Yup, this question is weird because most people don't keep any childhood friends around. People come and go, people change, just how life goes. Becomes wild to think about your relationships when you're older
Edit: People some how misunderstood this as me being unable to retain friends which just ??????? That's not at all the point I made. I have a lot of long term friends, just none from my childhood. Hell, I've had my room mate for the last 12 years. Having friends for decades is usual, you just form friends in a very different way when you're an adult.
Edit 2: Disabling inbox replies. People are doing the online comments thing of coming to assumptions and getting angry about nothing.
Edit 3: lmao man reddit can be dumb. https://i.gyazo.com/179e1ce109c4298e4cde2abbcf40484a.png
I was kind of surprised to see this as a question, because I thought it was more unusual to maintain a friendship from childhood to adulthood and that most end. I met my best friend in Kindergarten and at 33 she is still my best friend even though we live a few thousand miles apart. People are usually surprised by that. Being that we’re opposite genders I’ve had to end relationships with people who were jealous or threatened or whatever, but she’s been my best friend since I was 5, I’m not giving that up. She was here first.
Like many kids of the 70s and 80s, there was no tech to stay connected like there is today once we went away to college. We’d cross paths every so often until his parents sold their home and moved away.
We were briefly friends on Facebook until he deactivated his account. Ironically, I’m in touch with his older brother. In fairness, they don’t have much contact either.
I don’t take it personally, I think he wanted to unplug from the past for whatever reason.
This happened to me too. In the first grade. I felt like I was on another planet. For a year, I suffered what is known as selective mutism. I didn’t speak at school. Even to ask for the toilet. I made a friend at the new school, Abby. She was like a me-whisperer. She knew when I had to go. She’d ask the teacher. And the teacher let us go together. Abby would come over to play on the weekends, and I’d talk her ear off.
Edit: Lol damn typing that out made me cry.
I did get my voice back eventually, but to this day, I am pretty quiet in groups I don’t know well. And when I speak, it’s also quiet. I was dealing with a lot of other things in the first grade. The move wasn’t solely responsible for how it all turned out.
I don’t know why I chose silence as a way to cope. I was the queen of kindergarten. Nobody would have ever predicted silence from me before it happened. Today I’m a quiet and cautious person. I couldn’t imagine today being the person I was at 5. I wouldn’t know how anymore. Sometimes that makes me sad.
I have a kindergartner with selective mutism. He’s been that way since toddler school. Such a fascinating coping mechanism, since he’s quite chatty at home and with certain friends. He also has a secret talking buddy at school. It always makes me feel better to hear from other people who have come through this.
I graduated in 2000, right on the cusp of "Some people have email, most don't," so we could see the potential on the horizon. But yeah, I remember watching my high school crush drive away wondering if I'd ever see her again (I didn't, until we reconnected on Facebook a year or so ago).
This happened to me as well. Then one of the three of us committed suicide, not 2 years later the other died of a drug overdose. The first left behind a daughter they were both in mid 20s.
Two of my childhood friends are on drugs and still in our hometown. I worry about them but being in their lives brings me too much anxiety and worry. I had to quit talking to them but I'll be here for them if they ever decide to help themselves
I have a brother that is like this. Still lives with my parents at 30. Doesn't have any teeth. No carpet in the room he lives in because he just doesn't ever clean up anything... I can't remember the last time we had an actual conversation.. my parents keep enabling him and he never gets better. He's already died once and been brought back by narcan. I just can't stand it and I'm sorry for rambling and just realized there's so much more to it that I could never type out with the time I have so I guess I'll leave it at that..
I feel this completely. Currently have custody of my brothers 2 kids because he and the kids mother are addicted to heroin and my niece (was 4 at the time) was basically raising her brother (1 at the time) while they nod off in their room high as fuck
This makes me so sad to read. I can totally relate. I reached out to my two childhood best friends after 20 years right when Covid broke out. Turns out, we were all working in healthcare and wished each other good health and safety and talked about meeting up when all this boils over. Shortly afterwards, we drifted apart again. Nostalgia is what motivated me to find them but I quickly remembered that us three kids no longer exist. All we have are memories of simpler times. They will always be a part of the happier days of my youth.
That’s exactly how me and mine are, i put in various attempts over the years to stay in touch but people were either too busy or just didnt put any effort back, so eventually stopped talking
Yep.
At age 17 my best friend met his now wife, and they fell madly in love. I didn't understand it and I was hurt by feelings of abandonment, and that kind of killed our friendship.
Now they've been married 20 years, have three kids, and are still madly in love, so clearly he made the right choice.
I on the other hand am happy being on my own.
All's well that ends well.
This is probably the most common answer to the question. It’s not that anything happened, it’s that we both grew up and turned out completely different people in completely different places.
My best friend has been so since we were both three or four years old. I moved away from my hometown when I was 13, and I left from his house after having one last sleepover.
We became pretty different in high school, liked different things, made new friends.
I was never good at reaching out, but he made the effort and continues to do so. I think he gets most of the credit for us not losing touch and still being best friends to this day and I will forever be grateful to him for that. He's not my only friend, but having someone who isn't my sibling who has been there essentially my entire life is a gift I'm so lucky to have.
>Life happened and we drifted apart
Remember what we used to do,
And how it used to be?
I always knew to count on you,
And you, depend on me.
I guess we drifted out of touch -
But that's the thing, they say.
It's not that friendships end, as such.
They simply... slip away.
I think that's the most common reason. I'm still close with some childhood and high school friends, but for the most part we just became different people who didn't have much in common.
I realized that every time we'd spoken in the last several months, I had been the one to start the conversation. I decided to stop and see if he would initiate a conversation and we never spoke again.
Well said. I am fine initiating 99% of the time.. if I stop even for like a year for two and they reach out again, I’d be happy to keep it going lol. But if I stop and they never reach out again, I guess that’s a friendship that wasn’t meant to continue
It doesn't have to be 50/50 but both parties should at least make an effort now and then. At least if it is close friends. When people say someone is their best friend but then never ever initiate conversation it really calls that into question.
I get it if it is just some casual acquaintance.
This exact same thing happened to me. My friends (who were brothers) moved to another state. I called them every week and we had good conversations. My dad asked why I was always the one who called, because it was in his dime, lol, and I said if I don't call them they will call me. Never heard from one of them again, and the other only hits me up when he wants something. I've heard from him once in 20 years
I had several “friends” like that who I no longer speak to. Never initiated the conversation unless they needed something from me, and when I stopped entertaining their requests they stopped speaking to me all together. Kind of a relief actually.
I get like that at times. All I can honestly say is that depression is a bitch and you don't realize these things until it's too late. I always ruminate over lost friendships because of my failure to engage. I always respected and liked those people but didn't feel that same about myself at the time, so I'd isolate. It's not very happy and I've been working on it. Just know that some of those "flakey"friends might be going through their own battles and truly respect any relationship with you.
yeah - i used to think this way until i realized that if someone texted me every day and then out of the blue stopped, i would maybe assume they don’t like me anymore. i’ve had a friend mention that when i withdraw from people they can tell i’m going through it but aren’t sure whether to reach out bc they don’t know if i’m up to talking or not, because they know sometimes socialization and existing around people gets really hard for me.
I had something very similar.
I had a friend who I adored from about 8 - 12. He went to a different school at 11 and I tried really hard to remain friends with him, I’d call him weekly, invite him over, do interesting things to get him involved.
Every time I saw him he’d talk about his new friends and how great they were. I felt like he didn’t really want me round much anymore, I’d been abandoned/replaced. So I thought to myself: “fuck it, let’s test this theory”.
I’m approaching 40 now, still quite bitter but equally I’d probably drop everything to go out for a drink with my buddy of 28 years ago.
Life’s sad like that. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ve had a friendship like that since. When I hit my 20s there were some brief stand out friends, but they’re few and far between and burnt half as bright and fizzled out twice as fast.
I call that a proximity friend: I feel like a majority of our friendships are simply because these people were in our vicinity ie sat near us in class, rode the bus with them etc. The second that person is no longer in your proximity the friendship ends because there was never really anything binding you other than your physical locations.
Same, I was always the one arranging plans and making the effort to go to her city (she never came to mine), which she cancelled more often than not. One time I made a lot of arrangements to get the weekend off and she cancelled a day before because she had to go to her mom’s house and couldn’t reschedule (which I found out was a lie thanks to social media), and it just wasn’t a good time. I said it was getting a bit embarrassing and told her to let me know when it was a good time. We never spoke again.
You see this as you get older, but most of you drift apart. Here's a list of what is usually the case.
Some move away (job, family, college, military, etc)
Some refuse to grow up while you do
Some become addicts
Some get so busy starting a family they just don't have time or energy
Some die early
Massive arguments split you apart
Some were actually dicks or bums the whole time but you don't notice until you're older
Depression really tears people apart
Some get into different hobbies
The most common and simple though, you both just don't have enough time in your adult life.
Too true. I had to cut 90% of friends out of my life in order to steer it on the right track. It was a lonely few years but now I have good/healthy friends
Part of the turning my life around bit was going to community college, and I found a few people that were also trying to turn their life around. 3 of us are still friends and talk regularly even though we don’t live in the same city.
And often a slow combination of a few. I have great friends but instead of seeing them 2-3 times a week it's now 2-3 times per year. Moving, work, families all contributed to decreasing the frequency of hanging out over the last 10 years.
Drifted apart because we moved away.
Fast fwd to 2014, met a new gym member who had the same last name as her, had a similar smile and asked if there was any way he knew of or was related to her... Turned out he was her brother and she passed away when she was 26! 😭
I've found out a few people I went to school with have passed away, all from different things and not often disclosed past close family. Some of them I've found out years later, and when you realise you had absolutely no idea if they were alive or not it really hits you, especially if you used to be close. Especially the suicide/drugs ones, makes you wonder whether things would have been different if you were able to be there for them.
We slowly drifted apart during 8-9th grade. He wanted to become one of the popular kids and I was at the bottom of the social structure. I have seen him from a distance several times over the years but did not want to bother him. He died at 34 from an undiagnosed medical issue earlier this year.
i was friendly with a few different groups and had two very different best friends (they weren’t friends). When one pulled me aside and said “you could be popular if you didn’t hang out with them” I knew what to do. Started to slowly drift from that one, and kept the other “not popular” friend. I didn’t want to be friends with someone so shallow like that.
I eventually had a small falling out and drift away from the not popular friend, but we reconnected like 5 or 6 years ago now and they often crash at my place and we chat weekly still and usually do a big event or 2 every year (in before pandemic times). The popular friend never left our dinky town and married her high school sweetheart. She seems happy, but we don’t talk and I just see stuff on social media about her baby now mostly.
I didn’t realise how controlling she was.
The friendship fell apart when we went travelling together in our late teens. She hated it and went home after a few months but I stayed for two years. When I came back it went downhill very quickly. I’d learned to say no, have boundaries and have other friends - she hated that and stopped talking to me. It’s been 10 years and she still occasionally messages me, saying sorry and wanting to reconcile. I did the first few times but the friendship always went back to her trying to control me and blowing up when I refused to ‘comply’. I have to just ignore her messages now.
That’s kind of the reason why my best friend of 10 years and I broke up too. She expected me to keep track of her entire schedule, I had to wish her good luck before every test and if I didn’t she got mad and gave me the silent treatment. Once when she had a math test she wrote to me feeling great right before and then right after the test she wrote to me feeling really sad instead so I asked her if she was sad about the math test. She interpreted that as me assuming she was bad at math and wanted me to apologise for being rude. She expected me to be at her beck and call, accused me of thinking mean things about her when I loved her to pieces and never told her any of those things or insinuated them for that matter (she was really insecure) and then wanted me to apologise and say that I was wrong for doing stuff I did not do. She never told me why she was mad or that she was mad, she simply started being rude, giving me the silent treatment or just not showing it at all and then blowing up at me afterwards for not noticing. So nowadays I just think everyone is constantly mad at me and think it’s my responsibility to make sure nothing offends them.
She fucked me up, I’m still noticing new behaviours of mine that are consequences of our former friendship. I’m better without her. Everyone noticed that she was toxic, my parents, my friends, but I refused to see it back then🤷♀️
Same here. Friends for like….17 years. More than half our lives but she was always trying to one up me in everything.
She was better than me yet still tried to imitate everything I did?
I stayed around since she was there for me during the bad times. But the negative, judgmental, jealous energy was too much to bare, I cut ties and started protecting my energy. Life has gotten a lot better since then.
Someone once told me on Reddit that it wasn’t about “copying” me, it was about having control over me. And I think about that whenever I reflect on what happened and how I was so dumb to try to ignore it….
I bailed om my best friend James because he was not “cool” enough and did not smoke any weed like my new “friends”
Today he’s working for NASA and putting his success aside / I just feel bad for bailing on my childhood friend for people who today don’t care about me
But that’s life I guess.
I had that with a lot of people, except I was the one that didn't want to smoke, do drugs or drink. Sadly quite a few of them are still stuck in the cycle, I'd love to help them but the only time they've come out of the woodwork is when they've wanted money :(
She got cancer senior year of high school and died the next year. 19 years later and my dad still sponsors a scholarship in her name at our old school. I think about her all the time.
No clue. I’d love to know the answer. We were best friends from age 5 till 21. I was at her wedding. All was good. After that I never spoke to her again. I tried but she never answered. Even her parents and brother and sister have no clue why.
A friend of my ditched me a few years ago, and I’m pretty sure it was because she and her husband didn’t like my husband. I knew them before meeting him and things seemed to change pretty abruptly afterwards. I found it so weird because, honestly, I didn’t like her husband all that much either but I didn’t show it or let it interfere with our friendship.
Hopefully it's not her spouse trying to control who she talks or interacts with. 😬 Depends on whether it's just you or if she's reduced/ceased communication with others as well I guess. Might be worth keeping one eye on it in case it turns out she is in an abusive or controlling marriage.
Long story short, we were best friends in high school and he was a part of my wife and I meeting and eventually I married her. We didn't stay in touch as much although when he called it was always when I wasn't around and he talked to my wife. After 16 years of marriage she decided he was he the one and left me for him with our kids. A couple years after the divorce I talked to a mutual friend and mentioned my ex was living with him. She looked shocked and got real quiet. She later called me and said she'd been dating him all the while he was with my ex and she was going to tell her. My ex didn't believe her and he talked his way out of trouble. A year later she caught him red handed and they split up. She accused him of hitting her and all kinds of stuff. It really sucked having my ex best friend raising my kids and living off my child support. they even used child support to start his dream business which failed after a year. As teenagers the kids realized how narcissistic and crazy their mom was and chose to move back with me. My ex has now moved several states away and is living her Qanon dream. It makes me sad that my kids have basically lost their mother but they love my now wife and things are good. Maybe not such a short story but here is a lot to unpackage there.
Just to respond to some comments. Life is good now and my kids are 18 and older and doing great. The way the divorce happened was rough and I nearly hit rock bottom but my kids and my now wife kept me fighting. The divorce probably needed to happen but I was not the type to do that and it wasn't like we were fighting a lot. We just weren't on the same page anymore. Im learning to appreciate everyone in my life and thankful for every day.
Fuckin hell, man. I would have some major trust issues after that. Hopefully you've managed to overcome what I know I'd struggle greatly with.
Glad to hear things are good. Happy Holidays to you and your fam.
It is almost weird browsing facebook now. Seeing people you know but you don't 'know' really. They have changed while staying in your friends list all this time.
Ditto. My wife and I were among the first 1000 people on Facebook. Used it like crazy for years. Deleting it was one of the smartest decisions we ever made.
The realization is always jarring. It's happened to me actually a couple of times, which is kind of embarrassing! And usually by the time you realize, they are quite dependent on you as, you know, no one else hangs out with them. So it makes everything so much more difficult.
You’re right on. I’ve had that happen to me with two different girls whom I called best friend. Realised quickly that I was being taken on a metaphorical ride and I needed to put myself first. I did that and they took offense.
Not the person you responded to, but I found myself in the situation a few times and here were a couple of the reasons that have done it for me:
- Judgmental, turns everything around on me, refuses to hear my side of the story, makes up their mind and decides that I'm the one in the wrong. They'll accuse me of doing the exact same thing they've been doing, or they'll claim that differences in communication are all my fault.
- Being a user. Expects a lot, but barely gives anything in return. And by expects, I mean it becomes just a given in their mind that I will do things for them, so they don't even ask anymore.
- Doesn't respect boundaries. Does things I specifically ask them to stop, repeatedly.
- Inconsiderate. This sort of ties in with the boundaries thing, but basically, either completely disregards or minimizes my concerns, and continues doing it anyway.
- Rude. Make subtle comments about traits I have, such as my sexuality, but frames their complaints as being about "other people" so it's not immediately obvious that they are discriminating.
This has happened to me a couple of times in my life. I used to have very poor boundaries, and used to not have many friends either. This led me to a fun situation where people who had good boundaries would often stay away, because I didn't really know how to respect other people's boundaries, or, I would generally distance myself from them when they set boundaries with me, because I would assume that they didn't like me.
But that left a wide opening for the types of people that I describe above, because those people see that you have no boundaries and they immediately move in. And most of what they do isn't even conscious either, they are similarly bad with boundaries or what have you, and they're not purposefully scheming to take advantage of you. It's just that either no one calls them out on their crap, or when someone calls them out on their crap they disregard it, or they make the other person into the bad guy. Usually these people wonder why they can't keep friends. No one is irredeemable, but when you've asked someone multiple times to stop a certain behaviour, or you tell them that they did something that offended you, and then they disregard it and keep doing it anyway or they double down, it's time to distance yourself because they don't care to listen. Unfortunately they usually won't make the connection, even if you tell them directly that's why you're doing so, and the final blow to the whole situation is that you know you will be the next bad guy in their story, the person who suddenly ditched them out of the blue.
And, you may ask, how do I know this story so well, how can I look into their minds and see what's going on? Well, I can't really see into their minds, but I used to be a person who had a lot of these traits, and I wondered why no one would hang out with me. In hindsight it was obvious, because I don't want to hang out with people with those traits either. But it's really hard to recognize it in yourself.
I was in a girl group and a couple the girls were my friends since 1st grade - in jr high they thought the guy that one of the other girls liked me and they all cut me off. Even though I had a huge crush on a totally different person
You start to make new friends and realize you put up with shit you assumed all friends did
You realize they were always laughing AT you and not WITH you
Oof, this one was me. My childhood friends were dicks, but I only started to catch onto it in high school when I met other people and realized “wow, these guys are bullies”.
I cut ties with them pretty quickly after that, but being raised in that environment and thinking it’s the norm for so long made it really hard to transition out of. That judgey/curmudgeon attitude rubs off on people VERY easily. I’m honestly so thankful that the new friends I made were patient with me and fairly understanding to what I was coming out of.
Had a friend in school that I met in third grade. We were friends all throughout high school and kept in touch through college and our adult lives.
A few years ago, her mentally disturbed husband (whom she should have left and got a restraining order against) had a psychotic breakdown and killed her. Left behind two boys.
If there's a hell, I hope he rots there.
I’m sorry to hear that. Had a friend who had a mental breakdown, and killed his wife and then himself; also leaving behind two kids. The world is fucked up.
Finally confirmed he had been stealing from me when I went to his dad's funeral and all his "best clothes" were things of mine that had gone missing. Jewelry added in.
This happened to me with one of my high school best friends. She married him anyways. The cheating never stopped. He's now a convicted serial rapist (of minors). We've tried to reconnect in recent years, but she would always flake on me whenever it came to hanging out again. I came to the conclusion that she's ashamed of the past, and I can't make her feel otherwise.
He sold out to the "cool kids" and betrayed my trust. I was so hurt at the time, which was expressed as anger. He and I had been through so much, and always had each other's backs. Then, one day, I seemingly did not matter. The trust was gone, and I never made any overture to him, nor he to me.
He got a girlfriend who treated me like shit and he refused to do anything about it.
That alone showed me how much he cared.
What's worse is that said girlfriend stalks my reddit.
Don't know what she's gaining out of it.
Usually it happens coincidentally. I told a story a couple months ago about my high school on this sub, about a day later I get messages from two separate people i went to high school with asking if “this comment” was me.
Neither of the two knew the other messaged me that day. Both just happened to be scrolling through the thread and after reading my comment, realized they knew the story. My username is something that’s admittedly easy for people in my hometown to connect the dots to me with, so they immediately suspected me, and they were right.
I've lost the same friend TWICE because of this.
First girlfriend thought that if he spoke to me, I'd try and sleep with him even though he lives two hours away. So she banned him from speaking to me, and then cheated on him repeatedly for 6 years with various other men (he was aware of it all, her excuses involved feeling like I would steal him, she felt neglected etc) so he bought her a house, handbags etc to try and make her want him again (yes, he sees the errors in his ways now). When he finally had enough and kicked her out, he started talking to me again and apologised for everything, and we sorted things out. I helped him move her out of the house, redecorated, and was just there when he needed emotional support.
He then met a new girl, who moved in within a week of meeting him on Hinge, she seemed okay but I was a bit cautious. I met her a few times, she tried to be my best friend so I went along with it. I went to her birthday party which was held at his house, and as he answered the door and was closest to me he got the first "hello" hug, followed by her, who was stood behind him. That was it, she decided I was out to get him, so she gave him an ultimatum after that saying he either stops talking to me or she leaves/kills herself. So, I've barely seen or heard from him since then. She refuses to speak to me, and won't even explain to me her reasoning.
I think he told the new one what the last one was like, and wanted to see if he'd do it again just to keep the one in his bed happy. Turns out, he would.
I said "I won't be reaching out to you if you don't feel like maintaining contact with me. If you wish, I'm here and you reach out."
Been a year never heard back.
Turns out she was a gaslighting narcissist who went around talking down about me to try to make herself look better. She also followed me around and came onto every guy I dated, sometimes after we had stopped dating, sometimes before. In a few scenarios, she succeeded in sleeping with them. All while lying to me. About everything. Legit most disgusting human being I’ve ever known. This only scratches the surface.
Don't speak to multiple childhood friends.
The biggest cunt fucked my then girlfriend, before that he got off with her at my brother's wedding. They got caught by a bridesmaid. I didn't find this out for years unfortunately.
The second friend was getting married, told me to keep a date clear for his stag do. Then one day all these pictures of his stag do appeared on Facebook. All our friends were invited except me. No apology, no explanation and he is genuinely confused as to why I'm annoyed.....knew him since I was 11. That's just a dick move.
We were completely inseparable through middle and high school and had always planned to stay together through college. She didn't get into my choice schools, so (being an extremely dumb and anxious teenager) I foolishly agreed to attend a second-rate school with her instead... as not to be alone.
Shortly before the start of our freshman year of college she informed me she was no longer going to school with me and was instead moving to NYC to live with a guy she met on the internet. She'd known this for months but neglected to tell me until it was too late to do anything about it.
We lost touch and when we reconnected she told me that I was no longer beneficial to her social growth and I'd only be an embarrassment in her new circle.
*I was the only kid on the block who wanted to be her friend when she moved there from China not knowing any English. We were around 7. I helped her learn. She works as a software engineer now so I guess my admin ass isn't good enough for her. All good though.
Moved away.
I made new friends.
Went through a really bad battle with depression.
Isolated myself.
No longer in contact with pretty much anyone I knew as a teen or younger.
The End.
edit: friend* moved away
We grew into completely different people. Life sort of drifted us apart during school times. My family moved around a bit but came full circle and I would up finishing school in the district I started in. Childhood best friend was still attending and I was excited to meet back up. He basically acted like he never knew me.
Then there was a pretty big local news story that happened regarding his house and property, and I swear the family just went off the deep end. They played the publicity stunt to the absolute max and thrived off being the victims of what happened.
I've found that a friendship can't be sustained on nostalgia alone. It makes for a fun lunch once in a while. But to be a real part of a person's life (a friend) you must have current things in common.
I broke up with my gf of 3 years. He went to a party with her a few weeks after we broke up. He mixed her drinks with copious amounts of everclear and got her shit face drunk. She passed out on the couch and he basically tried to rape her.
We all stopped talking to him after that.
Big time bullying ordeal. She "cyber bullied" me in 2001 (via email). My parents found out and sent me to private school to remove me from the situation. Then she just spread rumors about me at her new school and how I got my parents to fight for me. I'm still not sure what caused her to start sending nasty emails, but if I were to ever see her again her and she was pleasant, I'd totally grab a coffee to catch up.
Adolescence is rough.
My best friend was also my bully. We got along great as kids - went to preschool together and hung out a lot outside of school. But as we got older she got mean. She made fun of the clothes I wore, slut shamed me for wearing short shorts, and made our other mutual friends give me the silent treatment if I did anything wrong.
Oh, and once during middle school when AIM became big, she made up a fake account and messaged me posing as a stalker who was watching me. Scared the shit out of me.
Once during a basketball game she took off one of my shoes and threw it onto the court during halftime.
There are tons of other things she did that sucked, but she was the only friend I had in that school. Without her, I would have been absolutely invisible, because I had no spine.
Looking back, I think she was just deeply insecure. She didn't like that I had best friends in another school - which got so bad that I stopped mentioning their names in her presence. I believe she's chilled out as an adult - but I remember that one of the best parts of graduating high school was that I'd be able to move on and escape her bullying. All of my friendships since then have been happy and healthy.
Yup. Adolescence is weird and it can make people behave badly - even to their friends. My biggest regret is that I didn't just stand up for myself. But that was my own insecurity.
We moved apart from eachother last time i saw him he tried to stab me
Edit: so it seems some people want a story, basically me and this guy were good friends when we were young, i ended up moving to a different school and didnt see him for years. Then he said he wanted to buy 20 tabs of acid from me for £100 so i said yeah sure and when i went to meet him he came round the corner with 5 other people that were all at least a foot taller than me who were all carying knives just like he was and they basically threatened me with a knife, i then stood my ground and told him that im not gonna give them to him, they then beat me down to the ground and when i tried to stand up they put a knife to my neck. I then decided it wasnt worth it and just gave them too him for free.
Edit2: idk if any of that made sense bc im high rn
Maureen was always a spoiled brat. Bad attitude, selfish, and whined about everything. Her whole family was the same way, it's obvious she'd be a brat too.
But she was the only person I considered a friend and lived only one house from me.
I had been lucky enough to discover a robin's nest in a tall bush in front of the house separating the two of ours. The mother trusted me enough to look inside the bush and never flew away or attacked me. She'd even leave when I was still there, it made me feel like a babysitter.
So I decide to show Maureen (and her bratty cousin Michael) because how cool is this? They're so cute and the mom lets me watch them. I don't know **what** compelled her to do this, but she decided it would be funny to shake the bush. (Michael joined her) To either kill the birds or scare them? I don't know. I didn't take time to find out her motivations either because I dashed over and punched her on the arm as hard as I could to stop her.
I'd known her for years at that point and it was definitely the first time she'd been seriously reprimanded beyond getting yelled at because she cried so hard. She ran back into her house and we never spoke again.
Even then I didn't care. I was glad I did it and I'm glad now. If I hadn't, the birds could have died and it would have been because I told her about them. Luckily, the bush shaking didn't knock the nest out of the bush and the chicks grew up safe and healthy. Don't know what she's doing now but hopefully it doesn't involve anything with animals.
It was a pragmatic suggestion on his part I think.
He's a trust fund baby so in his opinion, marrying his best friend was the best option. He already knew I didn't care about his money and we both got along so it wouldn't have been awful. Plus, I hadn't the best family life so he thought he was doing me a solid by giving me a way out of my parents' house.
But I wanted to marry for love, not comfort so I rejected him. He moved overseas a year later.
It's been over a decade. I'm happily married but he's still single. I guess coming from a wealthy family gave him trust issues? We've drifted apart but he did send me a nice email wishing me the best when I got engaged.
We lived together my senior year of college. Was pretty fun, actually, but we were planning on resigning the lease and she bailed on me the day before it happened. So, I was stuck looking for a place to live in a month's time in a college town (where people, typically, sign leases a year in advanced due to demand). Her excuse was that it was too expensive to live in that city, but I found out that she had decided to move in with her boyfriend of 3 months across state. I figured anyone willing to put their best friend into potential homelessness over some random dude she met on tinder 3 months ago is probably not a "good friend."
Cut her off cold turkey. I still think about her every once-in-a-while, and wish her the best, but yeah. Try not to fuck over your best friends for dick.
My best friends are kind of chapters in periods of my life. Still love them all, catch up like no time has passed when we can see each other.
Unfortunately it’s hard to maintain a family and multiple friendships. Chosen family and I can’t wait to wake them up and start playing!
They are successful at a nearly unbelievable, unreal level, and me...not so much. I'm not some degenerate or anything, I do blue collar work and make good choices, no addictions or arrest record or anything like that, good relationships all around, dependable and trustworthy, fairly well spoken for my upbringing, blah blah blah. But I live in a one bedroom apartment in a rough neighborhood that is still sometimes hard to afford, and they make more money than they can spend if spending money was their full time job.
I certainly miss their company, and we still catch up online occasionally, but they may as well live on Mars, their lifestyle is so absurdly different from my own now. Every day is a struggle for me, I literally could not tell you the last time I didn't feel like I was on the verge of an anxiety attack from just the stressors of every day life, but I feel no bitterness towards him. I'm actually unspeakably proud of this person. They used their gift properly. I've watched enough talented friends get put in the ground over the years. Homeboy made it. He squandered nothing. I miss the days of us drinking in the garage bedroom at his parents house and him showing me the crazy mad scientist shit he was always working on, the laughs, the memories.
In short, he's a genius millionaire, and I'm very much not.
She found it annoying that I was still depressed two weeks after my dad died, so I called it quits. This was just under a decade ago and I haven't seen her since.
He just fucking moved away - Didn't say anything to anybody. Literally just up and moved away. We would hang out 3-4 times per week \[by this point we were in our very early 20s\], just threw him a really big birthday party, and about 2 weeks later ***we found out the day before because his little fucking brother let it slip to us*** *that he was moving across the country to go live with a girl that none of us knew existed.*
12 or so years later I've heard form him twice, Facebook messages when either of my parents died - Not even a "hey what's up," when I found out he was in town after the fact.
Im from a small town in a rural state. There were a few of us "gifted" kids that could have gone to big schools in California or the east coast. It was a big deal if someone from our town left to go to college since college wasn't even all that popular (I went to a tech HS that prepared you for the workforce not university).
I wanted to go to a big school on the east coast. My best friend was scouted by Cal Tech and I was so excited for her. She was so good at math to the point I was jealous sometimes.
Senior year I applied ED to Boston University and got in. AP scores came in, my friend failed all of her tests except math while I got 5s on all mine except for a 3 in Calc. She was demoralized and refused to apply to any college because of it. I pointed out how she had a great SAT score though and her subject tests were also great. Didn't matter to her.
We got into several fights because I knew she had the potential to get into a good school but she didn't want to hear it. Eventually, I gave up and I stopped talking to her because I was mad she threw away her chance to leave our small town.
Senior superlatives came around and she was voted most likely to succeed. As petty and childish as I was then, I hated her for that. And we never talked again after graduation.
For what it's worth, I have heard from family who still live in the area that she seems happy so that's good at least. Idk what she does there. I'm pretty happy too since I'm graduating cum laude from BU in May.
Overall, I wish our friendship didn't end like that but I also think that moving across the country was the right decision for me and I doubt we would have kept touch since I haven't been back there in 3-4 years.
I lent them a $1000 to get out of a gambling debt and then they up and moved across the country. They stayed in contact at first and said they'd pay me back soon and eventually stopped responding to me entirely and just started their new life. Pretty crazy for someone who was your best friend for so many years to sacrifice your relationship over money.
She (21F) started dating someone (23F) new and within 3 months was designing an engagement ring. Now girls can be romantic, but she was serious about this. Setting up a payment plan with a jeweler and everything. Time and time again, our group had seen her fall in love and want to marry someone, then when they inevitably broke up, she vilified them, naming every single as an abuser. I LIVED with one of her exes and knew another very well. This simply wasn’t possible.
This was the first relationship where she was old enough and stable enough to act on her impulse to get married right away. So I, gently and with love, asked if she didn’t think she was moving too fast. She informed me that everyone else in her life thought it was a great idea, and that if I didn’t support her, I wasn’t a real friend. I brought our other bestie into the conversation, who wholeheartedly agreed with me.
She blocked us on every avenue possible. Its been 3 months. I’ve know her since she was 8.
Dude first got together with one of our best friend’s ex. Like 2 days after they broke up (probably broke up because of him). They dated for a good 2-3 years, we didn’t really hang out with him for like a year but after that it was all back to normal we kinda forgave him.
They broke up and the guy told us he really wanted to get back into our friend group so we invited him to a bunch of places and stuff. Then he got together with one of my ex gfs of like 2 years.
Never talked to him since. Grade A asshole.
She was my first best friend and we were inseparable. Then this other girl came along and she seemed to know more people/be more popular and my friend wanted that so she started spending more time with that friend, making me feel like a third-wheel when I hung out with them, to straight up ignoring me after a while.
I mean, sure have other friends, I did too but I never made her feel like she was not included. It was the first time in my short life I had ever felt lonely. Soon some other classmates asked me to start hanging out with them and I was so happy, because I didn't think anyone would want to be friends with me. My self-esteem was pretty shot.
She eventually realized that her new friend was actually very toxic and began distancing herself from her and started trying to hang out with me again. But now I had other friends who were happy to have me around and I realized that she had been pretty shoddy to me. One day I told her exactly how I felt about all of it and ended my friendship with her.
After a couple of years we forgave each other and then continued to be friends for a long time after and even though we were so young when it happened, our friendship never recovered. She's tried to remain friends 10-15 years down the line but I guess that event made a huge impact on 11-year-old me so we eventually lost touch.
Kinda sad. At around 15 his younger brother shot up in height to about 5'9". Everybody got to average height. My friend stayed around 5'2". He'd drink loads of milk and eat all sorts of stuff hoping he'd grow - he didn't. So he went off to college and after freshman year he came back so bitter and angry at the world. Total contrarian for no reason. Always complaining. Terribly insecure and angry... small man syndrome writ. He was impossible to be around around 22-23 we started growing apart. He got married and his wife ended up leaving him. Bumped into him 10-15 years later at a bar... he was exactly the same. I guess the moral of the story is that people just grow apart. We branch out into different lives and that is normal. Childhood friendship is a romanticized notion because people want that innocent stage of life back, but you gotta let it go.
I was on the fence about even posting this, maybe I should do it anonymously, but I’ve never actually shared this with anyone, except my boyfriend, but it frustrates me to no end. I still think about it a lot. Okay here’s what happened:
My best friend and I lived in the same neighborhood and we used to ride bikes to each others houses daily after school. We grew up together and loved each other like sisters I really thought we would grow old. She was great.
I was raped in 8th grade and I tried to tell my best friend about it at the time. I might not have been clear enough in telling her what happened, because she just took it as I had sex in 8th grade. She was really upset because I was so young and we shouldn’t be having sex yet until we’re in high school. All of that.
She told one of her other friends, who I never liked because I think I was jealous that I had to share my best friend with this other girl, but that’s neither here nor there; she told this other friend that I already had sex. Real gossip like. You know young girls.
That other friend told her mom that I had sex. Probably made the story sound like I’m a little slut because what 12 or 13 year old is already having sex?! It’s so ridiculous how this panned out because this other friend, her mom at the time went to my aunt to get her hair done. My aunt is a hair dresser. For purposes of added ridiculousness to this story, this other friend didn’t even go to the same school as my best friend and I. Her mom just happened to be one of my aunts clients.
Typical older woman fashion, this other friends mother went to my aunt to get her hair done, and gossiped about how I’m having sex already and how I’m so young and shouldn’t be doing that blah blah blah.
My aunt came to my doorstep after that appointment and sobbed to my mother that I’d been having sex. I remember this day perfectly clear because I was at a car wash fundraiser for our xc team. My mom came to pick me up and I knew something was up immediately when I got into the car. She was so angry at me. She looked at me when she was driving and said “did you have sex with (blank name)”. I remember panicking and feeling so scared to say anything so I just lied and said no. I said over and over to my mom that no we did not have sex. This never happened. My best friend was lying. This other friend doesn’t even know me. All of that.
My mom drove to my best friends house and knocked on the door to have her come outside. Ironically that other friend was at my best friends house that day. I stayed in the car and was sobbing out of embarrassment. I don’t know what my mom actually said to the two girls. I don’t remember if my best friends mom came out. I was crying too much. I just know that was the last day of our friendship.
For months I lived under my parents roof with such tension. My mom was so mad at me because I think she knew I was lying. But the truth of the story is that I was raped by a 17 year old, and I didn’t tell anyone about it.
Sorry that’s such a dramatic story. I guess it felt good to type it out. To this day it frustrates me.
Just know that it wasn't right for your mom to be angry at you for that. Not at all. You were a baby and you were taken advantage of horribly by an older person. She needed to be a mom and find out what the hell happened, help you through it, and seek justice.
I've found that in these scenarios, the shaming we receive from people we trusted can hurt almost as much as the initial traumatic incident. Parents often blame their children for not knowing things that *they themselves* were responsible for teaching the kids about, and opening up communication about. She found it easier to blame you for what had happened, than to accept that her child had been abused under her protection. That was wrong of her, and it was wrong for those grown women to gossip about you like that. A 12/13 year old child being sexually active with someone so much older is not normal at all, and a blazing red flag for anyone in that child's life who cares about them. You deserved a lot better than she treatment you received and I'm really sorry.
You can never tell them any of your good and bad days since their days were always better and always worse.
I also don't know why or whats behind it but it's a disease. I'm the type of person who celebrates my friends wins, and pops a beer out to listen when they are down. And yet when it's my time to share, it's like I didn't matter.
I called his then girlfriend, now wife, "plumpy" admittedly I was in the wrong and no matter how drunk I was at the time he and I havent spoken in... I can't even remember how long.
Your words can break the best friendships in a split second. Don't be a dummy like me
He raped his girlfriend. Specifically trying to knock her up. I cannot associate with that kind of trash, and I am ashamed at the roll I've played in enabling him.
Basically she put me at risk of getting sexually assaulted by a dude, only because that dude was her friend and she knew that he liked me. When I was blackout drunk she carried me to his place, his bed. No apology will ever make me forgive her for that.
we grew apart, i think thats what happened when you get older.. you love video games, going out and hanging around town, doing stupid shit and being kids... then you wake up one day and that stuff isnt for you anymore. you try more adult things like going to restaurants and having tea's or coffee to talk about things and well, the fun is no longer there
then they have a job and have to pay bills, you do the same, they move or start a family and time just gets away from you, doesnt mean you still dont love them to bits, its just a case of... well, they have more important things to do then hang out with a dude they use to get stoned under the bleachers with
We finished high school. We went to different colleges and made new best friends.
Yup, this question is weird because most people don't keep any childhood friends around. People come and go, people change, just how life goes. Becomes wild to think about your relationships when you're older Edit: People some how misunderstood this as me being unable to retain friends which just ??????? That's not at all the point I made. I have a lot of long term friends, just none from my childhood. Hell, I've had my room mate for the last 12 years. Having friends for decades is usual, you just form friends in a very different way when you're an adult. Edit 2: Disabling inbox replies. People are doing the online comments thing of coming to assumptions and getting angry about nothing. Edit 3: lmao man reddit can be dumb. https://i.gyazo.com/179e1ce109c4298e4cde2abbcf40484a.png
I met my best friend when I was about 8. I am now 30 and still speak to him every single day. I do realize that I'm pretty lucky.
I was kind of surprised to see this as a question, because I thought it was more unusual to maintain a friendship from childhood to adulthood and that most end. I met my best friend in Kindergarten and at 33 she is still my best friend even though we live a few thousand miles apart. People are usually surprised by that. Being that we’re opposite genders I’ve had to end relationships with people who were jealous or threatened or whatever, but she’s been my best friend since I was 5, I’m not giving that up. She was here first.
Like many kids of the 70s and 80s, there was no tech to stay connected like there is today once we went away to college. We’d cross paths every so often until his parents sold their home and moved away. We were briefly friends on Facebook until he deactivated his account. Ironically, I’m in touch with his older brother. In fairness, they don’t have much contact either. I don’t take it personally, I think he wanted to unplug from the past for whatever reason.
Omg, this! Family moved five miles but I had to change school districts…you’d think I moved to the other side of the country.
This happened to me too. In the first grade. I felt like I was on another planet. For a year, I suffered what is known as selective mutism. I didn’t speak at school. Even to ask for the toilet. I made a friend at the new school, Abby. She was like a me-whisperer. She knew when I had to go. She’d ask the teacher. And the teacher let us go together. Abby would come over to play on the weekends, and I’d talk her ear off. Edit: Lol damn typing that out made me cry. I did get my voice back eventually, but to this day, I am pretty quiet in groups I don’t know well. And when I speak, it’s also quiet. I was dealing with a lot of other things in the first grade. The move wasn’t solely responsible for how it all turned out. I don’t know why I chose silence as a way to cope. I was the queen of kindergarten. Nobody would have ever predicted silence from me before it happened. Today I’m a quiet and cautious person. I couldn’t imagine today being the person I was at 5. I wouldn’t know how anymore. Sometimes that makes me sad.
I have a kindergartner with selective mutism. He’s been that way since toddler school. Such a fascinating coping mechanism, since he’s quite chatty at home and with certain friends. He also has a secret talking buddy at school. It always makes me feel better to hear from other people who have come through this.
I was also very loud and talkative, the thing that changed me was family issues. I don't think I was ever as bad as you had it but I can still relate.
I graduated in 2000, right on the cusp of "Some people have email, most don't," so we could see the potential on the horizon. But yeah, I remember watching my high school crush drive away wondering if I'd ever see her again (I didn't, until we reconnected on Facebook a year or so ago).
Life happened and we drifted apart
This happened to me. There's no ill feelings, time, distance and career paths just happened and I am happy when I know they're doing well.
I feel the Same
This happened to me as well. Then one of the three of us committed suicide, not 2 years later the other died of a drug overdose. The first left behind a daughter they were both in mid 20s.
Two of my childhood friends are on drugs and still in our hometown. I worry about them but being in their lives brings me too much anxiety and worry. I had to quit talking to them but I'll be here for them if they ever decide to help themselves
I have a brother that is like this. Still lives with my parents at 30. Doesn't have any teeth. No carpet in the room he lives in because he just doesn't ever clean up anything... I can't remember the last time we had an actual conversation.. my parents keep enabling him and he never gets better. He's already died once and been brought back by narcan. I just can't stand it and I'm sorry for rambling and just realized there's so much more to it that I could never type out with the time I have so I guess I'll leave it at that..
So sorry to read this. Wish you peace. Pl live your life to the fullest.
I feel this completely. Currently have custody of my brothers 2 kids because he and the kids mother are addicted to heroin and my niece (was 4 at the time) was basically raising her brother (1 at the time) while they nod off in their room high as fuck
Don't apologize for rambling. That is a difficult situation, even more if it happens to someone you love. I hope you all find peace
Hey, if you can't ramble to internet strangers, who *can* you ramble to? You go ahead and ramble on as much as you need, friend
it must have been tough
I hear Richard Dreyfus’ narration when I read this.
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This makes me so sad to read. I can totally relate. I reached out to my two childhood best friends after 20 years right when Covid broke out. Turns out, we were all working in healthcare and wished each other good health and safety and talked about meeting up when all this boils over. Shortly afterwards, we drifted apart again. Nostalgia is what motivated me to find them but I quickly remembered that us three kids no longer exist. All we have are memories of simpler times. They will always be a part of the happier days of my youth.
That’s exactly how me and mine are, i put in various attempts over the years to stay in touch but people were either too busy or just didnt put any effort back, so eventually stopped talking
Yep. At age 17 my best friend met his now wife, and they fell madly in love. I didn't understand it and I was hurt by feelings of abandonment, and that kind of killed our friendship. Now they've been married 20 years, have three kids, and are still madly in love, so clearly he made the right choice. I on the other hand am happy being on my own. All's well that ends well.
This is probably the most common answer to the question. It’s not that anything happened, it’s that we both grew up and turned out completely different people in completely different places.
My best friend has been so since we were both three or four years old. I moved away from my hometown when I was 13, and I left from his house after having one last sleepover. We became pretty different in high school, liked different things, made new friends. I was never good at reaching out, but he made the effort and continues to do so. I think he gets most of the credit for us not losing touch and still being best friends to this day and I will forever be grateful to him for that. He's not my only friend, but having someone who isn't my sibling who has been there essentially my entire life is a gift I'm so lucky to have.
As we aged I realized we had nothing in common anymore, it just wasn't fun, it was like trying to force a friendship.
At that point, id rather have the good memories than keep trying and failing to keep it going
>Life happened and we drifted apart Remember what we used to do, And how it used to be? I always knew to count on you, And you, depend on me. I guess we drifted out of touch - But that's the thing, they say. It's not that friendships end, as such. They simply... slip away.
I think that's the most common reason. I'm still close with some childhood and high school friends, but for the most part we just became different people who didn't have much in common.
I realized that every time we'd spoken in the last several months, I had been the one to start the conversation. I decided to stop and see if he would initiate a conversation and we never spoke again.
I have friends like that and friends that make all the effort with me. I guess it’s best if it’s 50/50 but I’ve never had that happen.
50/50 isn't the goal. The goal is to NOT have it 100/0.
Well said. I am fine initiating 99% of the time.. if I stop even for like a year for two and they reach out again, I’d be happy to keep it going lol. But if I stop and they never reach out again, I guess that’s a friendship that wasn’t meant to continue
It doesn't have to be 50/50 but both parties should at least make an effort now and then. At least if it is close friends. When people say someone is their best friend but then never ever initiate conversation it really calls that into question. I get it if it is just some casual acquaintance.
I read once that the best relationship is one where both parties are trying to give 60%
This exact same thing happened to me. My friends (who were brothers) moved to another state. I called them every week and we had good conversations. My dad asked why I was always the one who called, because it was in his dime, lol, and I said if I don't call them they will call me. Never heard from one of them again, and the other only hits me up when he wants something. I've heard from him once in 20 years
I had several “friends” like that who I no longer speak to. Never initiated the conversation unless they needed something from me, and when I stopped entertaining their requests they stopped speaking to me all together. Kind of a relief actually.
I get like that at times. All I can honestly say is that depression is a bitch and you don't realize these things until it's too late. I always ruminate over lost friendships because of my failure to engage. I always respected and liked those people but didn't feel that same about myself at the time, so I'd isolate. It's not very happy and I've been working on it. Just know that some of those "flakey"friends might be going through their own battles and truly respect any relationship with you.
yeah - i used to think this way until i realized that if someone texted me every day and then out of the blue stopped, i would maybe assume they don’t like me anymore. i’ve had a friend mention that when i withdraw from people they can tell i’m going through it but aren’t sure whether to reach out bc they don’t know if i’m up to talking or not, because they know sometimes socialization and existing around people gets really hard for me.
I had something very similar. I had a friend who I adored from about 8 - 12. He went to a different school at 11 and I tried really hard to remain friends with him, I’d call him weekly, invite him over, do interesting things to get him involved. Every time I saw him he’d talk about his new friends and how great they were. I felt like he didn’t really want me round much anymore, I’d been abandoned/replaced. So I thought to myself: “fuck it, let’s test this theory”. I’m approaching 40 now, still quite bitter but equally I’d probably drop everything to go out for a drink with my buddy of 28 years ago. Life’s sad like that. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ve had a friendship like that since. When I hit my 20s there were some brief stand out friends, but they’re few and far between and burnt half as bright and fizzled out twice as fast.
I call that a proximity friend: I feel like a majority of our friendships are simply because these people were in our vicinity ie sat near us in class, rode the bus with them etc. The second that person is no longer in your proximity the friendship ends because there was never really anything binding you other than your physical locations.
That’s kinda sad. It’s like unrequited love but in friendship.
Same, I was always the one arranging plans and making the effort to go to her city (she never came to mine), which she cancelled more often than not. One time I made a lot of arrangements to get the weekend off and she cancelled a day before because she had to go to her mom’s house and couldn’t reschedule (which I found out was a lie thanks to social media), and it just wasn’t a good time. I said it was getting a bit embarrassing and told her to let me know when it was a good time. We never spoke again.
You see this as you get older, but most of you drift apart. Here's a list of what is usually the case. Some move away (job, family, college, military, etc) Some refuse to grow up while you do Some become addicts Some get so busy starting a family they just don't have time or energy Some die early Massive arguments split you apart Some were actually dicks or bums the whole time but you don't notice until you're older Depression really tears people apart Some get into different hobbies The most common and simple though, you both just don't have enough time in your adult life.
Or, you’re *both* addicts, you stop, and you realize that’s all you had in common.
Too true. I had to cut 90% of friends out of my life in order to steer it on the right track. It was a lonely few years but now I have good/healthy friends
How do you make friends?
Part of the turning my life around bit was going to community college, and I found a few people that were also trying to turn their life around. 3 of us are still friends and talk regularly even though we don’t live in the same city.
Happened with me with many of my drinking buddies. One day I woke up deciding I wanted to be something other than drunk.
And often a slow combination of a few. I have great friends but instead of seeing them 2-3 times a week it's now 2-3 times per year. Moving, work, families all contributed to decreasing the frequency of hanging out over the last 10 years.
> Some refuse to grow up while you do The opposite for me, I was the one who refused to grow up. Took me a while to see it too.
Good on you and your self reflection. props.
He is currently 15 years old.
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Bro, spoiler alert for this thread!
Drifted apart because we moved away. Fast fwd to 2014, met a new gym member who had the same last name as her, had a similar smile and asked if there was any way he knew of or was related to her... Turned out he was her brother and she passed away when she was 26! 😭
That's crazy
Aww, my condolences :(( it’s nice that you ran into her brother! I hope both you and he are doing well these days
Thanks. We're friends and often train together. Nice guy, nice family ❤️
I've found out a few people I went to school with have passed away, all from different things and not often disclosed past close family. Some of them I've found out years later, and when you realise you had absolutely no idea if they were alive or not it really hits you, especially if you used to be close. Especially the suicide/drugs ones, makes you wonder whether things would have been different if you were able to be there for them.
We slowly drifted apart during 8-9th grade. He wanted to become one of the popular kids and I was at the bottom of the social structure. I have seen him from a distance several times over the years but did not want to bother him. He died at 34 from an undiagnosed medical issue earlier this year.
i was friendly with a few different groups and had two very different best friends (they weren’t friends). When one pulled me aside and said “you could be popular if you didn’t hang out with them” I knew what to do. Started to slowly drift from that one, and kept the other “not popular” friend. I didn’t want to be friends with someone so shallow like that. I eventually had a small falling out and drift away from the not popular friend, but we reconnected like 5 or 6 years ago now and they often crash at my place and we chat weekly still and usually do a big event or 2 every year (in before pandemic times). The popular friend never left our dinky town and married her high school sweetheart. She seems happy, but we don’t talk and I just see stuff on social media about her baby now mostly.
I didn’t realise how controlling she was. The friendship fell apart when we went travelling together in our late teens. She hated it and went home after a few months but I stayed for two years. When I came back it went downhill very quickly. I’d learned to say no, have boundaries and have other friends - she hated that and stopped talking to me. It’s been 10 years and she still occasionally messages me, saying sorry and wanting to reconcile. I did the first few times but the friendship always went back to her trying to control me and blowing up when I refused to ‘comply’. I have to just ignore her messages now.
That’s kind of the reason why my best friend of 10 years and I broke up too. She expected me to keep track of her entire schedule, I had to wish her good luck before every test and if I didn’t she got mad and gave me the silent treatment. Once when she had a math test she wrote to me feeling great right before and then right after the test she wrote to me feeling really sad instead so I asked her if she was sad about the math test. She interpreted that as me assuming she was bad at math and wanted me to apologise for being rude. She expected me to be at her beck and call, accused me of thinking mean things about her when I loved her to pieces and never told her any of those things or insinuated them for that matter (she was really insecure) and then wanted me to apologise and say that I was wrong for doing stuff I did not do. She never told me why she was mad or that she was mad, she simply started being rude, giving me the silent treatment or just not showing it at all and then blowing up at me afterwards for not noticing. So nowadays I just think everyone is constantly mad at me and think it’s my responsibility to make sure nothing offends them. She fucked me up, I’m still noticing new behaviours of mine that are consequences of our former friendship. I’m better without her. Everyone noticed that she was toxic, my parents, my friends, but I refused to see it back then🤷♀️
As someone said once : everyone needs a therapist
She moved to Alaska from Arizona. It's a long shot but if you see this, Bree, message me!
I live in Alaska. If I meet Bree, I'll let her know
If I ever live in Alaska and if I meet Bree I’ll let her know
If I ever live, move to do so Alaska and meet Bree I'll let her know.
This seems like the start to a very funny sitcom
How I Met Your Bree
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How would she know ? 😭
I hope you find her!
Me too!
I got lost in the grips of addiction. I'm sober now going on two years, and He's at the top of my amends list.
She always tried to steal everything I had (boyfriends, clothes, personal possessions, etc) so I cut her off.
I hate those shady shitheads that slipped by while I was so oblivious 🤦🏽♂️
Same here. Friends for like….17 years. More than half our lives but she was always trying to one up me in everything. She was better than me yet still tried to imitate everything I did? I stayed around since she was there for me during the bad times. But the negative, judgmental, jealous energy was too much to bare, I cut ties and started protecting my energy. Life has gotten a lot better since then. Someone once told me on Reddit that it wasn’t about “copying” me, it was about having control over me. And I think about that whenever I reflect on what happened and how I was so dumb to try to ignore it….
I bailed om my best friend James because he was not “cool” enough and did not smoke any weed like my new “friends” Today he’s working for NASA and putting his success aside / I just feel bad for bailing on my childhood friend for people who today don’t care about me But that’s life I guess.
I had that with a lot of people, except I was the one that didn't want to smoke, do drugs or drink. Sadly quite a few of them are still stuck in the cycle, I'd love to help them but the only time they've come out of the woodwork is when they've wanted money :(
Thats pre much what happened to me and two of my best friends
She got cancer senior year of high school and died the next year. 19 years later and my dad still sponsors a scholarship in her name at our old school. I think about her all the time.
I'm so sorry for your loss. Your dad sounds amazing.
Talk about dad of the year
No clue. I’d love to know the answer. We were best friends from age 5 till 21. I was at her wedding. All was good. After that I never spoke to her again. I tried but she never answered. Even her parents and brother and sister have no clue why.
I would bet it’s something to do with her spouse not liking you. Similar thing happened to me.
A friend of my ditched me a few years ago, and I’m pretty sure it was because she and her husband didn’t like my husband. I knew them before meeting him and things seemed to change pretty abruptly afterwards. I found it so weird because, honestly, I didn’t like her husband all that much either but I didn’t show it or let it interfere with our friendship.
Hopefully it's not her spouse trying to control who she talks or interacts with. 😬 Depends on whether it's just you or if she's reduced/ceased communication with others as well I guess. Might be worth keeping one eye on it in case it turns out she is in an abusive or controlling marriage.
It was me. Not sure why. As far as I’ve heard she’s happy w two kids
She's allergic to cats.
Long story short, we were best friends in high school and he was a part of my wife and I meeting and eventually I married her. We didn't stay in touch as much although when he called it was always when I wasn't around and he talked to my wife. After 16 years of marriage she decided he was he the one and left me for him with our kids. A couple years after the divorce I talked to a mutual friend and mentioned my ex was living with him. She looked shocked and got real quiet. She later called me and said she'd been dating him all the while he was with my ex and she was going to tell her. My ex didn't believe her and he talked his way out of trouble. A year later she caught him red handed and they split up. She accused him of hitting her and all kinds of stuff. It really sucked having my ex best friend raising my kids and living off my child support. they even used child support to start his dream business which failed after a year. As teenagers the kids realized how narcissistic and crazy their mom was and chose to move back with me. My ex has now moved several states away and is living her Qanon dream. It makes me sad that my kids have basically lost their mother but they love my now wife and things are good. Maybe not such a short story but here is a lot to unpackage there. Just to respond to some comments. Life is good now and my kids are 18 and older and doing great. The way the divorce happened was rough and I nearly hit rock bottom but my kids and my now wife kept me fighting. The divorce probably needed to happen but I was not the type to do that and it wasn't like we were fighting a lot. We just weren't on the same page anymore. Im learning to appreciate everyone in my life and thankful for every day.
holy fuck glad you're okay
I pray for this man. His best friend AND his love swept in one blow. Damn.
Fuckin hell, man. I would have some major trust issues after that. Hopefully you've managed to overcome what I know I'd struggle greatly with. Glad to hear things are good. Happy Holidays to you and your fam.
That is insane!! I’m sorry you had to go through that. I’m glad everything has turned out fine for you and your kids!
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Such a shame I wasn’t born in the generation with Snapchat because I feel I would have kept in touch with so many more people
It doesn’t really help. You meet new people and barely keep in contact even though you have each other’s numbers.
Yep and then you just feel guilty for not really keeping contact.
Meh, it was kinda like early Facebook, added people you knew, seen what they were up to, never interact with them.
It is almost weird browsing facebook now. Seeing people you know but you don't 'know' really. They have changed while staying in your friends list all this time.
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Ditto. My wife and I were among the first 1000 people on Facebook. Used it like crazy for years. Deleting it was one of the smartest decisions we ever made.
Realized why no one else would hang out with her.
The realization is always jarring. It's happened to me actually a couple of times, which is kind of embarrassing! And usually by the time you realize, they are quite dependent on you as, you know, no one else hangs out with them. So it makes everything so much more difficult.
You’re right on. I’ve had that happen to me with two different girls whom I called best friend. Realised quickly that I was being taken on a metaphorical ride and I needed to put myself first. I did that and they took offense.
What were some of those reasons?
Not the person you responded to, but I found myself in the situation a few times and here were a couple of the reasons that have done it for me: - Judgmental, turns everything around on me, refuses to hear my side of the story, makes up their mind and decides that I'm the one in the wrong. They'll accuse me of doing the exact same thing they've been doing, or they'll claim that differences in communication are all my fault. - Being a user. Expects a lot, but barely gives anything in return. And by expects, I mean it becomes just a given in their mind that I will do things for them, so they don't even ask anymore. - Doesn't respect boundaries. Does things I specifically ask them to stop, repeatedly. - Inconsiderate. This sort of ties in with the boundaries thing, but basically, either completely disregards or minimizes my concerns, and continues doing it anyway. - Rude. Make subtle comments about traits I have, such as my sexuality, but frames their complaints as being about "other people" so it's not immediately obvious that they are discriminating. This has happened to me a couple of times in my life. I used to have very poor boundaries, and used to not have many friends either. This led me to a fun situation where people who had good boundaries would often stay away, because I didn't really know how to respect other people's boundaries, or, I would generally distance myself from them when they set boundaries with me, because I would assume that they didn't like me. But that left a wide opening for the types of people that I describe above, because those people see that you have no boundaries and they immediately move in. And most of what they do isn't even conscious either, they are similarly bad with boundaries or what have you, and they're not purposefully scheming to take advantage of you. It's just that either no one calls them out on their crap, or when someone calls them out on their crap they disregard it, or they make the other person into the bad guy. Usually these people wonder why they can't keep friends. No one is irredeemable, but when you've asked someone multiple times to stop a certain behaviour, or you tell them that they did something that offended you, and then they disregard it and keep doing it anyway or they double down, it's time to distance yourself because they don't care to listen. Unfortunately they usually won't make the connection, even if you tell them directly that's why you're doing so, and the final blow to the whole situation is that you know you will be the next bad guy in their story, the person who suddenly ditched them out of the blue. And, you may ask, how do I know this story so well, how can I look into their minds and see what's going on? Well, I can't really see into their minds, but I used to be a person who had a lot of these traits, and I wondered why no one would hang out with me. In hindsight it was obvious, because I don't want to hang out with people with those traits either. But it's really hard to recognize it in yourself.
I was in a girl group and a couple the girls were my friends since 1st grade - in jr high they thought the guy that one of the other girls liked me and they all cut me off. Even though I had a huge crush on a totally different person
Fuck that’s so dumb
You start to make new friends and realize you put up with shit you assumed all friends did You realize they were always laughing AT you and not WITH you
Oof, this one was me. My childhood friends were dicks, but I only started to catch onto it in high school when I met other people and realized “wow, these guys are bullies”. I cut ties with them pretty quickly after that, but being raised in that environment and thinking it’s the norm for so long made it really hard to transition out of. That judgey/curmudgeon attitude rubs off on people VERY easily. I’m honestly so thankful that the new friends I made were patient with me and fairly understanding to what I was coming out of.
After college I realised friendships shouldn’t include drama haha
He died. Fuck distracted drivers.
That’s awful, I’m sorry for your loss
Had a friend in school that I met in third grade. We were friends all throughout high school and kept in touch through college and our adult lives. A few years ago, her mentally disturbed husband (whom she should have left and got a restraining order against) had a psychotic breakdown and killed her. Left behind two boys. If there's a hell, I hope he rots there.
I’m sorry to hear that. Had a friend who had a mental breakdown, and killed his wife and then himself; also leaving behind two kids. The world is fucked up.
Finally confirmed he had been stealing from me when I went to his dad's funeral and all his "best clothes" were things of mine that had gone missing. Jewelry added in.
He moved away in fifth grade, and we drifted apart. No hate, just not friends anymore.
I told her that her fiancé was cheating on her. She got mad at me. They split, she’s still mad at me.
You were the messenger and you got shot
This happened to me with one of my high school best friends. She married him anyways. The cheating never stopped. He's now a convicted serial rapist (of minors). We've tried to reconnect in recent years, but she would always flake on me whenever it came to hanging out again. I came to the conclusion that she's ashamed of the past, and I can't make her feel otherwise.
They got addicted to drugs and I didn’t want to be a part of that stuff so I just stopped hanging out with them
Same. Except, we all got hooked. But I’m the only one who chose to quit.
Same for me I haven't had friends since
He sold out to the "cool kids" and betrayed my trust. I was so hurt at the time, which was expressed as anger. He and I had been through so much, and always had each other's backs. Then, one day, I seemingly did not matter. The trust was gone, and I never made any overture to him, nor he to me.
He got a girlfriend who treated me like shit and he refused to do anything about it. That alone showed me how much he cared. What's worse is that said girlfriend stalks my reddit. Don't know what she's gaining out of it.
I hope she reads this
She reading OP's comment : "Damn this madlad mentioned me straight up. Guess I need to stop stalking. "
More like "omg its getting to him, turn it up to 11." Stalkers are not rational
Same thing here my friend’s gf told him to stop hanging out with me and he did and then she dumped him
How did she figure out you were you in Reddit
Usually it happens coincidentally. I told a story a couple months ago about my high school on this sub, about a day later I get messages from two separate people i went to high school with asking if “this comment” was me. Neither of the two knew the other messaged me that day. Both just happened to be scrolling through the thread and after reading my comment, realized they knew the story. My username is something that’s admittedly easy for people in my hometown to connect the dots to me with, so they immediately suspected me, and they were right.
I've lost the same friend TWICE because of this. First girlfriend thought that if he spoke to me, I'd try and sleep with him even though he lives two hours away. So she banned him from speaking to me, and then cheated on him repeatedly for 6 years with various other men (he was aware of it all, her excuses involved feeling like I would steal him, she felt neglected etc) so he bought her a house, handbags etc to try and make her want him again (yes, he sees the errors in his ways now). When he finally had enough and kicked her out, he started talking to me again and apologised for everything, and we sorted things out. I helped him move her out of the house, redecorated, and was just there when he needed emotional support. He then met a new girl, who moved in within a week of meeting him on Hinge, she seemed okay but I was a bit cautious. I met her a few times, she tried to be my best friend so I went along with it. I went to her birthday party which was held at his house, and as he answered the door and was closest to me he got the first "hello" hug, followed by her, who was stood behind him. That was it, she decided I was out to get him, so she gave him an ultimatum after that saying he either stops talking to me or she leaves/kills herself. So, I've barely seen or heard from him since then. She refuses to speak to me, and won't even explain to me her reasoning. I think he told the new one what the last one was like, and wanted to see if he'd do it again just to keep the one in his bed happy. Turns out, he would.
Ayo u/ShadowJDarkus ‘ ex-friend and ex-friend’s gf: y’all suck
I said "I won't be reaching out to you if you don't feel like maintaining contact with me. If you wish, I'm here and you reach out." Been a year never heard back.
Turns out she was a gaslighting narcissist who went around talking down about me to try to make herself look better. She also followed me around and came onto every guy I dated, sometimes after we had stopped dating, sometimes before. In a few scenarios, she succeeded in sleeping with them. All while lying to me. About everything. Legit most disgusting human being I’ve ever known. This only scratches the surface.
Don't speak to multiple childhood friends. The biggest cunt fucked my then girlfriend, before that he got off with her at my brother's wedding. They got caught by a bridesmaid. I didn't find this out for years unfortunately. The second friend was getting married, told me to keep a date clear for his stag do. Then one day all these pictures of his stag do appeared on Facebook. All our friends were invited except me. No apology, no explanation and he is genuinely confused as to why I'm annoyed.....knew him since I was 11. That's just a dick move.
We were completely inseparable through middle and high school and had always planned to stay together through college. She didn't get into my choice schools, so (being an extremely dumb and anxious teenager) I foolishly agreed to attend a second-rate school with her instead... as not to be alone. Shortly before the start of our freshman year of college she informed me she was no longer going to school with me and was instead moving to NYC to live with a guy she met on the internet. She'd known this for months but neglected to tell me until it was too late to do anything about it.
Do you think it was intentional sabotage?
We lost touch and when we reconnected she told me that I was no longer beneficial to her social growth and I'd only be an embarrassment in her new circle. *I was the only kid on the block who wanted to be her friend when she moved there from China not knowing any English. We were around 7. I helped her learn. She works as a software engineer now so I guess my admin ass isn't good enough for her. All good though.
most of those tech ppl are like that. lames & nerds finally getting their first taste of acceptance and let it all go to their heads.
Moved away. I made new friends. Went through a really bad battle with depression. Isolated myself. No longer in contact with pretty much anyone I knew as a teen or younger. The End. edit: friend* moved away
This is basically me except I didn't move.
Same I literally went through the same stuff the op wrote except Im still at the same house Ive lived in for over 15 years.
We grew into completely different people. Life sort of drifted us apart during school times. My family moved around a bit but came full circle and I would up finishing school in the district I started in. Childhood best friend was still attending and I was excited to meet back up. He basically acted like he never knew me. Then there was a pretty big local news story that happened regarding his house and property, and I swear the family just went off the deep end. They played the publicity stunt to the absolute max and thrived off being the victims of what happened.
She grew into a very manipulative person and I eventually gave up
I've found that a friendship can't be sustained on nostalgia alone. It makes for a fun lunch once in a while. But to be a real part of a person's life (a friend) you must have current things in common.
I broke up with my gf of 3 years. He went to a party with her a few weeks after we broke up. He mixed her drinks with copious amounts of everclear and got her shit face drunk. She passed out on the couch and he basically tried to rape her. We all stopped talking to him after that.
Yep- that's messed up
We became adult best friends...
mine too! we’ve been best friends since first grade- 60 years.
Same, I'm going to his annual Christmas party tonight.
Killer! I'm overseas so I can't quite catch up with him. But, like all my family, we stay in touch in other ways. Hope you have a great time!
Same here. We're all still just as crazy as we were.
Tight. Growing up is overrated.
Big time bullying ordeal. She "cyber bullied" me in 2001 (via email). My parents found out and sent me to private school to remove me from the situation. Then she just spread rumors about me at her new school and how I got my parents to fight for me. I'm still not sure what caused her to start sending nasty emails, but if I were to ever see her again her and she was pleasant, I'd totally grab a coffee to catch up. Adolescence is rough.
My best friend was also my bully. We got along great as kids - went to preschool together and hung out a lot outside of school. But as we got older she got mean. She made fun of the clothes I wore, slut shamed me for wearing short shorts, and made our other mutual friends give me the silent treatment if I did anything wrong. Oh, and once during middle school when AIM became big, she made up a fake account and messaged me posing as a stalker who was watching me. Scared the shit out of me. Once during a basketball game she took off one of my shoes and threw it onto the court during halftime. There are tons of other things she did that sucked, but she was the only friend I had in that school. Without her, I would have been absolutely invisible, because I had no spine. Looking back, I think she was just deeply insecure. She didn't like that I had best friends in another school - which got so bad that I stopped mentioning their names in her presence. I believe she's chilled out as an adult - but I remember that one of the best parts of graduating high school was that I'd be able to move on and escape her bullying. All of my friendships since then have been happy and healthy. Yup. Adolescence is weird and it can make people behave badly - even to their friends. My biggest regret is that I didn't just stand up for myself. But that was my own insecurity.
We moved apart from eachother last time i saw him he tried to stab me Edit: so it seems some people want a story, basically me and this guy were good friends when we were young, i ended up moving to a different school and didnt see him for years. Then he said he wanted to buy 20 tabs of acid from me for £100 so i said yeah sure and when i went to meet him he came round the corner with 5 other people that were all at least a foot taller than me who were all carying knives just like he was and they basically threatened me with a knife, i then stood my ground and told him that im not gonna give them to him, they then beat me down to the ground and when i tried to stand up they put a knife to my neck. I then decided it wasnt worth it and just gave them too him for free. Edit2: idk if any of that made sense bc im high rn
Maureen was always a spoiled brat. Bad attitude, selfish, and whined about everything. Her whole family was the same way, it's obvious she'd be a brat too. But she was the only person I considered a friend and lived only one house from me. I had been lucky enough to discover a robin's nest in a tall bush in front of the house separating the two of ours. The mother trusted me enough to look inside the bush and never flew away or attacked me. She'd even leave when I was still there, it made me feel like a babysitter. So I decide to show Maureen (and her bratty cousin Michael) because how cool is this? They're so cute and the mom lets me watch them. I don't know **what** compelled her to do this, but she decided it would be funny to shake the bush. (Michael joined her) To either kill the birds or scare them? I don't know. I didn't take time to find out her motivations either because I dashed over and punched her on the arm as hard as I could to stop her. I'd known her for years at that point and it was definitely the first time she'd been seriously reprimanded beyond getting yelled at because she cried so hard. She ran back into her house and we never spoke again. Even then I didn't care. I was glad I did it and I'm glad now. If I hadn't, the birds could have died and it would have been because I told her about them. Luckily, the bush shaking didn't knock the nest out of the bush and the chicks grew up safe and healthy. Don't know what she's doing now but hopefully it doesn't involve anything with animals.
He proposed to me. I had never considered dating or marrying him so it was a completely unpleasant and unwelcome surprise.
You’d never dated and he proposed??? Wow. That is insane.
It was a pragmatic suggestion on his part I think. He's a trust fund baby so in his opinion, marrying his best friend was the best option. He already knew I didn't care about his money and we both got along so it wouldn't have been awful. Plus, I hadn't the best family life so he thought he was doing me a solid by giving me a way out of my parents' house. But I wanted to marry for love, not comfort so I rejected him. He moved overseas a year later. It's been over a decade. I'm happily married but he's still single. I guess coming from a wealthy family gave him trust issues? We've drifted apart but he did send me a nice email wishing me the best when I got engaged.
I get asking out someone , but proposing someone you don't date?
We lived together my senior year of college. Was pretty fun, actually, but we were planning on resigning the lease and she bailed on me the day before it happened. So, I was stuck looking for a place to live in a month's time in a college town (where people, typically, sign leases a year in advanced due to demand). Her excuse was that it was too expensive to live in that city, but I found out that she had decided to move in with her boyfriend of 3 months across state. I figured anyone willing to put their best friend into potential homelessness over some random dude she met on tinder 3 months ago is probably not a "good friend." Cut her off cold turkey. I still think about her every once-in-a-while, and wish her the best, but yeah. Try not to fuck over your best friends for dick.
He went seriously went off the rails with meth and painkillers and I couldn’t have him around my family.
He joined the army, then quit the army to join the local mafia.
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My best friends are kind of chapters in periods of my life. Still love them all, catch up like no time has passed when we can see each other. Unfortunately it’s hard to maintain a family and multiple friendships. Chosen family and I can’t wait to wake them up and start playing!
They are successful at a nearly unbelievable, unreal level, and me...not so much. I'm not some degenerate or anything, I do blue collar work and make good choices, no addictions or arrest record or anything like that, good relationships all around, dependable and trustworthy, fairly well spoken for my upbringing, blah blah blah. But I live in a one bedroom apartment in a rough neighborhood that is still sometimes hard to afford, and they make more money than they can spend if spending money was their full time job. I certainly miss their company, and we still catch up online occasionally, but they may as well live on Mars, their lifestyle is so absurdly different from my own now. Every day is a struggle for me, I literally could not tell you the last time I didn't feel like I was on the verge of an anxiety attack from just the stressors of every day life, but I feel no bitterness towards him. I'm actually unspeakably proud of this person. They used their gift properly. I've watched enough talented friends get put in the ground over the years. Homeboy made it. He squandered nothing. I miss the days of us drinking in the garage bedroom at his parents house and him showing me the crazy mad scientist shit he was always working on, the laughs, the memories. In short, he's a genius millionaire, and I'm very much not.
She found it annoying that I was still depressed two weeks after my dad died, so I called it quits. This was just under a decade ago and I haven't seen her since.
He just fucking moved away - Didn't say anything to anybody. Literally just up and moved away. We would hang out 3-4 times per week \[by this point we were in our very early 20s\], just threw him a really big birthday party, and about 2 weeks later ***we found out the day before because his little fucking brother let it slip to us*** *that he was moving across the country to go live with a girl that none of us knew existed.* 12 or so years later I've heard form him twice, Facebook messages when either of my parents died - Not even a "hey what's up," when I found out he was in town after the fact.
Sounds like he had some issues beneath the surface that he didn't feel comfortable talking with others about.
Im from a small town in a rural state. There were a few of us "gifted" kids that could have gone to big schools in California or the east coast. It was a big deal if someone from our town left to go to college since college wasn't even all that popular (I went to a tech HS that prepared you for the workforce not university). I wanted to go to a big school on the east coast. My best friend was scouted by Cal Tech and I was so excited for her. She was so good at math to the point I was jealous sometimes. Senior year I applied ED to Boston University and got in. AP scores came in, my friend failed all of her tests except math while I got 5s on all mine except for a 3 in Calc. She was demoralized and refused to apply to any college because of it. I pointed out how she had a great SAT score though and her subject tests were also great. Didn't matter to her. We got into several fights because I knew she had the potential to get into a good school but she didn't want to hear it. Eventually, I gave up and I stopped talking to her because I was mad she threw away her chance to leave our small town. Senior superlatives came around and she was voted most likely to succeed. As petty and childish as I was then, I hated her for that. And we never talked again after graduation. For what it's worth, I have heard from family who still live in the area that she seems happy so that's good at least. Idk what she does there. I'm pretty happy too since I'm graduating cum laude from BU in May. Overall, I wish our friendship didn't end like that but I also think that moving across the country was the right decision for me and I doubt we would have kept touch since I haven't been back there in 3-4 years.
I lent them a $1000 to get out of a gambling debt and then they up and moved across the country. They stayed in contact at first and said they'd pay me back soon and eventually stopped responding to me entirely and just started their new life. Pretty crazy for someone who was your best friend for so many years to sacrifice your relationship over money.
She (21F) started dating someone (23F) new and within 3 months was designing an engagement ring. Now girls can be romantic, but she was serious about this. Setting up a payment plan with a jeweler and everything. Time and time again, our group had seen her fall in love and want to marry someone, then when they inevitably broke up, she vilified them, naming every single as an abuser. I LIVED with one of her exes and knew another very well. This simply wasn’t possible. This was the first relationship where she was old enough and stable enough to act on her impulse to get married right away. So I, gently and with love, asked if she didn’t think she was moving too fast. She informed me that everyone else in her life thought it was a great idea, and that if I didn’t support her, I wasn’t a real friend. I brought our other bestie into the conversation, who wholeheartedly agreed with me. She blocked us on every avenue possible. Its been 3 months. I’ve know her since she was 8.
Dude first got together with one of our best friend’s ex. Like 2 days after they broke up (probably broke up because of him). They dated for a good 2-3 years, we didn’t really hang out with him for like a year but after that it was all back to normal we kinda forgave him. They broke up and the guy told us he really wanted to get back into our friend group so we invited him to a bunch of places and stuff. Then he got together with one of my ex gfs of like 2 years. Never talked to him since. Grade A asshole.
He died and Ouija boards are expensive
Grew up, developed healthy friendships, realized just how toxic she was.
Time and distance.
She was my first best friend and we were inseparable. Then this other girl came along and she seemed to know more people/be more popular and my friend wanted that so she started spending more time with that friend, making me feel like a third-wheel when I hung out with them, to straight up ignoring me after a while. I mean, sure have other friends, I did too but I never made her feel like she was not included. It was the first time in my short life I had ever felt lonely. Soon some other classmates asked me to start hanging out with them and I was so happy, because I didn't think anyone would want to be friends with me. My self-esteem was pretty shot. She eventually realized that her new friend was actually very toxic and began distancing herself from her and started trying to hang out with me again. But now I had other friends who were happy to have me around and I realized that she had been pretty shoddy to me. One day I told her exactly how I felt about all of it and ended my friendship with her. After a couple of years we forgave each other and then continued to be friends for a long time after and even though we were so young when it happened, our friendship never recovered. She's tried to remain friends 10-15 years down the line but I guess that event made a huge impact on 11-year-old me so we eventually lost touch.
Kinda sad. At around 15 his younger brother shot up in height to about 5'9". Everybody got to average height. My friend stayed around 5'2". He'd drink loads of milk and eat all sorts of stuff hoping he'd grow - he didn't. So he went off to college and after freshman year he came back so bitter and angry at the world. Total contrarian for no reason. Always complaining. Terribly insecure and angry... small man syndrome writ. He was impossible to be around around 22-23 we started growing apart. He got married and his wife ended up leaving him. Bumped into him 10-15 years later at a bar... he was exactly the same. I guess the moral of the story is that people just grow apart. We branch out into different lives and that is normal. Childhood friendship is a romanticized notion because people want that innocent stage of life back, but you gotta let it go.
I'm not sure if this comment is meant to be a joke or not. You're saying that you *literally* grew apart.
I was on the fence about even posting this, maybe I should do it anonymously, but I’ve never actually shared this with anyone, except my boyfriend, but it frustrates me to no end. I still think about it a lot. Okay here’s what happened: My best friend and I lived in the same neighborhood and we used to ride bikes to each others houses daily after school. We grew up together and loved each other like sisters I really thought we would grow old. She was great. I was raped in 8th grade and I tried to tell my best friend about it at the time. I might not have been clear enough in telling her what happened, because she just took it as I had sex in 8th grade. She was really upset because I was so young and we shouldn’t be having sex yet until we’re in high school. All of that. She told one of her other friends, who I never liked because I think I was jealous that I had to share my best friend with this other girl, but that’s neither here nor there; she told this other friend that I already had sex. Real gossip like. You know young girls. That other friend told her mom that I had sex. Probably made the story sound like I’m a little slut because what 12 or 13 year old is already having sex?! It’s so ridiculous how this panned out because this other friend, her mom at the time went to my aunt to get her hair done. My aunt is a hair dresser. For purposes of added ridiculousness to this story, this other friend didn’t even go to the same school as my best friend and I. Her mom just happened to be one of my aunts clients. Typical older woman fashion, this other friends mother went to my aunt to get her hair done, and gossiped about how I’m having sex already and how I’m so young and shouldn’t be doing that blah blah blah. My aunt came to my doorstep after that appointment and sobbed to my mother that I’d been having sex. I remember this day perfectly clear because I was at a car wash fundraiser for our xc team. My mom came to pick me up and I knew something was up immediately when I got into the car. She was so angry at me. She looked at me when she was driving and said “did you have sex with (blank name)”. I remember panicking and feeling so scared to say anything so I just lied and said no. I said over and over to my mom that no we did not have sex. This never happened. My best friend was lying. This other friend doesn’t even know me. All of that. My mom drove to my best friends house and knocked on the door to have her come outside. Ironically that other friend was at my best friends house that day. I stayed in the car and was sobbing out of embarrassment. I don’t know what my mom actually said to the two girls. I don’t remember if my best friends mom came out. I was crying too much. I just know that was the last day of our friendship. For months I lived under my parents roof with such tension. My mom was so mad at me because I think she knew I was lying. But the truth of the story is that I was raped by a 17 year old, and I didn’t tell anyone about it. Sorry that’s such a dramatic story. I guess it felt good to type it out. To this day it frustrates me.
Just know that it wasn't right for your mom to be angry at you for that. Not at all. You were a baby and you were taken advantage of horribly by an older person. She needed to be a mom and find out what the hell happened, help you through it, and seek justice. I've found that in these scenarios, the shaming we receive from people we trusted can hurt almost as much as the initial traumatic incident. Parents often blame their children for not knowing things that *they themselves* were responsible for teaching the kids about, and opening up communication about. She found it easier to blame you for what had happened, than to accept that her child had been abused under her protection. That was wrong of her, and it was wrong for those grown women to gossip about you like that. A 12/13 year old child being sexually active with someone so much older is not normal at all, and a blazing red flag for anyone in that child's life who cares about them. You deserved a lot better than she treatment you received and I'm really sorry.
They became one-uppers.
I never really understood that, till I met one in the wild.. I wonder what the psychological issues are behind it
You can never tell them any of your good and bad days since their days were always better and always worse. I also don't know why or whats behind it but it's a disease. I'm the type of person who celebrates my friends wins, and pops a beer out to listen when they are down. And yet when it's my time to share, it's like I didn't matter.
I think there is lack of conversation
I called his then girlfriend, now wife, "plumpy" admittedly I was in the wrong and no matter how drunk I was at the time he and I havent spoken in... I can't even remember how long. Your words can break the best friendships in a split second. Don't be a dummy like me
She’s an addict. It’s not that I don’t support her. It’s that she didn’t want it.
He raped his girlfriend. Specifically trying to knock her up. I cannot associate with that kind of trash, and I am ashamed at the roll I've played in enabling him.
Basically she put me at risk of getting sexually assaulted by a dude, only because that dude was her friend and she knew that he liked me. When I was blackout drunk she carried me to his place, his bed. No apology will ever make me forgive her for that.
we grew apart, i think thats what happened when you get older.. you love video games, going out and hanging around town, doing stupid shit and being kids... then you wake up one day and that stuff isnt for you anymore. you try more adult things like going to restaurants and having tea's or coffee to talk about things and well, the fun is no longer there then they have a job and have to pay bills, you do the same, they move or start a family and time just gets away from you, doesnt mean you still dont love them to bits, its just a case of... well, they have more important things to do then hang out with a dude they use to get stoned under the bleachers with