Our friends are supposed to have our backs—but what happens when those "friends" have knives, and our backs are the targets? These people all know that particular sting of betrayal, and they've revealed their stories. Hey, at least now they can go find real friends and ditch these jerks.
1. No Fun
I dated my best friend for about three years. I thought it was like a dream come true but it turns out, it was actually a nightmare. About a year and a half in, her mom passed and she took it really hard. For several months, I was there for her every day helping her cope. It was difficult but we got through it together. A year later, I lost my dad to a sudden heart attack. I was heartbroken, but at least I still had her, right?
She broke up with me after two weeks. Her final words to me? "You're just not fun to be around anymore".
2. Trip And Rip
I learned my "friends" weren't actually my friends during a bad trip. They messed me up even more by telling me things like how I would never be able to have a real relationship and that I'd destroyed my brain for life. Needless to say, I spent the next 20 hours trying to hold myself together while those thoughts kept racing through my mind. I'm still not me, and it's been months.
3. Just Gimme A Reason
One of my best friends convinced my ex-wife that I'd been having an affair with an old girlfriend for five years. He lied and said I hadn't been to places where we were supposed to be together. I'd been with my wife for most of the last nine years. The girl lived two time zones away and we had just reconnected and become Facebook friends.
And the cherry on top? The friend and my ex are getting married in June. My ex knows now that nothing happened, and even if it did there was no excuse for what she did. They deserve each other.
4. Thanks For The Job, Now Get Lost!
I helped a friend get a job at my work. This is someone I have known for close to seven years. She even came to my wedding. It is a small work environment and everyone teases each other there. No exception...until she went to HR after I called her a smart [aleck] and filed a harassment complaint. I pleaded with her to talk to the manager, but she "didn't want to get involved" and ended the conversation.
I got fired following my suspension (it was a non-union job). This was over a month ago and to this day she is one of the few people from that job who hasn't checked in on me yet. Besides my job search frustration, I feel genuinely heartbroken.
5. Cabin Fever
My friend said she wanted to throw me a birthday party at her cabin for my 16th. I was stoked. As I was getting ready for my mom to drive me over, I got a call from her saying, "Hey, I'm so sorry, but my parents told me they aren't cool with it after all". I thought it was pretty crummy of her to cancel last minute, but hey, parents are going to be parents. Except, she had been lying through her teeth.
I called a few other friends to let them know what happened and see if they wanted to come to my place for a movie instead. "What do you mean it got canceled? We're there right now". That's what the first person said when I called. I ended up alone on my birthday because nobody could get a ride to my place. The worst part in all of this: My friends still hung out with this chick afterward.
6. I Don't Want To Play Anymore
In college, I was involved with the theatre department. I had never gotten over this one ex of mine, and one of my closest friends broke up with his girlfriend to get with her...right when I started talking to her again. That hurt, but it was nothing compared to what came next. He then wrote a play about it, set it in my apartment, got my roommate to direct it, and performed it in front of the entire department.
The play included my family's personal history, substance use, conversion to a different religion, and entire pages of conversation we'd had in real life, word for word. When I said how crummy the whole situation was, the vast majority of my friends essentially gaslit me and acted like I was being unreasonable.
7. Everything Gone In An Instant
Married for seven years. Refinanced dream home in October. Booked "bucket list" vacation two weeks later. A week after THAT, he came home and told me we were getting a divorce. He then walked out the door and never looked back. No notice. No, "Honey, I am growing unhappy". We never fought and I thought we had an awesome life.
But that wasn't the "stabbed in the back" part. Look, people grow unhappy and get divorced. Stuff happens, right? Except that besides blindsiding and abandoning me and our child, he went around to all of our friends and family playing the victim of how he was unloved and unappreciated. He also neglected to mention his side piece in his tale of woe—oh, and she just so happened to be my best friend!
8. Guilty People Do Bad Things
My best friend of 16 years. We both messed up and made out after confessing we both had feelings for each other. She understandably felt guilty because she was still dating my friend at the time, and even though he'd been acting like a jerk for the past few weeks, that was no excuse for what we did. But that also doesn't excuse what she did: To save face, she decided to spread rumors that I had vi0lated her.
I would've been happy to take my share of the blame for what happened, but when I found out about that, I lost respect for her instantly. After that, the entire friendship group turned on me and I had to cut all ties with them. Been friendless and alone for a long time after that and needless to say, I don't think I'll ever trust someone like that again.
9. Secrets Will Tear You Apart
I dated a girl for about a year and she broke up with me. I called my best friend of over 15 years to let him know since it was obviously hard to deal with, and he came and picked me up. We had some drinks and he helped me deal with the breakup. Fast forward about a year later and I noticed that he was at my university but he hadn't been calling me to hang out. He had been hanging out with her secretly behind my back and they later got married.
They both unfriended me on Facebook and I haven't spoken to them since. The part that I'm the saddest about is losing my best friend. I wish he had come to me about it and we could have chatted about it (I like to think that I'd have been okay with it). I miss him and hanging out like we used to.
10. No Friends During A Funeral
Several years ago, my grandmother passed. Driving home from her house (she lived very close to us), we ran into one of my best friends driving the other way. He had known her, and he ate Sunday dinner at her place on several occasions, so we stopped to let him know that she had passed and when the funeral would be.
We went to the funeral, then returned home to find a chilling sight. The place was empty. While we were at her funeral, my "friend" and a couple of other guys broke into our apartment and swiped all of our stuff. But he still sunk lower—a couple of nights later, they tried to break into my grandma's apartment too, but a neighbor saw them and scared them off.
This guy had been near the top of my best friends list and we'd known each other for about 12 years (I was 18 at the time).
11. Well That Escalated Quickly
When I was in college, I was in a band that played at local alternative rock clubs. We played mostly for fun and for free drinks. One night, I got a call from the guy who got us our gigs saying he had a job that would pay us $300 for about a 90-minute performance. It was last minute, but decent money for 1994. I called the guys up, they said yes, and we confirmed everything.
I was trying to connect with the other guys so I could pick up the gear and get to the bar. No one answered their phones. After about three hours of trying to get ahold of them, I finally talked to the singer and he told me that since we hadn't practiced for two weeks (because they were renovating our practice space) they didn't want to do the gig and I was kicked out.
I still remember the call to the bar and getting torn apart by the manager. I'm friends with one of the guys now, but the singer can go choke.
12. Save The Date!
I get engaged in August and around October, we decided on our wedding date. We were so excited that we notified all our friends and family straight away. One of my best friends had been dating this girl for about nine months or so and in December he started talking about how he was about to propose to her and I told him how cool it is and all that and reminded him of my wedding date (because his girlfriend at the time doesn't like my fiancé at all).
Fast forward to Christmas Eve when he proposed to me. He texted a few of us and we congratulated him without us asking him too many questions. On the first day back to work, we were chatting and I asked if they had an idea of the date. He did—and it was the exact same date and time as my wedding. They won't budge on it, either.
So now, I'm down one groomsman and I won't get to attend one of my best friend's weddings because his fiancé hates us for some reason.
13. Uninvited
A group of my friends from high school had wanted to Japan for the longest time. When we all turned 24, we finally had jobs and money, so the three of us finalized the plans. Then another friend joined in, and then another. Just before we booked the flights, one of them called me up: "The four of us don't want you to come on this trip. We have different interests. The others can't even bring themselves to call you and tell you, but I figure this way is better". I never saw it coming.
I talked to some of my new colleagues about how awesome it would be to go to Japan and I ended up going with them on the original dates that were planned. It was a great trip, too. Of my high school friends, the only one I have any contact with, and the only one who kept any of my respect is the one who called me and fessed up.
14. Left At The Mall
When I was 13, my friend group and I traveled to the closest town with a large shopping mall, which was two hours from home. I had just moved to this state, but these girls were my only friends. What they pulled is so messed up, I still can't quite believe it. They waited for me to go into the changing room of one of the stores, then told the mom who took us there that everybody was ready to go home.
They left me in a town two hours away, in a shopping mall. My mom had to get me. They also ostracized me for years after that. My mom spoke to the mom who drove, and the witch actually had the gall to say, "My girls would never do that!" Yeah, well, they did. It really ruined my trust for making any friends for years.
15. All's Fair In Geek Rock And Roll
I was in a geek rock band in college. We played around Chicago almost weekly. We also had a side job as a jazz band. We were pretty tight. We went to each others' weddings, hung out outside of gigs, etc. After several years of this friendship, I went through a divorce. I kept gigging with them.
One gig with the jazz group was rough. I wasn't there emotionally. I didn't miss a note, and I had some pretty sweet solos, but I probably looked like I'd just been beaten. A few weeks later, I got a mass email from my own band...saying come to our next gig to meet the new bassist, Joe Schmo! I was devastated. Not one of them had said anything to me. No one had checked in, no one had cared enough to say, "You're going through a rough time, maybe you want to take off for a bit".
One of the guys is a fellow teacher nearby and I have to see him a few times a year. Breaks my heart again every time.
16. The Holiday Spirit
A couple of years ago, I got really really sick and moved back to my parents' house for a couple of months. My roommate asked me if some friends of ours (his very long-time friends) could stay in my room for a few days because they were temporarily homeless. They had like four kids, but the kids had to stay somewhere else. I said sure because I wanted to do some good.
It was Christmas and these people were pretty poor; they definitely weren't going to be able to afford presents for the kids. My parents were actually going to give them a hundred bucks to help with presents. Then I found out what they did. I came back to the house a week or two after they stayed only to discover they had taken my MacBook, another laptop, a Kindle, and a set of gaming headphones.
The worst was my external hard drive since I had 15 years of pictures stored on there. They also swiped my roommate's college ring. I'm still mad about it three years later. You don't steal from friends, especially ones who are saving your homeless necks.
17. Two Against One
I used to have two very good friends when I was 19 years old. We always hung out together. One day, the two of them teamed up on me and said, "We think you are only friends with us so you can take our substances. If you want to prove that you are really our friend, you should pay for everything for the next two months". I was genuinely blindsided.
Each of us, including me, had always fairly contributed to our purchases, so this was completely unwarranted. Also, it's completely ridiculous to ask your friend to prove his friendship by paying for things for you. So yeah, I told them to screw off and blocked them on all social media. I never contacted them again...but the story doesn't end there...
Two years later, I met one of the two at a concert. He told me that he wasn't friends with the other guy anymore because he realized what a manipulative jerk that guy was. He explained to me that the guy had talked him into ganging up on me back then and I forgave him, so we became friends again.
18. Dolphin Eats Dog
I had a friend who I had known since fourth grade. When we both got out of the service, we decided to get an apartment and were roommates for about eight months. I was working two jobs, so I was not around a lot. One day, our apartment manager caught me in the hallway and asked me if I had the rent. At the time, I was giving my roommate the rent and he said he was paying it.
I was only 22 at the time and a little naive about things. I paid him cash because I didn't have a checking account. I also happened to have a spending problem. Not having a credit card or checkbook stopped me from getting into debt, but it was hugely inconvenient. I was also working two jobs, so I did not have a lot of free time during the day. I didn't worry about my bro ripping me off, we were good friends.
I was a Devil Dog, he was a Devil Dolphin, and we had each other's backs. But I was so wrong. Turns out, he had not paid the previous two months and had pocketed my cash. I ended up paying for four months of rent for both of us. We got evicted and lost my security deposit. Lesson learned.
19. Cheating Was The Easy Part
We were together for six years, and we lived together for most of it. Only in the last year did we live apart from each other because we went to school in cities that were two hours apart. We had an argument the day after Thanksgiving, so I made a surprise drive to visit her that night. I walked inside and my stomach dropped. I caught her cheating on me, red-handed.
She swore up and down it was a misunderstanding, and since I loved her, I believed every word. But she hadn't even committed her worst betrayal yet. We spoke briefly for the next month because of finals, and she invited me over afterward. I drove two hours to see her, and when I got there, officers showed up minutes later and handed me a restraining order.
Months later, I finally found out why she did it: She didn't want me to find out she was already getting married to the guy she was cheating on me with.
20. The Butt Dial Reveal
I dated a girl all throughout high school, but when school ended, we started drifting apart because real life was coming at us fast. That's just the way things were. We didn't officially break up, but we became a lot less close than we had been. Then, one night, my phone rang at like 2:30 am and it was my best friend calling. I figured he needed a ride home from a party or something, so I answered to see what was up.
That's when I heard a sound that made my skin crawl. It was her. Well, it was him calling, but I could hear her in the background laughing, at which point he started laughing too. I was thoroughly confused and pretty much started yelling into the phone: "What the eff?! What is going on?!" But the worst was yet to come: I began to hear the unmistakable sound of bare skin slapping bare skin.
Yeah, she cheated on me with my best friend and they called me in the middle of it as a joke so I could hear them going at it via speakerphone. My relationship with her was instantly over, and so was my friendship with that dude. That was 16 years ago. I haven't spoken a word to either of them since and the few times I've seen him, I just breeze right past him as if he doesn't exist.
I've had trust problems with people ever since that night though. It would be one thing to have a relationship end or a friendship fall apart, but to have both of them, the two people I trusted most, that had been by my side for years, do that to me? Done.
21. Your Wedding? Not Worth It
My best friend of 12 years decided two weeks before my wedding that he didn't want to participate. The worst part? He was my best man. Apparently, on the wedding day, his awful girlfriend had planned a non-refundable trip for them to take. Even on the day of our fitting, after which I had planned a dinner for everyone as an early thanks, he came to get fitted and then blew us off for dinner because he had another party to go to instead.
His girlfriend knew it was my wedding day, as she was invited as well. She never liked me, but the feeling was mutual so it never bothered me. I ended up canceling their invite, and when the wedding day came, my brother-in-law stepped up and helped me. I'm still best friends with his brother, who later gave my friend an ultimatum as well: stay with his wife and kids and not have a brother, or leave her and they can still be family.
It was a no-brainer, I guess. I haven't seen the guy in eight years. His brother hasn't seen him in six.
22. And Then There Was One
I went through a divorce. It took me two years to recover and start dating again. I don't know what changed in me, but I became associated with an incredibly crummy group of humans who I considered my close friends. The following stories are all true—they happened over the span of about three years, and each one involved a different "friend":
First, I met a girl who worked at GNC. We started dating. I would find out later that one of my friends started going into that GNC daily, telling her to break up with me and date him instead. I broke up with her for not telling me it was happening for about three months, and I stopped talking to him completely because he knew how difficult it was for me to try and move on from my ex-wife.
After breaking up with the GNC girl, I met a new one. I was at my house playing Call of Duty with a friend and I invited her to hang out with us. The two of them started dating the next day. I wasn't actually too mad about this, since I wasn't dating this one—she was just someone I was talking to. So then I started dating yet another new girl, who I eventually introduced to my circle.
A few days later, she would tell me she got a Facebook message from one of my friends asking if she wanted to come over to his house. He followed that message up with an unsolicited picture. My friend tried to play it off like he was innocent, but he had no way out of that one.
23. Me?? Pay Rent???
Back in November, I took in a friend after her boyfriend kicked her out. She lived with me completely free of charge because she was unable to get a job. Well, at the start of the month she got a job (finally), and of course, we agreed that she'd start paying the same rent and bills like everyone else in the house. That was all fine...until she decided she wanted to get a tattoo with her first pay.
I told her I was okay with that, but she had to make sure we had rent money first. You would have thought I told her her first month's rent was the soul of her firstborn. She went bananas, screaming about how I'm a horrid witch who's never done anything for her and saying that she shouldn't have to pay because she wants to use her money for her things.
She screamed and swore until my neighbors came over out of concern. This was all coming from the girl who I had given everything—food, clothes, a home—I shared my freaking bed with her for goodness sake, but the second I told her she was expected to contribute to the house, I was suddenly the worst human being to ever exist.
So she left last night after making that huge scene, calling me every name in the book, and she had her next victim pick her up. Poor guy. Soon enough, she'll do the same thing to him. She's done this more times than I can count. She makes up a sad story about getting kicked out of her last place, then she moves in, doesn't contribute, and is generally a lazy slob until the person she's leeching off of wises up and kicks her out.
I thought it'd be different because we were such close friends, but no. I will be regretting letting her into my life for a very long time.
24. There Are No Friends In The Theater
I met a girl about three years back who quickly became one of my best friends. There were all the warning signs that she was a terrible person, but I ignored them: Everyone she'd been friends with before had apparently "betrayed her," she was sleeping with an engaged guy, and she knew a ton of gossip that other people in our social circle were apparently spreading about me.
She was big into theatre, and about a year into knowing me, she was putting on a show for a local festival. She asked me to be her set designer, which I'd never done before, but it was an easy job and I figured, "Why not? Some of the actresses are cute..". But the demands started getting bigger and bigger. Instead of just picking up tables and chairs, I had to build some kind of massive collapsible frame with imported fabric.
The deadlines were tight and we fought bitterly whenever I protested. I wound up putting down $600 dollars on all the materials, but the festival brought in that much money in cash very quickly once the show went up. I asked her for my money back and she said she was waiting on the check for online sales.
So fast forward three weeks after the show and I still didn't have my money back. I called her a few times. Her response still blows my mind. She went around and told every mutual friend we had that I was a chauvinistic, abusive pig who was harassing her and threatening her. She implied that she wanted to sue me and get the authorities involved, so I called her bluff and said she should.
She then wrote me a bad check and tried to accuse me of trying to "cash it twice" while still threatening to sue me. So, being stereotypically Jewish, I got one of my parents' many lawyer friends to help draft a letter and said I'd be fine to go to a small claims court. At this point, it was less about the money and more about hating this witch.
About two months later, she gave me $500 in cash and I decided to let it go. Some things I've learned since: 1) Every person she ever said "betrayed her" lent her money only to have her go scorched earth on them. 2) She made several thousand dollars on that play and didn't pay back any of the other people she owed. 3) Unsurprisingly, she'd been badmouthing me to everyone even before this happened, setting me up as the kind of guy that would pull something like this.
I've never gotten that close to someone again. She was the closest friend I've ever had and in some ways, I still miss that intimacy. I'm eternally grateful our relationship was purely platonic as it could have been so, so much worse otherwise. But at least she got her karma in the end. Her play was a steaming pile of doo-doo and was reviewed by several small-time blogs as basically "the worst thing ever".
25. Karl And Liz
I got kicked out of my house and my best friend, we'll call him Karl, invited me to live with him and his girlfriend for the summer before I went back to college. Before I met anyone, he told me I was going to want to date his friend, Liz. He then forbade me from dating Liz with no explanation other than "she's basically my little sister". I then met Liz and really liked her.
Karl then tried to set me up with his friend Amy. Amy and I got along okay—we went on a couple of dates before I found out she was dating another guy on the side. It was no skin off my back since it was a casual setup in the first place. And that gave me an opening to start seeing more of Liz. I started dating Liz and Karl got grouchy with me, telling me I wasn't good enough for her, and he got all sorts of overprotective—but we mostly just dealt with it until I moved out and went to school in another city.
Liz visited me a couple of times, and eventually, Karl and Liz went to visit a friend of ours who lives nearish to me. I was like, "Oh sweet, I'll come too and it'll be a big ol' friends reunion!" Karl then told me it was a no-go because a guy who lived with them hated me for no reason. The worst part is that none of my other buddies would stand up for me. That hurt, but Liz said she would visit me after.
When she arrived, she finally revealed the whole story. Turns out, Karl and his girlfriend had been having relationship issues, and I had been invited to live with them as a buffer. I moved out and things got worse—they were now on a "break". The reason Karl forbade me from dating Liz? Liz was his backup girl and I was in the way of his prospective target.
The reason my buddies didn't have my back? Karl told everyone I cheated on Amy, and Karl was using that trip to try and get in Liz's pants.
26. Group Betrayal
At my university, we have the same group of people who we work on projects with for the entire semester. I had done about 60% of the work for every project we did thus far. Then came the worst days of my life. I had to have emergency surgery during a final, major project. I did as much work as I could leading up to the date of the surgery and then handed the reins over to them, as I would be in surgery and in recovery through the time of presentation.
I went through the surgery, recovered, came back, and got called into the dean's office. When I found out the reason, I wanted to scream. They took my name off of every project and claimed I did no work, fabricating evidence that I would not respond to their messages. I was blindsided and had only my word to defend myself. I ended up having to complete five semester-long projects in one week to graduate. I did it and graduated, if just barely. But that wasn't the last I'd heard of my "friends".
At the graduation party, they didn't even have the courage to face me. They asked a friend of mine how it was possible that I graduated. Luckily, my friend told them to ask me themselves. They never did. This was recent and I don't really trust any of them anymore. I'm trying to get past it.
27. Friend Crashes, Friendship Burns
Two years ago, I had a friend I had known since middle school move in with me and another roommate. He was going through some rough times with his family and needed a place to stay. The first year was fine, with no issues at all. Then he started to avoid paying bills, and he wouldn't acknowledge it in any way.
I have no idea why, but I was heading home for the summer and figured it'd be fine. We started texting again and he seemed okay, but the other roommate was, at the same time, telling me that this guy had been eating his food, making messes all over the place, and still not paying bills. Mid-July, my "friend" texted me saying he and the other roommate almost got in a fight over the bills, so he would be moving out in two weeks.
He said he'd pay rent for August to avoid screwing us over. I told him I appreciate that and when he moved back home we should hang out like old times. The other roommate then told me he moved out on July 31st, and I texted him to see if he left a check there for rent. I got an automated message saying his number is no longer able to receive texts. Now that's a red flag—but this was just the beginning.
I called him and it said it's no longer in service. I checked Facebook and he deleted his account. He also blocked me on Twitter and removed me on Xbox. The worst part is, if he didn't want to pay rent for August, he could've just said so, and I wouldn't have complained. He left only owing me about 40 dollars for the internet bill for two months, but he owes my other roommate significantly more.
The dude threw away 12 years of friendship with me, and 10 with my roommate, all for God knows what reason. It sucks.
28. Party Of Five?
New Year's Eve a few years ago, at a local rock club. My girlfriend and I had been talking to a girl all night. We vaguely knew her—she was the roommate of the girlfriend of a friend of ours. It was pretty apparent from the start that she was into both of us, and it was mutual. Things started getting interesting if you catch my drift.
Just as we were suggesting we go back to our place (literally a two-minute walk away), our friend and his girlfriend came over and inserted themselves into the situation. They told her in no uncertain terms that she shouldn't be going home with people, that she's sauced (we all were, but no one to the point of irrational decision-making), and so on.
She told them she was fine, but still, they just wouldn't. Stop! Eventually, she decided it was not a good idea (her first suggestion was actually that the three of us mess around in a bathroom stall because that'd be less obvious, but have you seen rock club bathrooms?). So, fair enough. It's good that she's got friends looking out for her. We were sad, but we understood.
Until we found out what happened when they got home. Turns out, the couple tried to initiate their own threesome with her! Haven't spoken to any of them since.
29. Send Them Back To The Farm
My best friend of five years stole my boyfriend. She's gorgeous and lively, very outgoing. I'm a more than slightly chubby redhead who plays video games and reads all day. We met through my BFF—he was tall, sort of decent-looking worked on a farm, and seemed like a really good guy. I have a massive soft spot for farmers.
So, he and I hit it off. We spent almost all of our free time together and we were texting constantly when we weren't together. A few months later, we got into an argument and he pretty much laid it out there that he had only been dating me so he could be close to my BFF. He straight up told me I was too fat for him, but that wasn't the worst part. He had been sleeping with her since pretty much right after we started dating.
I called my BFF. She confirmed his story and said she was only doing it because she knew he would hurt me and she wanted to make him like her so she could hurt him back. He was my first serious boyfriend in years, and I wouldn't even consider dating for nearly another year after that.
30. Get Over Yourself
When I came out of the closet, it didn't go well with my Catholic parents. I was devastated. I had already gone through an entire self-hatred process where I had to accept my homosexuality and align it with my religious beliefs. I had just accepted myself, but then having things explode with my parents destabilized me again and I had to start the cycle of hatred and acceptance all over again.
Through that, I had a close friend in school. We spent a lot of time together, carpooled together, etc. She was a rock for me throughout that tough time. A couple of months later, she wanted nothing to do with me. She avoided me, came up with excuses to not carpool, etc. Then, a friend told me they overheard her telling our classmates that I hit on her all the time and that I was so awkward and pathetic. I wanted to SCREAM.
She was a married, straight woman. And just a close friend. Go screw yourself. It took me a while to figure out that it was just her major character flaw that caused her to act that way, and that my other female friends wouldn't do the same to me. Things are better now. I'm also successful in my field and she's not, so there's that too.
31. The Friendship Test
I had a group of really good friends in my teens and early 20s, and one friend in the group was my absolute best friend. We did everything together. Well, one day he was off at college, away from home. His girlfriend used to hang out with all the guys in our group so we were all really close; then, one day, she confided in me that her boyfriend (my best friend) had been cheating on her at college with several different girls.
I was disgusted at him and really didn't know how to feel after that; it wasn't like him at all. She was thinking of breaking up with him and she asked me what she should do. I hated being put on the spot, but I told her to go with her gut and either confront him or break up with him. Apparently, that was a huge mistake. The very next day, my friend contacted and we got into a heated argument about what a horrible friend I was.
It made me think the whole thing was set up as a "test" to see what I would say. He accused me of coming onto his girlfriend which I certainly did not do at all. And that day, our friendship ended. Not only that, he basically told everyone in our friend circle not to talk to me ever again and so I was left friendless because of either his awful "test" of friendship or his genuine stupidity of cheating on his girlfriend and her stupidity of reporting to him that I was coming onto her.
This all led to a few years of depression and eventually acceptance that I'll never have another close friend ever again.
32. The Ol' Snag And Swap
So my best friend brings this girl over to my place one day (we're gonna call her V). She's really cute and we end up hitting it off. He tells me he likes her, that's why he invited her over. Well, shoot. I backed off. But I mean, there's only so much a randy 19-year-old can do. As it turns out, she liked me and not him and you know how things go...We dated for six months.
Coincidentally, he also started dating a different girl (well call her B) for almost the exact same duration and time period. Also coincidentally, he breaks up with B at almost the same time V breaks up with me. So several weeks pass, and I'm still having a tough time getting over V...And that's when my best friend admits he's been seeing her. Low blow, but I mean, I did technically snag her from him first. I insist that I don't want them to stop seeing each other on account of my feelings.
I don't know how this worked, or even why I thought this was a good idea, but out of spite I decided to send B a text and I'll let you fill in the rest. We effectively traded girlfriends. In the end, he and I are still friends and neither of us talks to either of those girls anymore. We both admit that there was no good guy in that story and that we were both jerks.
33. While You Were Gone...
My ex-girlfriend used my poor mental health and attempt to take my own life to convince our friends that I was a compulsive liar. At the time, I was taking some personal time to recover, away from people, and I didn't realize what was happening until I tried to reintegrate myself with my friends, who by then were convinced I was a conniving piece of garbage. For a little while, I was very alone at a very vulnerable time.
Since then, the experience has kind of given me perspective about who my real friends really are. The people who cared about me supported me regardless of what had been said about me, and they were willing to hear my side of the story. The people who didn't were probably never really there for me in the first place.
Important life lesson for me, I think. It kind of hurts me thinking about it, but I think I'm far better off now surrounded by people who I know really care about me.
34. Take The Fall
I was friends with a guy who's in the same industry as me. We'd both been around for years but never seemed to run into each other until he joined my company a little over two years ago. He's a real go-getter who has been recognized by the company a few times now and people generally give the feedback that he's one of the best in our field. Many people consider me to be the best and I guess it was inevitable that we'd gravitate towards each other.
We hung around for a few months, in and out of work. He's a real family guy, and so am I, so we had a lot in common. We were getting in and out of tough situations together at work, but it began to feel like I was carrying the weight of our friendship. Whenever the chickens came home to roost, it was on me. People accused me of being his fall guy.
There was even a situation where I got locked in somewhere because of his bad decisions. I have claustrophobia and I cannot deal with small spaces. We had a few disagreements but nothing really came of it. Anyway, a while ago we did have a big falling out. I won't go into it, but I wasn't speaking to him and he was desperate to mend our relationship. Finally, I gave in and we mended things.
Everything was great again for a while, but then he started talking to another guy in our field, who's been around as long as I have and we never saw eye to eye. Suddenly, he had a new "friend" who could help him. That's when he proved what kind of person he was. I threw him a party and got him a couple of gifts to say thanks for being a good friend, and he totally rejected them. He bought me a gift just to mock me and one of my interests.
Things got physical and he ended that night by smashing my TV. I got the worst of it. Now, to pile on, he's trying to take my position in the company. I really hate that he managed to manipulate me into helping him so much. He's a stupid idiot.
35. Halo, But No Angel
In seventh grade, my small group of friends and I were of the less popular crowd, but we had each other. One day, my closest friend in the group, we'll call him Adam, didn't hang out with us during the break. No problem, it wasn't like he had to every day. Adam and I were super close. Like, "sleepover twice a week and do nothing but play Halo 3 in his room the whole day" close.
Over the course of a week, he started hanging out with us less and less. I asked him why and he told me he'd been playing hand tennis with some other crowd (a much cooler crowd). Then, he went on to explain some nonsense about how it's just so he can join their soapbox derby team. Soapbox derby comes and goes. Still not a word from Adam.
I spotted him after school one day and confronted him, asking him why he was avoiding us. He couldn't even look me in the eyes and he was visibly embarrassed to be seen with me. That moment hurt more than anything. I just want an explanation, but I got nothing. We went our separate ways from there, and needless to say, his newfound friends led him down a path of poor choices. My other friends and I are all doing well for ourselves.
But what I'd give to go back and play Halo 3 with him again, greatest memories. Too bad it ended poorly.
36. Ridiculous? Check. Petty? Check.
I helped my friend get a summer job, her first job when we were 17. It was at a place where I had worked the summer before. I got a bonus and was put in charge when the owner wasn't around (there was no manager). When my friend started working there, she would tell my boss personal things that I had confided in her.
She also got mad at me for something involving a guy and she started taking it out on me at work. She would refuse to do what I asked of her and she rallied our coworkers to take sides. It was ridiculous and petty. Then, she convinced my childhood friends that I had abused her at work and taken her boyfriend (who I had no interest in and had only met once). My friends listened and left me left to be her friend.
Jokes on them though, because I have great friends now and the most amazing best friend, my boyfriend. They still gossip about stuff that happened back in high school and just act like children in general. On the occasions that I do run into them, they ask what I have been up to and mock the successes I have had or the happiness I have found. They are too jealous to be happy for me, even after all these years. Bullets dodged.
37. Left In The Dust
It was high school and I was doing pretty well as far as socializing goes. I had never been in that position, and it went to my head. I saw this one girl who was completely alone, so I kind of adopted her. I pulled her into my friend group and she flourished. Over the next two years, I helped her battle through depression, an eating disorder, family issues, anxiety, you name it.
Whatever it was, I was there for her. Heck, I even volunteered to be her first lesbian kiss since she just wanted to get it out of the way. During senior year, things changed. She cut off all her hair and became a cool kid. By this point, I was generally a loner who drifted between groups. I still had really close friends, just across different cliques. She pretty much upgraded to the cool kids and completely abandoned me.
After everything I did for her, she couldn't even bother to talk to me. I still hurt thinking about it. Julia (or Jay now, I guess..), if you're reading this, I loved you a lot. I hope you realize you threw away someone who would have done anything for you. For what? Some more signatures in your yearbook.
38. You Had ONE RULE
I had a friend in middle school who I was excited to invite over to spend the night. I told him he just couldn't go into my brother's room. We played video games all day and night, and the next day, I spent the night at his house. He acted weird a lot of different times. He would get frustrated in the middle of us having fun for some reason.
I went home the next day and my mom told me on the ride home that my brother was missing 180 dollars from his room. She asked me if she thought my buddy took it, to which I said no way. At home, she asked me if I ever left him alone, which I said I did once—when I went to the restroom. I cried telling them that there is no way he took it because he was my friend.
Sure enough, my mom drove over there and came back with the money. I think the worst part was crying and defending him over it all. He didn't amount to much in life and he ended up getting locked up in his later years, but what's the worst is he could never give me a reason why he took the money.
39. Rent Claims Another Friendship
We met as co-workers, got along well enough, and decided to split the rent of a nearby apartment. Things were going just great. We had a system where we simply split the rent in half, and each of us respectively paid our half of the rent. After a year or so, he quit that job and got another one nearby. No problem. A while later, I found out he was out of that job and on the market...okay...
In the meantime, he'd borrowed a few bucks here, a couple there, and that slowly added up. He owed me around a grand I think. Finally, I was walking through the building and one of the staff asked me what was going on. That's when the truth came out. He explained that we were about $1,500 behind on the rent (1.5 months' worth). It was so close to the wire that we were going to be kicked out the next day.
By some miracle, I actually had enough to cover that, but now he owed me a lot more money and I was absolutely furious. It went on for a while. He told me he would contact his mother, and she would be able to help him out. I made the mistake of taking his word on that, but after a couple of weeks of nothing, I decided to contact her myself.
Lo and behold, he had not mentioned this to her. So I apologetically explained the situation to her, and she spoke to him. Fortunately, everything turned out well (for me anyway). His mother paid me everything he owed me, plus enough to cover his next couple of months' rent. He found a job that he liked, and from that point, I paid the rent, and he paid me his portion (always on time).
We wound up losing contact after we each moved on in life but stayed on good terms, so I guess it all came out well in the end.
40. Corporate Backlash
This is still sore. I worked at a small, privately-owned business for almost 12 years. It was my first job. The staff was so close that we were basically family. I think back at how we were all such huge parts of each other's lives; how my older co-workers really had a hand in shaping me to be the adult I am now. The owner sold the business to a corporation and announced that the manager, who was a very, very close friend of mine would be stepping down.
In front of the entire staff, he announced I would be the manager and that he would help me make the transition into new ownership. I had never been so shocked... I felt so betrayed. Deeply betrayed. My options were: to take the job and try it out for a year to build a resume or step down in my middle-management position and re-join the reception staff at a pay cut and limited schedule.
Well, two things: I never wanted to be the "the boss" and the previous manager knew that; I knew this acquisition was going to be terrible and wanted to leave. My significant other was just laid off, so I couldn't. As soon as I stepped into the position, I was forced to do things like change schedules, cut overtime, and switch 401k providers.
I had to do this or I would be fired. You can't stop a freight train, and this corporation didn't need or care about any of us. My work "family" immediately scapegoated me. They treated me like a turn-coat enemy as if anything could have been done. I was running myself haggard working 70 hours a week and they reveled in it.
Eventually, I was bullied by my friends...One day, five of them quit, which essentially crippled us. They had been planning it for two months. I lasted a year in the position and it was the worst year of my life. I would have quit sooner but my significant other got into an ATV accident and was out of work. I had hung out with these people outside of work for YEARS.
I went to their baby showers, planned parties with them for the 4th of July, spent New Year's together, etc. It's still sore because they don't think they did anything wrong in how they treated me.
41. IT's Not Looking Good
I was working as an IT consultant and was recently promoted to area manager. So I had maybe 15 other consultants under me. Now, I was personal friends with many of them before the promotion. Then in 2009, the big global recession finally hit IT in the country I worked in, and some of our jobs were cut after finished projects. Well, it was basically me and two other guys.
Shortly after, it came out that people had been badmouthing me behind my back, and it was the major reason why I was cut. Lo and behold, who did it? The people who were supposed to be my friends. I could disprove everything via written performance reviews from the company's managers where we were stationed, but since I found out after the fact, it was too late.
It cost me a year of unemployment and I ended up in debt just to survive. Why? Because of jealousy. Now, let's add some more fun facts: Some of those "friends" knew most of my friend circle, and they started badmouthing me to them. Out of those 10-ish people, one person questioned what they said and stayed friends with me, while the rest cut me out without even speaking to me.
One "friend" tried playing both sides, but after I showed him the performance review from my managers (whom the betrayers said were unhappy with my performance), he still kept in touch with them. So I cut him from my now very small (but genuine) friends circle. These backstabbers were all people who also came to my wedding.
Good riddance I say. I know the worst of those old "friends" is now stuck in a job he hates, and I got the job of my dreams for a long time after.
42. Creepy Cousin
My "best" friend growing up was a terrible person. At the time I couldn't see it, but she really was a completely awful human being. She had a very creepy cousin who would make chilling advances and comments toward me. He made me feel very uncomfortable and she knew this, yet she did nothing about it.
Mind you, this is when she and I were both 16, and he was 18. One day, we were getting silly at her boyfriend's house and her cousin came over to buy some God knows what (her boyfriend sold...lots of stuff). My "best" friend was a little frisky, and she decided this was a great time to go off and sleep with her boyfriend. She left me alone in a strange house with her creepy cousin.
This was before cell phones or anything like that, and I tried to zone out on the TV and keep to myself, as far away from him as possible. He kept making comments and would sit closer and closer to me on the couch. I was not in the right state of mind (I know, not the smartest thing) and that's when he finally started touching me. I grabbed his hand and said if he touched me again I'd end him.
He laughed and said he wasn't worried because he was much stronger than me (he was, I was about a sickly 90 lbs at that time). Needless to say, her cousin violated me. I stopped talking to her immediately and cut off all contact with her, our mutual friends, her family, etc. For months to years after, her cousin would find me on social media and stalk me.
The sickest part was he'd write things to me professing love and sweet feelings. It got to the point where I told people if I ever went missing, look at him first. I ended up talking to her randomly years later and told her what happened. Her reply was "Well, you were super messed up so who knows what actually happened. Maybe you wanted it".
43. Work And Play
I once worked in a call center. The work was tough—maybe a nine-month average burn-out time—and at two years in, I was one of the "old hands". After a large recruitment drive, there was a lot of new staff, none of whom knew very many people. My idea was, instead of us regulars going out to the pub on our own as usual (we did it nearly every night), we'd invite some of the new starts along as well and make a night of it.
It snowballed from there. One lady sketched and photocopied a quick poster with a date, time, and venue. One of the guys sent a group e-mail, and another handed out photocopied invitations. Another booked a large table at our favorite bar. I got a box of "Celebrations" sweets. The build-up was invigorating; everybody said they were up for it and looking forward to it. Bear in mind, we always went out for drinks anyway, the only difference with this night was that we were planning in advance and inviting others. I never predicted the disaster it became.
On the night, I went along early with the box of "Celebrations," sat at our table...and not a single person showed up. I swear, for the first solid hour on a busy weekend night I sat there alone at this table, reserving it "for my work-mates," as the pub slowly filled, and with more and more people asking if they could sit at this big, vacant table. It got mighty embarrassing very quickly to have to explain to them that I was waiting for a crowd to arrive.
Eventually, I gave up and started making it obvious that the table was available; I got some humiliatingly sympathetic looks from the people who took a seat. I was finishing my drink when a couple of new-starts showed up well over an hour after the "start" of the night, and while I was talking to them explaining that the night was a total dud, a couple of the "regulars" deigned to stroll in.
We had a couple of beers, but after being shown up I wasn't in the mood to make a night of it; I left the chocolates and split, having learned a valuable lesson: You can't absolutely count on people doing what they say they're going to, even if the thing is totally routine. The psychology of it was such that if we hadn't arranged ANYTHING, the table would have been filled with co-workers who would have been out as normal, as we always did. But make it "an occasion," and suddenly no one wants to be the first to turn up, and not so many people want to go at all.
The worst part of it was I got remembered as the "face" of the failed night out, and fellow co-workers had the nerve to rib me about it over the next couple of weeks, even though it wasn't guys like me that were the problem. And the following week, on the same day of the week, without any planning whatsoever, a big group of us hit that bar, got plastered, and had a good time, with only me seemingly spotting what was wrong with that picture.
44. The Virgin Slayer
In college, I had a mad crush on one of my really good guy friends. One night, after having a few too many, we ended up admitting we had feelings for each other, sleeping together, and then he confessed to me that he had been a virgin. The very next day he got back together with his ex-girlfriend who was still in high school. I was devastated. Not only did he lie about feelings for me so that he could lose his virginity, but I had also lost a good friend.
He never looked me in the eye after that night. Devastated, I confided in my best friend and roommate (and only her). Fast forward to six months later and I had drifted some from that friend group because I was too uncomfortable being around the guy. I tried to pretend like everything was normal, but when one person addresses another and doesn't receive any kind of acknowledgment...it's pretty obvious there's tension, even within a group of people.
I started dating a really great guy. He was sweet and a really great boyfriend, but very nerdy and pretty obviously a virgin (whatever, a lot of people in college are virgins!). At the start of the next school term, I was helping a freshman find his way around campus and when I introduced myself he said, "Oh! You're the girl with the title!" Confused, I said "...title? what're you talking about?" He said, "You're the virgin slayer!"
I confronted my "best friend" about it and she said, "Ok yes I made up the title, but I didn't spread it around. I can tell you who did if you want". No apology. Five years later and I'll still meet people who will say "Ohhh! You're the virgin slayer, right?!" I've got to get out of this freaking town.
45. Shower Trouble
I was in a pretty tight group of four friends (me and three others) during college, and we all met working as students on campus in the same office. As I tend to do with my friends, I went all in and bent over backward to be there for them, sometimes a little too much (I've since worked on my issues a little and I am less intense in my friendships now, meaning I don't put my life on hold for another's).
Anyway, 5h3cfirst one gets pregnant and the other two ladies plan her baby shower. I lived out of town at the time and I wasn't able to actually plan it, though I did help wherever I could and whenever I was asked. The second one got pregnant and they planned her baby shower. We'd been having a rough patch in our friendship due to other petty issues, so I wasn't asked to help plan, but I was still invited.
Then I got pregnant and ended up planning my own dang shower because I kept getting excuses and brush-offs from all three of them. I finally realized none of them were going to plan my party for me, even though they'd all been involved in planning each other's showers. I was really hurt, especially since I'd always felt like the outsider within the group, and that was basically proven right when it came down to it.
Bunch of petty, stupid crones. They've all since apologized, admitting later that most of the reason they were so rude to me during that time was that they were so unhappy in their relationships that it was too hard for them to be happy for me in mine. It was a very difficult thing to go through, but at the same time, it helped me recognize that I could be a little too intense in my friendships.
I was able to work on myself, and I realized I have more value than just what I can do for my friends.
46. Put It All On Red
I had a friend of 10+ years, let's call him Matt. Matt and I were about as close as two dudes who are comfortable in their heterosexuality could be. We had each other's backs, we were each other's wingmen, we cleaned each other up when we'd partied too hard, etc. One day, while at work, I got an email that hit me like a gut punch. Out of the blue, he said it was time to end our friendship.
He said that we'd grown apart, that we were moving in different directions. He was particularly upset that I didn't go to his cousin's dad's funeral (I had been in a band with the cousin, and we weren't friends anymore, but that's another story). I was like what the heck man, why are you doing this? We had just been hanging out like two days before, and he had given no indication he was unhappy with me, nor had he addressed any issues.
He wouldn't say any more, and he just straight ghosted me. None of my friends would give me any more information. Either they didn't know or they weren't saying. A month or so later, I moved out of my apartment and in with my 88-year-old grandmother, who had just lost her husband of 50 or so years. I moved on with my life.
Maybe five years later, people started being OK with inviting Matt and his fiance to stuff that I was invited to as well. We had a ton of the same friends, and it had been awkward for everyone. That evening, I ended up on the porch after several drinks, and wouldn't you know it, Matt was doing the same. That night, he finally revealed why he betrayed me.
Long story short, he confirmed the story that he had ditched me as a friend because of a girl. I'd dated a woman, let's call her Red. Red was a feisty woman and a real firecracker. When you dated her, she was kind of like a crabby witch who always had to be right. I liked her, and she was very attractive, but I decided I couldn't handle the crazy. I broke up with her cleanly (which she DID NOT take kindly to, and she spread all sorts of interesting lies about me)
After I split up with her, he asked her out on the down-low. She said, "No friend of his will ever date me". So, that led to the email breakup. He went back to her and said, "OK, we're not friends anymore. Now can we date?" She said, "No, you're too fat. I am not into guys as heavy as you". So over the course of the next 18 months, he proceeded to lose 100 pounds.
He then went back and said, "OK, what about now?" She was like, "Yeah, okay". Apparently, they went on one or two dates, but she ghosted him, then moved to another state. We're still not friends. I've since learned that he's pretty much like that with everyone.
47. Life of Brian
It's finally time for me to share this. I was 18 years old, one month away from graduating high school, and my mother was on her deathbed. She had Hep C and the liver that she'd gotten in a transplant a couple of years prior was failing. I had been driven up to the hospital four hours away after being taken out of school for the day. It was the phone call we had all prepared for: "Your mother has taken a turn and we want you up here".
My best friend at the time, a flamboyant gay guy (who we shall call Brian), drove my car up to the hospital per my father's and my request. This boy was very loved by my family. My mother wanted to throw him a birthday party after he said he'd never had one before. She bought him a birthday cake, an expensive cologne from her trip to Las Vegas, you name it.
She treated him like a son, but only because I called him a "friend". He cooked dinner for us sometimes, and my mother trusted him enough to employ him at the bridal shop that she owned. So, he worked there as a cashier and general backroom guy, just like my dad. Well, my mother passed about a week after I got up to see her.
She could no longer speak, she was in an induced coma, and I still have some minor triggers about the experience. The day I lost her, they were taking her off oxygen, and they asked each of us if we wanted to be with her. My father said yes and held her in his arms as she passed; I said no and waited in the next room. Brian said yes and watched my mother's final moments.
A month passed, and it was summer. I was at the bridal shop a lot because my dad couldn't quite handle it alone. Looking back, neither of us could handle it at all. And Brian knew that...A returning customer noticed something weird on their receipts, so they brought it in. That's when I learned the twisted truth: Brian had taken upwards of $10,000 from my mother's business by using her screen name and password in our computer system.
We brought the authorities in and everything, but they said they couldn't prove it "beyond a reasonable doubt," so they had to drop the case cold. Everyone else knew he did it, and I did too because that's when the razor blades and "laundry detergent" on his window sill finally made sense. Brian took tens of thousands of dollars from my mother after watching her die.
48. Don't Trust Your Friends
I used to live with five very close friends in a two-bedroom apartment. Two of them were a couple, and the lease was in their name. The rest of us paid rent to them, and they paid the landlord. I know—it sounds like a recipe for disaster. I should have known...but I never expected it to go as horribly as it did.
The dude of the couple is a slob. He gets worse once he actually finds a steady job driving a forklift in a plant. He gets some money and buys a TV and Playstation. He ends up skipping work and staying at home to play video games. She doesn't like this turn. She leaves him. He's devastated, but at least he's got his gaming addiction to cope, right?
Little did we know, after he lost his job on week #2 (not showing up because the new Call of Duty came out doesn't fly in automotive plants). But it gets worse. For three months, he took our rent money and he just kept it himself; he didn't pay the landlord. Next, he disappeared in the night...after looting everything of value from our rooms, of course.
Then a week later, we get a letter from the landlord: "This is your third and final notice, you have seven days to vacate". So my one-time best friend had officially gotten me kicked out of my apartment—but he still managed to keep spiraling. Next, he pawned the car that his dad had given him (to "help him get back on his feet"), went to the casino, blew all of it, and had his aunt pick him up.
This happened like 10 years ago, but he's still the one person in the world who I would punch if I saw him walking down the street. Everyone has tried to help this guy, through money or time or goods, but he clearly just doesn't care to change.
49. Friends Don't Put Friends In Trunks
I hooked up with a girl. I didn't know one of my friends had been interested. As I was in high school, the full "bro rules" of dating were a bit fuzzy. I went over to her place and my "friends" dropped by. They told me they wanted to go to a restaurant. I heaved a sigh of relief because it seemed like the whole thing had blown over. Nope. They actually tried to put me in the trunk. They drove '70s Oldsmobile, so you can imagine the trunk was pretty rough.
In my attempt to fight my way out, I cut my arm on the trunk lift assembly, leaving about a six-inch gash on my forearm. Needless to say, there were copious amounts of blood. It got everywhere. This sort of scared them off. Or at least, I was able to get out of the trunk and walk into the girl's house for bandaging. It wasn't deep enough for stitches, thankfully.
I started having pretty frequent dreams about getting knifed in the back. One particularly intense dream caused me to rip a pretty long hole in my sheets. In my panic, I had to physically check to see if I was bleeding. Oh, and they were planning on driving me out to a reservoir, a good 20 miles away, to let me walk home.
50. Joe And Tiffany, Sitting In A Tree...
When I was 19, I had a pretty close-knit group of friends. People would come and go but there were about five or six of us that had kinda stuck through it all over the previous few years. My close friend Joe was living with a dude I ended up punching, resulting in that dude kicking Joe out. So, homeless and hungry, I snuck him into my parents' basement for a few months.
Of course, a relationship developed between us at that time, and eventually, we decided to give it a go. I moved out into my own apartment, and he pretty much came with me. I continued to get fully invested and helped him find a job, get a phone, straighten up some outstanding court costs and charges, and just overall improve his life the best I could. That made what he did hurt so much more.
Of course, there was a lot of fighting, but I thought this was it for me. We had been friends for years and I felt like it could have been life-long. Eventually, my parents offered me a rent-free, on-campus place to live, but they were pretty adamant about Joe not joining me there. It was a condo that had been in our family, yadda, yadda.
So, I let Joe stay at our apartment for a couple of weeks while the lease overlapped and he was going to move back in with his parents (thanks to me helping him re-establish a civil relationship with them). One night, I had decided to go visit him at work before I stopped at our friend West's house. I had forgotten my phone across town so when I saw him I asked if I could use his phone to call West.
I called West and gave him the heads up, ate my food, and was about to go in and return Joe's phone. Well, I noticed on the lock screen there was a text from our friend Tiffany that said, "You should be mine". That text hit me like a truck. Of course, my heart was pounding and I somehow managed to still respect his privacy and just left a sticky note on his screen: "Saw Tiff's text, curious about what your reaction is, talk when we get home" in a lot more words.
Well, when he got home, we didn't talk at all. I think we were both just scared. The next day, I told him that I'm not the type of lady that sticks around once I have to question who he's texting and doubt where he is. We'd been together for almost two years but he had to go. He cried while I packed his things and denied anything was ever going on.
Well, the fallout, as you can imagine, was much worse since we had all the same friends. Everyone called me psycho and crazy and blamed the rift on me because I was "making things up". Some of my best girlfriends that I had known even before I met Joe also took this approach—but I knew in my gut something was going on.
We all broke apart, kinda opposite of how you'd think. The guys stuck with me and the two girls who had my back, while the other chicks in our group all swore through and through that Tiffany and Joe were innocent and I was crazy. I had a rough time letting go and we did the normal dance of sleeping together and seeing each other even after the break-up. Then one day he just stopped talking to me.
No response at all. Months went by and I didn't see him again—until a mutual friend's birthday party. Tiffany was there too but of course, at this point, there was still denial of anything between them. They kept it cool. Flash forward about four months later and I was at my friend's house drinking. I started talking about how it would have been so much easier if they would have just told me straight that they were involved the whole time.
Suddenly, she got a look on her face like she just can't really handle it anymore. The truth finally came out, and it was so much worse than I'd feared: "I'm not supposed to tell you but I can't keep lying to you. Tiffany is six months pregnant and it's Joe's". At this point, a million things happened to me while I just sat there with a dumb look on my face. Of course, I did the math and realized she would have gotten pregnant while Joe and I were still together, I was processing that I was right this whole time, etc, etc.
Then came all the feelings of betrayal when I asked how many people found out. All but my two closest girlfriends knew. And no one was allowed to tell them because they would tell me and it was legit a conspiracy to be sure I never found out. The icing on top? When Tiffany and Joe had their baby, I made fun of the name they picked to one person only (the one who told me they were having the baby), and not even a day or two later, Tiffany called me and threatened to kick my butt, hunt me down, whatever.
I had changed my number since we were friends too so that "friend" had to have given it to her specifically to call and threaten me. Anyway, I don't talk to any of them really anymore. I keep in touch with my two closest, who was also banned from knowing. But everyone else was completely disbanded. Tiffany controlled Joe's life for long enough and wouldn't let him contact anyone that ever had any contact with me, so they fell off.
I was alone for years and only recently found someone worth trying again. I plan to marry this guy and we've already even looked at rings. Sometimes I have trouble trusting him, but I still know I would hate to be the girlfriend going through a phone or constantly paranoid. I'm happy now but it destroyed me for years.
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