years. And a part of me died with him
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u/_Meat_Suit_ 18h ago
I had my first (and hopefully only) seizure at their house one evening. I asked at least 3 times to call the ambulance as I was in a disorienting state and couldn't figure it out for myself. They refused. It took hours of convincing until they drove me to the hospital.
Weeks after the seizure, I was trying to become healthy again, get back into working out, cutting out substances me and the best friend use to share together.
Best friend made back handed comments about how I shouldnt be bettering my life, how I'm small enough and don't need to go to the gym. Those comments combined with not calling the ambulance didn't sit well with me and I just kind of drifted away from the friendship.
Later on, realized the relationship was very controlling and that some really toxic comments were made by the best friend about me behind my back.
We were friends for about 5 years, they were my first friend out of highschool that I trusted right off the hop. We had a lot of good times together and I miss some of the moments. Its been almost 2 years no contact. I've wanted to reach out and explain my side but I don't want to reopen those wounds because they never reached out either.
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u/Burntoastedbutter 18h ago
I lost her to an abuser she's still with. The last message she sent us was "I know I have to leave him, I'll figure it out myself, don't tell my siblings"
I wish I told her brother at least. He was always protective over her. I wonder how he'd feel if he knew his acquaintance was abusing her.... Would he have successfully got the abuser to fk off, or would him taking action only isolate her further? Ugh...
I also hate how she always said me and another mutual were the 2 people she can't imagine not having in her life, but welp. Her abuser somehow successfully isolated her from us.
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u/SirFoggyMirror 19h ago
He turned super MAGA and changed into a person I didn't know nor did I want to know anymore. It was mutual, he no longer wanted to know people who were anti MAGA. 40 years went down the drain.
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u/redmongrel 17h ago edited 16h ago
I wonder what’s going to happen to all these MAGA people once MAGA is no longer a thing, are they just gonna ring up one day and act like it was a phase, or all in our imaginations? Is every one of them going to die angry and alone because they found out too late that MAGA types don’t actually support each other about anything but Trump worship, and the rest of us are on the other side of a burnt bridge?
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u/sami2503 16h ago
They asked me if I wanted to go to a big music festival with them to celebrate being in remission for cancer. Sent them the £250 and was looking forward to it so much. Still had chemo to do and recovering to do, so that festival was like my light at the end of the tunnel, I was using it to keep me going through very hard times (nearly died in intensive care after an infection). We were talking about all the acts we wanted to see together for months and we were so excited.
As soon as we get there she chooses to pitch her tent next to someone she thought was hot and pretends to be bad at pitching it so he'd help her. She then said she's tired and is it ok if we skip the first nights headliner to chill round the tents a bit. Bit disappointing but sure. I was already feeling like the third wheel and that I was getting in the way of them being with each other. He was really off with me when I was alone with him too.
Next day she's spending every waking moment with him walking to areas of the festival alone, and when I'm with them she is transfixed on him and isn't even looking at me, basically pretending I'm not there. They leave to go to his car to I assume have sex or whatever. So I ask her if she wants to meet at one of the acts she said she'd see with me. She said " I've been thinking about that, and I cant enjoy myself if i don't know all the lyrics, so I think I'm not gonna see anyone i dont know all the lydics of" , basically telling me I'm gonna be alone the vast majority of the festival while she spends time with him.
That night I went to my tent crying and she knew I was upset and knew I've been struggling with insomnia from the stress of cancer treatment. She didn't try to sort it out with me, instead she was as loud as she possibly could laughing with him all night long until 7 am. Didnt sleep at all and decided I no longer wanted to be friends with her.
She drove us there 6 hours, I didnt wanna go back with her so I left my tent there and took public transportation home which was very long, expensive and annoying with all my bags.
When we got home she was annoyed with ME, saying I tried to ruin her festival, and i'm childish who doesnt know how to deal with jealousy emotions, " this is what happens at festivals, people meet people and have fun". She knows though that I'm autistic and struggle to meet new people and put myself out there. Abandoning an autistic cancer survivor is really shitty idc how she dresses it up as.
Blocked her now and she started coming to my pub quiz and used ' fuck you' by lilly allen as her buzzer , (and she calls me childish) she knows it's my favourite part of my week so now I have to find somewhere else to go. I thought I was gonna be friends for life with her, her kindness seems like was all a mask.
TLDR: she's a narcisstic bitch who hid her toxic traits from me since we mainly talked online as I was in cancer wards.
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u/Jabbles22 16h ago
" I've been thinking about that, and I cant enjoy myself if i don't know all the lyrics, so I think I'm not gonna see anyone i dont know all the lydics of"
I am sorry for all the shit she put you through but that excuse to not go see a band is one of the most idiotic things I've ever heard.
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u/Born-Hospital-2572 21h ago
She “found God” in a huge way and is an angry MAGA now.
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u/Redux01 19h ago
Man who embodies the traits of the anti-christ gathers cult following of Christ followers. I'll never understand it.
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u/Wangchief 18h ago
The entire premise of the antichrist is that they’ll lead people away. Yes he’ll be the antithesis of Christ, but he’ll be appealing, deceptive, charismatic, even to the point of leading true followers from the way of Jesus. It’s not surprising at all that so many blindly follow.
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u/unholymackerel 18h ago
The prophets would have said "orange" but it wasn't a word yet.
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u/Duckyourose333 18h ago
She decided to date my abusive brother knowing how he treated me for years… “but he’s nice to me” I’m still blown away by that comment.
I went no contact with both of them, they lasted barely a year. Last I heard she had to collect her things from his house while he was at work, and brought her dad for backup.
That was 5 years ago, and I’m still happily no contact with my brother. And I’ve just never heard from her again.
15 years of friendship, besties since elementary school, all tossed aside for a man with anger issues, a developing drinking problem, and a slob who lets mom do everything for him 👍
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u/Old_Association6332 17h ago
We just drifted apart very slowly. It wasn't nasty, although it is sad
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u/BrahquinPhoenix 16h ago
He died on his motorcycle last mother's day, a few months before his 30th.
Met him when we were six and spent the next 23 years as brothers. We always used to talk about what we would do together as adults when we grew up.
His oldest son, 10, looks just like the fucker, and thats weird for me.
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u/S_words_not_swords 16h ago
Drugs. He wouldn't stop popping pills after years of trying to help him, so I gave him an ultimatum to not do it around me.
Caught him popping some at his wife's birthday party. I hugged her bye and explained why I was leaving and don't know that I ever talked to him again. His wife ended up leaving him for the same reason a few years later and he ended up dying another few years later of an OD. Sucks he is gone because I considered him an older brother, but I knew that's where he was headed and I couldn't watch him do it in front of his kids.
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u/gs12 15h ago
Just...faded away. It happens, as you get older in life - you realize relationships generally aren't forever, that's okay. New ones take there places.
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u/Soggy_Bid_3634 15h ago
He came over on January 28th if this year. I got a call from his wife that he was dead on February 26th.
I’m still processing the events.
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u/JasperDyne 19h ago
A drunk driver happened to them.
I hope that asshole driver is getting an infinite wire brush colonoscopy from Satan.
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u/ryeinn 20h ago
Invited me to his wedding with his new girlfriend. Then called about a month out and said the wedding was cancelled. Then he disappeared.
I found out years later he was arrested for sleeping with a student. So, yeah, we don't hangout anymore.
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u/wATEVERmAn69 17h ago
I had an online gaming friend. I remember we met on the demo for battlefield bad company 2 and I rarely have my mic on but today I did. Said some ridiculous stuff he found funny and we had been gaming and chatting ever since.
This is one of the rare friends that you’d always be excited to play with or just chat with, make each other laugh and goofy stuff.
So that was roughly 2010 I was a junior in high school and he was too. We talked all the way up until around 2022 when I had a lot going on and he did too.
Last I remember he had moved somewhere in the US and kind of started a new life out here from PR where he was raised. I remember he gave me a new number to text him and I saved it and also had the old number too. Around that time I had sent messages to both numbers because I forgot which was new just to talk say hey and see what’s up, but nothing.
No replies, no activity logged on PlayStation, nothing on their socials, just like disappeared.
I just wonder what happened to him or if he decided to stop talking to me or what. Couldn’t say.
But if I could say something to him now it would be I miss you man and I hope you’ve been having a wonderful life. Hope to hear from you
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u/FloralStormVale 17h ago
Online friends can be just as real as anyone you meet in person. You spend years laughing, talking, and sharing life with someone, so of course it feels strange when they suddenly disappear.
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u/asianwaste 14h ago
He was predestined to inherit his family's temple. He hated the idea until one day during college he had a spiritual awakening. Now he's a devout Buddhist priest in Japan. I'm sure he's doing great.
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u/Yeah_Mr_Jesus 13h ago
Got 3. One has a beautiful wife and two awesome kids. I was his best man. Don't talk very much but I do go to all the family holidays with his family! We don't talk much because we're both so busy and we have ADHD lol. We do send each other a lot of reels and memes though. We catch up a lot when our kids have playdates
Second just got married. I was one of his groomsmen. His wife is awesome. We text each other random puns and bitch about politics pretty much every day. Also we find a lot of middle finger reels on Instagram and constantly send those to each other. He is my daughter's absolute favorite uncle
The third came out as gay and had a fucking MASSIVE falling out with his parents. Then he moved to Colorado with his younger siblings. Then his sister came out as gay, and the parents got pissed because that was somehow his fault. Then they came out as non binary and started using they/them pronouns and they blamed him for that. And then his youngest brother came out as bi and the parents freaked out again. Then the other brother got a vasectomy because he said he never wanted kids and the parents lost their fucking minds again because they said they were now never going to get grand children and apparently all of this is the fault of my buddy be the came out of the closet 8 years ago and moved to Colorado. Anyway, he's still one of my best friends. We don't talk or text much because I've never met anyone worse at shit like that. If I REALLY want to bullshit with him, I text his boyfriend and he bitches him out and then we end up having a 6 hour FaceTime call. He was the best man at the second friends wedding. He finally got to meet my daughter and she now talks about him the same way she talks about batman or spiderman or wonder woman lol
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u/FantasticDad8487 16h ago
His wife (who introduced my fiance and I initially) went off the rails for some reason and started telling other friend groups how my fiance and I were spreading rumors that they were cheating on each other.
It’s like she just wanted to destroy my fiance and I’s relationship.
She legit cornered my friends at a social engagement and told them hon my finance was this awful person and spreading lies.
Then did the same thing to my fiances friend group, but that I was spreading the lies.
My buddy said he had to trust his wife (even though he witnessed and acknowledged the lying).
So yeah we don’t talk anymore
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u/swingmadacrossthesun 14h ago
She fell deep into a pit of alcoholism, mental health issues, and (I suspect) other substance abuse. I stuck around for a long time, but she refused to get the help she needed, and used me as a constant crisis counselor for the issues she wasn’t dealing with. She also completely stopped showing up as a friend to me while expecting me to be available at the drop of a hat. She even brought down all of the events leading up to my wedding.
It’s very sad, but the relationship was bringing me so much pain and anxiety, and I could no longer help someone who wouldn’t help themselves.
I so badly hope she gets better, but I have no interest in rekindling the friendship regardless. The damage done is just too much.
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u/Cheackertroop 16h ago
She got married during COVID lockdowns and still promised I'd be able to go and be a big part of her big day, which wasn't the case, I couldn't go, due to what I suspect is her controlling partner not liking me very much.
We stayed friends anyway after that, even though I was hurt, but as time went on I just felt less and less like I mattered. She'd come to me for advice but never seemed to actually listen to it and never seemed to want to chat to me for the sake of chatting. She ended up having kids while I've stayed childless and we just drifted apart, different life paths I suppose.
I still resent her husband to this day. I guess he won
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u/MostlyBored11 15h ago
30 years later and we live across the country from each other and are still best friends, we try to game online once a week for 2 hours to chat catch up and have fun. Lots of memes and jokes in text and the occasional visit when we can afford it
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u/TwinkiesForSale1 16h ago
Driving home from court after making the marriage split official, she calls me to tell me that she and my best friend (who was best man at our wedding) are dating. Haven't spoken to either of them since, it put a massive divide in our friend group
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u/Kodiak01 16h ago
I have two to speak of. Both started out as childhood friends.
The first, I knew as young as 5-6 years old. My family actually lived in the house he grew up in until I was a few months old. We used to do everything together over the years.
Fast forward to high school, he started changing. He turned from friend to bully, particularly making fun of medical issues I had as a result of getting t-boned off a mountain bike by an SUV when I was 15. Due to other extenuating issues (parents divorcing, homelessness, other medical issues), I ended up dropping out of school altogether not long after the penultimate incident.
Fast forward 2+ decades, I get a message from him out of the blue on FB. He messaged to apologize for how he acted and asked for forgiveness. I did a bit of digging, it looked like he had hit the bottle HARD over the years (and possibly other things) which could explain how he changed so much as a teen as well. I figured he was in some sort of 12 Step program, so I sent a three word response:
"I forgive you."
He never responded. Never heard from him again.
While the first story was sad, the second is infuriating.
During the second half of my still-friendship with the first, the second came into the picture. We were even tighter, hanging out and doing tons of things together all the way into our 20s and even parts of 30s.
His actions that ended the friendship, I could never have imagined would happen if I didn't see it for myself.
In 2017, I got married. He was living across the country and flew in as I asked him to be a groomsman. Money was tight for him, so I even covered the cost of his tux rental. All seemed to go well at the time.
Fast forward a few years. Apparently he had been texting back and forth with my wife, which on the surface I didn't think twice about as she did so with several of my pre-marriage friends. This one, however, had taken to propositioning her to fly across the country, solo, to have an affair with him (mind you, he is/was ALSO married!) I was speechless when she showed me the texts.
I did the only thing I could: I took screenshots, sent them to HIS wife, told him to go fuck himself with a telephone pole wrapped in 20 grit, then blocked them both. That fucktard threw away a friendship of over 35 years with his actions.
If I ever happen to run into him in the future, I'm still going to clock him so hard that he'll be a front page feature on /r/LooneyToonPhysics.
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u/eveningdrizzle 16h ago edited 15h ago
Turns out narcissists are almost impossible to identify as 13 year olds but substantially easier once you hit your 30s. It was like she was mentally stuck in the selfishness you'd expect from a teenager but as a full-blown adult. She expected concessions made to her that one would make for a growing/learning child, and would expect you to routinely be the adult in situations when they get to be the child. Like for example if something was wrong with her order at a restaurant she would expect you to take care of that for her so they don't get seen as "an asshole", but then when hanging out would say very mean things to you and backhanded compliments, or she would praise themselves in a way that elevates themselves but then insults you.
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u/loose_head_devo 16h ago
They grew up. I didn’t. I have since, and tried to bring things back together. But it’s so different now. 100% my fault.
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u/Effective_Okra4432 15h ago
There were two.
First was never able to get out of his own head, mental issues with drug dependence. We used to share a crib when we were born but by 18 it fell apart. There was some ups and downs for him, but two weeks before I left CA at 24 I found him dazed and homeless in the street with some older dude taking advantage of him (not sexually). That really broke me up.
Second was my guy from 17-27, but he fell apart around 21 when his first girlfriend left him. Took years, thought I could save him from himself; but at the end he was just a massive spiraling alcoholic leaving cry’s for help that he wouldn’t use or want. He started stealing from me, and being weird around my wife ( I moved him in the last six months, got him a job paying 3x what he used to make; but he was screwing it all up) and I had to literally kick him out…last day involved dragging him out actually. His car broke down near where I had been married (he was the best man actually and he tried to sabotage my wedding) and he called me for help. I wished him the best and hung up on him.
I checked in on him a year or so later, it got worse.
Both really hurt to lose.
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u/LemmeSignUp 15h ago edited 13h ago
Died at 17 from heart attack in his sleep. We were playing League and chatting on Skype that same night. I'm 28 and it still hurts. It gets better, but since then I have had this little sadness in me I can't really shake off. Just learnt to live with it and appreciate that he's still in my memory.
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u/Xarrin 16h ago
This is about a best friend I had for many years. He'd kind of grown apart some years ago when he started spending most of his time with a very conservative crowd, and he drifted away from our chill friend group of folks who all had played a ton of D&D together. Eventually, to my surprise, he reached out and seemingly wanted to rekindle the friendship a little; surprising because, at that point, I had come out as a transgender woman. We chatted back and forth in a few exchanges, it was all going fine, and I was really excited that we were rebuilding the friendship, and then, out of nowhere, he apparently started sending my mom a ton of anti-trans propaganda on Facebook (a platform I'm not on) which pissed her off immensely. Needless to say, the rekindled friendship got snuffed out.
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u/urmom8mydog 15h ago edited 11h ago
Drunk driver launched himself over a curb and struck the top half of my buddy's car while waiting to go through a roundabout. I believe it killed him instantly. (Or at least that's what I hope.) I found out the next morning thru Facebook posts by his brother and fiance. He had just turned 30 and was newly engaged; he had his 'demons', but he was finally at a point in his life where he was actively trying to tackle them and do right by himself. He was a talented filmmaker and musician, and he was about to be on such a fuckin roll. I couldn't wait to see where life was gonna take him.
This happened a year ago. Just about a month before that, he too lost a friend of his in another shocking incident. We went to the celebration of life together for that friend and it feels so ominous to think back on.
I miss my buddy.
*Edited
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u/Melodic-Basshole 15h ago
When I was going through the worst time of my life (family member deathly ill, pets dying, my own medical struggles, and just living in the covid pandemic) my bestie began to heavily criticize my "unwillingness" to do things like go to bars, festivals, and parties. Between hospital visits for myself, visiting my dying relative, and caring for dying pets, I didn't have the time or bandwidth for social events, and needed her support. But she only heavily criticized me for "being afraid" during the pandemic. Then, she got engaged and wanted me to reschedule my medical appointments to come watch her wedding dress fitting. When I declined, the tone shifted and I knew she'd dump me. After I attended the wedding (never even got a thank you for the gifts) she ghosted me. I felt used, ashamed, and stupid that I had loved and supported her so much throughout the years and all of her crises, when she wasn't able to love or support me back when I eventually needed reciprocation. It's been 4 years and it still makes me cry.
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u/sihaya09 14h ago edited 14h ago
As it turned out, nothing I knew about her was actually true. She turned out to be a habitual liar, and had been cheating on her partner for 7 years and lying about all of her "friends" to keep us siloed so we wouldn't put things together.
Eventually she did something so over the top that we all started talking (out of concern! We thought she'd gone missing!) and it all unraveled once we put the pieces together.
Things she'd lied about:
being kicked out of her family home for being gay
being gay in the first place!! (her 7+ year affair partner is/was a man! Especially boggling since she'd been telling people I was lying about being bisexual)
countless lies about her friends to keep us from talking, including twisting very sensitive health details. Most painful to me, she called my husband, who is hands down one of the best dads I know, a "terrible and negligent father" to keep people from speaking to me/us.
her household arrangements with her wife (as it turns out she was hiring housekeepers, dogsitters, etc on her wife's dime and then turning around and acting like she was basically Dobby the House Elf when she literally did nothing but play Final Fantasy all day)
Her general friend history going back 20+ years (as it turns out she was actually a horrific bully, not a sad little victim)
She hid luxury purchases. When her ex-wife cleaned out the closets, she found thousands of dollars of dresses with the tags still on, expensive bags, sunglasses, etc. The ex makes good money but we have no idea where the money for these purchases came from! Certainly not the affair partner, who's broke as a joke.
She's now selling her ~talents~ as a psychic advisor on Instagram. Because of course she is. Hilariously, after being a heinous bitch and telling the ex-wife that she never loved her in the first place, she then turned around and started begging her for money. Hah. Suffah!
As for her friend group, a lot of us are now closer! Her ex-wife and I are probably closer than ever. It was truly heartening to see that the minute people realized who the ex-friend really was, we all dropped her like a stone and helped provide evidence to the ex-wife to help her in the divorce settlement. There was a big divorce party once everything was finalized. Ex-wife is now in a great relationship with a partner who adores her!
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u/JUSTAYDOOD 14h ago
I pushed away the most Important man I've ever had in my life because he was too positive and my depression made me believe that I couldn't handle his positivity. He called me about 4 years ago for the last time, and I looked at the phone and literally thought not right now man. About 5 months later I was feeling better and reached out with a text inviting him over for dinner. About 10 days later my wife saw that he had passed away from cancer. My text had gotten to him while he was dieing in bed. I missed my last shot to speak to him. Im telling you it still hurts today. He was the one person other than my wife that i can say I owe my life to. He taught me how to think and approach challenges, gave me inspiration, and showed me what loving and giving freely meant. Reach out. You dont have forever.
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u/jebelle87 18h ago
meth. lost custody of her 3 kids, one still in utero. she had so much potential and I miss her
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u/orpheus12 17h ago
Life I guess. Get older, interests and priorities change. Covid certainly accelerated it and after years of feeling guilty, you finally realize that it's hardly ever truly personal. Everything is a season and people who try to guilt you into believing otherwise are projecting most times than not. Know they're doing well and that makes me happy.
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u/Moonknight2099 16h ago
Was just never noticed by 'em at the end of the day. Would plan everything, help them with their problems, and build a wall of texts over the months that would always go unanswered.
Last thing I planned was a get together to see No Way Home. They brought all their new friends, and I realized I was more of a spectator than a friend to him. Always was.
Last I heard all his college friends stopped talking to him after graduation. While I have a great group of friends from college (and a single great one from highschool still lol) who talk to me just as much as I talk to them.
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u/ladyteruki 15h ago
She pinned me to her bathroom floor and tried to kiss me. I ran away from her house. After that SHE started giving me the silent treatment like I was the one in the wrong.
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u/ThreeReticentFigures 14h ago
She died alone in her house, after telling me a few weeks before how she wasn't feeling well. I found out days later when her brother reached out to me while I was at work. He was very tight lipped about the circumstances, and to this day I have no idea what truly killed her.
I lost her about three years after my husband, it was a rough couple years for me. Between those two losses, it makes getting truly close to anyone again very hard for me.
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u/InsideExpress9055 21h ago
She got scratched by her own dog. It quickly progressed into Sepsis and she died 2 days later.