50 People Reveal How They Finally Realized Their So-Called Friend Was Toxic

50 People Reveal How They Finally Realized Their So-Called Friend Was Toxic

These men and women from Ask Reddit know what it feels like to have a toxic friend.

1. When I would listen to all the things happening in their life excited for them and asking questions about things they felt excited about, yet when it came time for me to talk about things I felt excited about going on in my life they would brush it off and keep talking about themselves.

2. Back-handed compliments, also comments that she is amazing thinly veiled as a “put-down”, almost like fishing for compliments.

I didn’t want to hang out with her anymore when I realized I never felt good after spending time with her.

3. She started copying me. Everything about me. It was something straight out of “Single White Female”. She started using my frequent phrases, tried to pick up all my hobbies, and started dressing *exactly* like me. The final straw was when she started getting really possessive when I would hang out with people without her and tried to turn me against all my other friends. We aren’t friends anymore, but everyone tells me she’s still obsessed with me and talks about how I abandoned her to anyone who will listen.

4. When my friend would never criticize himself for his mistakes. He would always blame others and make others just feel downright useless sometimes.

5. When he started cheating on his gf indiscriminately and then bragged about it.

And to make matters worse, my then gf was friends with his, so he indirectly involved me in his lies when I had to cover his dumb ass. We ended up fighting over it and aren’t really close anymore.

6. When I moved states and they didn’t notice.

7. When they made plans in front of me and didn’t invite me.

8. When he started defining friendships as people who are blindly loyal to him and his actions.

9. Everything I did was wrong. My food choices, my hobbies, boys I liked.

They may have wanted *a* friend, but it sure as hell wasn’t me.

10. When I sacrificed a lot of precious family time to help out my friends, only to get a hell of bullshit and insults from said friends as a thanks.

11. When I realized that I was afraid to tell her things because I didn’t want to be judged and talked about behind my back.

12. I realized that while I sometimes enjoyed hanging out with her, I always felt worse we’d meet up. She was the type of person who needed to be cynical to validate her own opinions, so being around her just started to be really taxing.

She also tried to make out with me, despite knowing that I was not interested in her, and in a very serious relationship. That was the death knell.

13. When my dad died and my best friend didn’t call/text me, but managed to message a friend (who I previously slept with a few weeks before) of mine for a dick appointment. He asked her if she had messaged me about my dad, when she said no he said you should message your friend. He was texting me through this situation too. She knew for 5 days that my dad passed, the weekend my dad died I comforted her through a break up. I hadn’t told her then but she found out 2 days later from a mutual friend of ours. I ended the friendship after that. Lost two of the most important people in my life within a week.

14. When she would never respect my boundaries but flipped out if I didn’t confirm to hers.

15. When he lost his shit that we came second to a group of girls in pub trivia. Then on the car ride home ranted about how “It’ll never happen again” and he “refuses to let a group of bitches get the better of him”.

Really disappointing stuff.

16. When she was so busy scrolling on her phone, stopping only to tell me that she “couldn’t be my therapist” when I was pouring my heart out about some really difficult stuff. I chalked it up to her own mental health and a shitty method of delivery and tried to stay her friend, after. Turns out, it’s not just my hardships she doesn’t care about, she wasn’t excited about any of the great stuff in my life, either. She also doesn’t give a fuck about my needs unless they’re somehow able to fulfil hers (i.e. Concert tickets to her favorite band for my birthday). She deadass will walk ~10 feet ahead of me and not notice that my disabled ass is struggling to keep up. I’m expected to be aware of and in support of every single aspect of her life, giving 110% to our friendship but she’ll ignore my messages unless she wants something from me. We’ve been friends over half my life and I can’t even talk to her about feeling like shit because of the way she’ll turn it all on me. I’m gonna have to just cut my losses. I can’t keep forcing myself to hang out with her when it makes me feel like shit.

17. He was telling all of our friends that he ‘missed me and our friendship’ without ever reaching out to me to smooth things over or to make plans. There was plenty of stuff before this, but that was the straw for me. He was an expert at fooling people into thinking he was a good person and a lot of people are still falling for it.

18. When he brought his “totally cool” friends over, and then they stole some of my stuff and he defended them.

19. I started to realize that they’re toxic after I felt that they’re intentionally making me feel out of place because I can’t join them when they wanna hang out out somewhere or get drunk. I’m not an alcoholic person and they make me feel bad for not joining them have “fun”. Most of the time, I don’t also have enough money to go wherever they wanna go, hence, calling me a kill joy. Now, they’re starting to treat me as if I’m no one. Always the last option in the group. No one wants to go with me during lunch. They only notice me when they ask for help on a particular subject. It just makes me sad.

20. “Nah trust me, you don’t wanna ask her out, she’s just a hoe.”

He then proceeded to try it on with her.

21. She pretended to have millions of dollars but lived in a condo. Always told ridiculous lies like “she flew to New York over night” and she had “5 pairs of AirPod and 3 Apple Watches, she just kept them at home.” All lies. She was a pathological, compulsive liar who was manipulating and told unbelievable and outrageous lies and expected everyone to believe them. She also was a know-it-all, and used fake facts to make it seem like she was right. I was only friends with her because I was the new kid and no one else was nice to me. To make a long story short, I cut her off, made new friends, and now I don’t even talk to her anymore.

22. They would routinely pick on me. I get friends bust each other’s balls from time  to time, but I notice that it was me getting picked on, and barely anyone else.

23. When we were in our 20s and in a bar, and we met two guys. The more attractive one was showing more attention to me, so she brought up a really personal story about me to disgust him and turn his attention to her. Friendship over, removed from my life.

24. When I realized has zero self-reflection. EVERYTHING that went down was always someone else’s fault.

25. When I realized he was a full blown alcoholic. He would get black out drunk and piss himself, throw up everywhere, etc. and then justify it by saying “I don’t remember, so it didn’t happen.”

26. When I realized I felt dread every time their message icon popped up.

27. When she got sick of me and threw me away like an old toy, replacing me almost instantly.

28. When he told me about how he yelled at retail workers who just tried to help as he walked into a store. And the way he told it, he was proud of yelling at them…

29. She was always a little “me, me, me” but she had a lot of self esteem and anxiety issues and I forgave her for most of it.

She was the maid of honor in my wedding. We hadn’t been friends super long, but my bff forever lives in another state and this woman was just so excited about the idea.

She knew about my intense jealousy issues. She had listened to me talk endlessly about how I knew he is THE ONE, and I can trust him 100%, which eases my internal jealousy sosososo much. She knew I had been cheated on by every other man I had dated. She knew my previous relationship ended when I found out he was sleeping with a woman who had asked to do a 4some with us and her boyfriend.

My friend had just gotten a boyfriend, he couldn’t come out, but I invited her to a party with my husband and I.

At some point when I was off fetching drinks my “friend” asked my husband to sleep with her. When he did a double-take “huh..whaaa?” She revised to asking to sleep with “us”. He immediately came and told me.

I told her right then and there, no fucking way. And I wanted to go home and not cause some kind of scene at this party. I went home, I went to bed. (Hubby came with). My friend never apologized or acted like it ever happened. She was right back to her “me, me, me” drone the very next day. She wasn’t black-out drunk and had no issue mentioning other parts of the party.

I stopped initiating contact, and she never asked why or tried to make an effort back to me. I figure I do not want a friend who is so up their own ass to not see how clearly of a no-no that was.

30. I almost got my ass beat by a group of guys for some shit he did. It wouldve been a “by association” ass beating.

31. When a friend of mine was murdered and I called distraught and she couldn’t stop talking about how much her mother annoys her.

32. He was telling me how he got banned from a FB for being creepy in real life to one of the members. We are in our 30s, this shouldn’t be a conversation we have. I finally realized I had been making excuses for his shitty behavior and reaching out to him because I thought that is what good friends do. The last contact I had with him is when he added me on snapchat. I assumed it would be be snaps of his kid, but it was just constant selfies sent to me, so I blocked him, or unfollowed or whatever you do on snapchat.

33. When she wanted to uproot and move a fourth time in almost two years.

We were best friends/roommates and she was never happy where we were living, and I got tired of her trying to move all over the east coast. She would get all upset whenever I said that I wanted to at least try and stay where we were. It’s not healthy to just leave every time you don’t like the weather here, you hate your job here, you can’t get a boyfriend here etc.

34. When she gave me the silent treatment after I explained why I was hurt that I was left out of plans with all mutual friends.

35. She told me she was cheating on her husband, while laughing about how funny it was that her boyfriend would come over to the house and hang out with her husband and her and their newborn.

After I told her that wasn’t cool and we weren’t friends anymore, she told everyone that I was sleeping with her husband and an abusive drunk.(No to all)

Happy ending- dad divorced and got full custody, I got new friends.

36. I lived with her and realized one day on the way home from work that I had more anxiety about going home to her than anything else in my life. She also tried to shit talk about me to my boyfriend.

37. When she lied about having cancer.

38. When they stole my adderall prescription, tried to help me find it (it was stolen during a party we threw) then spent the next few weeks staying up until 8AM playing FIFA like that was something totally normal.

39. She tricked one of my friends that she was pregnant with their child, and used my phone to do it. She used to steal my phone while I was sleeping and text my friend (guy she hooked up with) pretending to be me, saying shit like “omg ____ is throwing up again this morning” and various other pregnancy things to convince the guy. She was not pregnant and 100% knew she wasn’t.

40. I was considering suicide and he was encouraging me to do it.

41. When she threatened to hurt herself if I didn’t do what she wanted.

She asked me if she could sleep over at my house one night. I told her no, since I had grandparents visiting the next day.

She continued and tried to convince me to let her. She said that if I let her, she would stop cutting, but if I didn’t, it would be my fault if she died.

I didn’t let her, I “ditched” her the same year. She’s still alive to this day(hopefully). She has a girlfriend and is moving out of town soon.

42. When she fake cried all night in the one bathroom (not the stall) of our friend’s wedding. The whole evening people came up to the bride letting her know about the girl. The bride knew the girl was toxic, but only after the wedding invitations went out. Ruined my friend’s wedding.

43. I knew for a long time, but I was done trying the day he threw a knife at a mutual, close friend of ours during an argument. That argument started over whether you could correctly call the inside of a strawberry “squishy”, I shit you not.

That’s how I ended a decade long friendship.

44. When he openly berated me in front of my flatmates and tried to play it off as a “joke”, even though I made it pretty clear that the things he went on about were pretty big insecurities (kept making snide comments about me being unattractive, making fun of my attempts to lose weight), and then got snappy when I got short with him about it. He thought it was fine for him to just be completely bitchy just because he was gay.

Thankfully he’s 100% out of my life now, don’t want anything to do with that guy again.

45. When they told me straight up that they were used to manipulating people.

46. When they started insulting literally everything/everyone and thinking they were the absolutely coolest.

47. When she started making mean comments about absolutely everyone. Stupid shit like Donna walks like a lesbian, and Katie probably has lice because she scratched her head once.

48. She slept with a guy I was in love with. We weren’t in a relationship but she knew my feelings for him. Slept with him the very night that I confessed that to her. And then later said that he raped her. He did not. I found out much later that she had invited him over and cried and begged to sleep with him. I forgave her and actually let her stay with me over the summer rent free cz her housing fell through. Then she proceeded to sleep with another guy I was hooking up with and then flirt with another guy I was potentially wanting to date (came out in a flimsy bathrobe when he was hanging out with me). And then always played the victim and claimed life had wronged her always. It took me a year, but I completely cut her off.

49. When I noticed she was a pathological liar.

50. Many things but when she refused to come to my wedding because she hadn’t had weight loss surgery yet and didn’t want to look fat and frumpy on my wedding day… that was the culmination that lead to me severing ties. She used to refer to me as her ‘DUFF’, the designated ugly fat friend. Then as we grew up, I slimmed down and grew into my appearance rather nicely and she did the opposite, which infuriated her. She tried to make up a dozen excuses as to why she couldn’t be my maid of honor. She couldn’t afford to travel to my wedding, I offered to pay for it all. She couldn’t afford the dress, which I also pair for my bridesmaids dresses… then when she went on a very lavish & expensive trip to a resort and posted photos on FB, I called her out. That’s when she said she didn’t want to go and be in pictures because she was having gastric surgery and my wedding was too soon for her to be hot in my wedding line.

heartbreak.exe

At that point, our other mutual friend melted down and literally listed all the ways my best friend was a frenemy & toxic. Feels bad, man. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

January Nelson is a writer, editor, and dreamer. She writes about astrology, games, love, relationships, and entertainment. January graduated with an English and Literature degree from Columbia University.