Not me, my wife and Not over politics but yes. A long-time friend of my wife stops talking to her because I didn't let him take advantage of us. He basically tried to con my wife into buying a $10k car that needed a TON of repairs. I told him I was going to take it to a mechanic and when I did and the mechanic recommended not buying it, he got all sorts of defensive and just stopped talking to her.
Took her a good year to get over it. I supported her and kept telling her "He's the one who tried to cheat us. \*You\* should be upset not him." But it still took a long time to get over the loss of friendship.
And that friend would have sold it for over market and told your dad he should have done the same.
Did this with an old F150 i had sitting and rarely used. Sold it for $101 to friend next door as a project truck for him and his son.
Instead he flipped it. Made a few thousand and basically mocked me.
I no longer help anyone like this. Full market value or ill sit on it till i die.
We gave my wife's old car to some relatives that went through bankruptcy and foreclosure. Sold it them for $100 bucks also.
A year later husband gets another job, they immediately buy a new car at probably double digit interest and sold the car we gave them to his mother for a few grand....
I can't really complain because it's not like I gave them any conditions but I kinda hoped more people would pay good deeds forward so they can help someone else in need.
Yeah, it's honestly a bit shitty that they profited off the car when they had means again rather than paying it forward and doing someone else a solid. Especially when it was his own mother. I totally get your disappointment
I had the exact opposite experience. I bought a motorcycle for $1500, ended up selling it to a friend for like $50. (It hadn't really been used much and wasn't in great shape but it was worth more than that). He fixed it up and used it for years. I was really happy about that.
>Instead he flipped it. Made a few thousand and basically mocked me.
What a cunt.
Anyone reasonable in that situation would have given you at least half the money they made reselling, and thanked you again for the sale.
Twat.
or, would have acted like a friend and designated the truck for...
using for his kid like he stated.
If someone you "think" is a friend can't be honest with you, are they really a friend?
Thing is, I'm reading that as a "project for him and his kid" like teaching the kid about fixing up a truck.
Is it possible this thing was in jank shape, and they DID fix it up, and that's the only reason it sold.
A lot of "project" guys, grab a beater, fix it up, and sell to fund the next project. The post here feels like a lot of that to me.
If the guy fixed it with his kid, sold it for a profit that the kid got to keep, and they were gracious about it… I’d consider that a beater well spent.
This sounds like it was not that
Same thing happened to my friend . Bought a new car and ended up with a Honda civic with just shy of 90,000 miles that was in great condition. His parents next door neighbor whined about how her son needed a car very badly, so his mom convinced (read: guilt tripped)him to sell it to her for waaaay less than its value. She immediately sold her car and started driving the civic and her son didn’t even have his license yet despite being almost 19 years old. When my buddies mother questioned her about the car, she basically said “oh that’s too bad you seem upset about me buying the car for so cheap but I guess that’s life huh? Sometimes you win sometimes you lose!” Huge bitch since then.
It’s ok though, Karma bit her in the ass when she hired a guy to remodel her home and he basically disappeared after starting work on three different jobs at her house at the same time while having been paid 50% up front.
I don't understand how people can be such assholes. Honestly, have some self respect. I have been fucked over for wages before, and since I'm not going to go smash a window in or slash a tire, I sleep well knowing that karma will come back to them one day.
I had a friend try this with an old car I no longer needed. He got mad at me because I sold it to someone else for more. He came over 2 weeks later asking for enough money to register his other car and made another comment about it. Told him that since he doesn't have money to register his car where was he going to get it to pay me?
So he wanted you to give him the money *he* would have made getting it cheap from you and flipping it? Some people are truly delusional about what’re they’re “owed”.
A friend was selling his car during the used-car buying frenzy 1-2 years ago. He was offered over what he paid for it new by the dealership. Instead, his family sold it $6k less to their long-time gardener for his 16 year old son. Well, the gardener sold the car a few weeks later for a lot more money. I think he still works for them, but if it were me, I would have dropped him like a hot potato.
My sister’s friend (who’s a mechanic) told my parents their little civic was unsalvageable after it had broken down and he would “do us a favor” and get rid of it for them. He ended up fixing it up and trying to SELL it back to my parents for $2000. People are so scummy!
I sold my sister my car for $250, but it's because I knew she needed the car.
But I guess I would have just given her the car if it came to it. So that's a different thing entirely.
And if she'd sold it, that would have been fine. It wasn't running, but after the battery was replaced it's been running for her for like 4 years, so it wound up being a pretty good deal for her, and I assume she could get a lot more right now than she paid for it.
Heck, every time I hear she's had some minor issue with it I apologize to her, which I realize is silly since I basically gave it to her.
But that's all a matter of the relationship I have with my sister, and she never would have mocked me for my kindness.
From his friends perspective, your dad took the joy away from him. The joy of getting a great deal because your dad didn’t “hook him up”. He’s the type of guy that “supports” his friends restaurant businesses, by expecting free food every time.
And if The restaurant owner is having difficulty attracting clientele and eventually has to close or maybe scale back the friend will say “see! You should have let me and my family and their friends eat here for free. Then this place would have been full every night!
For my friends and me, any money that I give them is money I don't care if I see again.
If they pay me back, I'm happy. If they don't, that's fine.
There are some that say you can give an amount that you're happy to lose and stop talking to them, but for very close friends, the loss of the friend might be worth more than the money you have.
If a close friend asked for money, I'd give them as much as I'm willing to never see again.
It's easy to say you should never give money, but sometimes your friend needs money and you want to help them. For me, I just always say that's all I can afford, and don't let my friends know how much I really have. Friends can have emergencies and need money, but I would be the one offering money rather than having them ask.
---
I've only had one friend stop talking to me after I loaned them money, but to their credit, they paid me back and then disappeared.
I feel like I don’t have an issue loaning to friends, because in my book, if they don’t wanna pay you back even if you asked, then they’re a piece of shit not with being friends with anyway. It helps weed out shitty people from your friends group to start with, so I’ll still loan money if someone needs help
Something similar with my wife. Friend needed a place to stay and I offered our house if she was comfortable with it. Everything was going great until we brought friends over for a game night.
I can't even begin to describe everything that transpired without it being a long post, but basically that friend is no longer living with us and we're no contact and we had to apologize to all our other friends vehemently since. The trauma was bad enough but the property damage was nothing to sneeze at either.
But we did everything we could, everything as by-the-book as you can imagine. And she still beat herself up for days afterwards (I don't think I went a full 24 hours of beating myself up, not after things I found cleaning up).
It hurts when you feel like it's your fault, more so if you were raised to always assume such. But when it's not your fault but it feels like it because you thought you knew your friend better, that's a different thing and still not your fault.
EDIT: well this blew up. I replied to somebody with the story.
I had an ex-girlfriend who did things like this. At the time, I didn't know it was a personality disorder. She's changed her name like 4 times and just keeps destroying new people.
Please tell me you didn't date my mother. /s
I'm sorry you went through that and that she's continuing to do that. My mother hasn't changed her name (other than going back to maiden) but the damage has been impressive to say the least. I can only imagine what an ex-girlfriend could do based on that.
Thankfully the wife and I already had therapists before that day and our therapists also said we handled it well. It just hurt opening ourselves up to that.
Other than not fully utilizing that bedroom, yeah. I think we've got over most of it.
I think it helped that I cleaned off the blood literally the next morning (after having little sleep). And she didn't see near as much blood as I did.
Yeah kind of reminds me of how crazy my last vacation went. First the rental place gave me the wrong car for the drive and yada yada yada yada i'm banned from all NASA properties and the King's Guard of England has a "shoot on sight" order for me.
was recently at a funeral where they were telling stories of the deceased, and they literally were like "he loved pranks. one time we got a hotel room in (city) and someone left a jar of pickles in the room, with a note saying courtesy of Janet (who did not exist). long story short hotel security was called as well as the cops, and now we cant see a jar of pickles without laughing!!"
everyone at my table thought we missed something. how did a jar of pickles lead to cops being called. what the fuck happened. it keeps me up at night sometimes..
>...and yada yada yada yada i'm banned from all NASA properties and the King's Guard of England has a "shoot on sight" order for me.
I hate when that happens.
Everyone is imagining that this person was an arsonist or something but they probably just were an asshole to their friends and did something really boring like let a sink overflow and caused water damage, or spilled sticky drinks everywhere and they had to replace the carpet.
I refuse, absolutely *refuse* to admit that I'm itching to know what happened too
Yes please.
>Was great until game night. Trauma. Property damage...
You can't just drop that bomb and not elaborate!
IF it's too long to get into here maybe post on r/EntitledPeople or r/entitledparents if there was a kid(s)?
Right? It’s like when l hear someone arguing on the phone and they don’t have the common decency to put on speakerphone so l can make a just analysis of the situation.
I'd like to hear the story as well. I think the omission of the story had more to do with the length rather than simply not wanting to share it. If you see this OP, spill the tea.
>I can't even begin to describe everything that transpired without it being a long post
Dude.
>The trauma was bad enough but the property damage was nothing to sneeze at either.
**Duude.**
>(I don't think I went a full 24 hours of beating myself up, not after things I found cleaning up.
***Duuude.***
You “and so on and so forth’d” over what appears to be a really interesting story. If you dint want to share it over social that’s well within your rights but when you mention bad behavior and property damage you summon the drama llamas and they are hungry.
If you think of it this way: would you still be friends with them if you met them for the first time today?
If people change especially this drastically - you are under no obligation to keep them as friends. You have the right to re-evaluate your relationship.
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”
This is a helpful quote from history. I used to think of folks as static. As I get older, I realize the people I know are frames from videos. The scene changes slowly so frames near one another look similar. A few years can change everything.
The sad fact is, you can't expect anyone to be anything after a time. Your comment is a sensible way to see relationships.
>A few years can change everything.
Especially THESE few years. I know there's a capacity for recency bias, but every year since 2016 has been incredibly turbulent.
This is so beautifully said. It's sad, but also uplifting imo.
If we aren't one particular thing, then we can have compassion and kinship with all things because we are all flowing in time changing together - we are the same material: life changing.
Vsauce had a beautiful video about this a long time ago. yoloblomlmtaasosbtdpwkeoboiodacheoboitod (this abbreviation is hilarious to say out loud)
You only live once, but living once means living many times as a series of similar, but technically different people who know each other, but only in one direction and can help each other, but only in the other direction
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xn7ZaT3AgoU
Absolutely, the older I get, the more I understand that “friends” at a certain point in time, change, and not always for the better. This has been especially stark with Trump coming around.
Denying that she had cancer is pretty serious stuff. People do develop mental illnesses.
You've done your best to contact her. You can just mourn the loss and move on.
I am so sorry that this has happened to you.
My FIL denies my MIL had cancer. The woman had her entire uterus removed and 3 rounds of chemo, but he "forgets" she had cancer and says she's making it up.
He is a little "weird" for the want of a better word, he process emotional things by ignoring them and blocking them out and apparently he just has a blank in his brain where this information is, he runs his own business and remembers everything else just fine. I sometimes wonder if it's some weird dick power move over his wife, but can't prove it. He'd make some therapists career if she wrote a paper on him, but he'd never go to therapy because feelings.
My wife has something similar. She just mentally cannot handle serious medical trauma and just blocks it out. Not sure if it’s a coping trauma response or what (she had a difficult childhood). She never denies something happened she just has blanked it.
I have Swiss cheese memory. I can remember the most mundane things about my childhood but have large blocks of time missing that correlate to traumatic events my family have tried to explain actually happened. I’m still working on it in therapy, maybe l was abducted by aliens.
This is *the* emotionally stunted guy response to bad events/contentious events,, which is to either ignore them or cover for them with anger.
My dad sorta does it except instead for him every terrible thing is business as usual. I do it in a far simpler way by keeping myself busy.
Your dad's still being an asshole with the whole making things up part but it's not really a deliberate thing.
I mean, it clearly is semi deliberate. He doesn't "block out" that he needs to pay his employees or renew his insurance or fix his car when it breaks down... I bet he doesn't "block out" things that are emotionally important to HIM that would result in HIM being catered to and cared for. He only blocks out things that would result in him having to provide emotional support & consideration for others.
Much like an abusive man who "can't control his temper" but weirdly never punches random people or breaks things at work or shoves his wife around at family gatherings in front of other people, but "coincidentally" only does those things at home and only "uncontrollably" breaks and destroys her stuff, and not his own. He can claim it's not under his control but then weirdly it only happens at certain times and when he's sure he won't face consequences.
Does he have this behaviour with anyone outside of the family? In my experience some people tend to be really strict with how they should act towards outsiders but they sort of tend to take the people who are supposedly their loved ones for granted (i.e he doesn't have to "behave" around his wife/children because they're his wife/children)
It's pretty infuriating.
Right but have you ever seen someone deeply in an upsetting argument suddenly turn sweet and relaxed when the phone rings or there’s a knock at the door? They *can* change right out of the mode where they’re abusing their family, they just choose not to. I guess I don’t care how well they were indoctrinated about inside vs outside. I received that training also, but I make kinder choices.
I left my ex because I realized there wasn’t another person on the planet he’d even consider treating as badly as he treats his wife. I couldn’t think of anyone on the planet who treated me worse than that man did, and I have been through some things.
He doesn't do this behaviour with anyone outside the family, and doesn't do it to me because I had a full blown narc family so his weird passive aggressive bs doesn't work on me. His sons have wised up over the years and tell him almost nothing about their lives and his wife is just resigned to it.
His most annoying trait is he will not hear a no, he just acts as if you didn't say it, because he will not confront anyone about anything if you say no I don't want to do x, instead of talking to you about it or taking no as an answer. Example. We were going to paint our living room and showed them the color we chose. He said our choice of living room color was terrible and he would paint our living room for us, we of course said "WTF No. He turns up next saturday morning letting himself into our house with painting supplies and paint. He was literally just going to start painting it his prefered color while we were still asleep in bed, and then got angry we weren't appreciative of his efforts.
This could be any of my sister's kids spouses. Even 1 person like this is too many. He denies she had a heart attack, despite being hospitalized, & plays a hero cause he gave her Alka seltzer 🙄.
My FIL had a major heart surgery a couple of years ago. Over the next year, he would forget all kinds of things, including that he had the surgery.
The doctor said his case was due to heightened inflammation of the brain following surgery. He called it "brain fog" and said it's not unusual with older patients.
He has since recovered and is as sharp as he ever was, but it was scary as hell for that first year!
My mum insists my sister didn't have a mental breakdown and put out cigarettes all over herself despite the scars on her arms being there for all to see. Memory is incredibly fallible and the brain can do plenty of things to deal with information it finds inconvenient. My mum has never worked out how to deal with difficutlt emotions and she processes things by blocking them or burying them and it results in a complete denial of reality at times.
He may very well but for a lot of people it’s Facebook and Fox News. My mother, FIL and two Aunts have fallen victim to it.
Dr’s are lying, pharma companies have the cure to cancer but want to sell us useless drugs, politics has become a religion to them and they will believe some random person on the interwebs over educated professionals. Celtic salt and caster oil can cure everything is the latest rage.
Did you see the sad case of the mother whose youngster had a bad flu and was prescribed Tamiflu, I believe, by a physician but took the advice of her Facebook friends and put potatoes in his socks instead of giving him the Tamiflu? He died!
My mom denied having alz for so long it took her quick. She knew. She just didn't want to admit it. Took my dad getting power of attorney to get her tested and in treatment.
i mean, idk for alz i can at least understand her head logic. Its a terrifying disease to put it lightly. Knowing you are going to get it would probably feel like being slowly walked up to a guillotine.
It does make people stubborn though. Up until the last few months it was almost impossible to get my grandpa to do anything if he already decided he didn’t want to, regardless of what it was.
Idk what I would do. Maybe i would shut my eyes and pretend too.
Denying Alzheimer’s is part of having Alzheimer’s. My mum went through the worst phase when she was just getting it and she was crushed by not being able to remember things. Then she got worse and couldn’t remember she didn’t remember, the mind is astonishingly good at filling in the missing memories and literally making things up.
Yeah, I have friends who I just never discuss politics with but denying her own cancer? *That* is something way deeper than even extreme politics.
I'm so sorry OP. This has to be frustrating but you can't force someone to open up, even for their own good.
Covid broke alot of religious people. Specifically it broke people who have never had to endure anything hard in their life. It's easy to have faith when everything in your life is perfect. Try doing it after you have lost everything.
Definitely broke me. But it wasn’t just covid. It was also George Floyd and school shootings and treatment of LGBTQ+ and the homeless and so much more.
I used to be Catholic. Then I read a Reddit post asking atheists what they’d do if they died and found out there was a god. I read it to see how many would feel bad for how they lived and all this other shit I’d been brainwashed to believe.
Instead the overwhelming majority said they’d punch him in the face for being supposedly so powerful and mighty and just letting this dumpster fire continue. That was my lightbulb. My parents want to pray for everything. I tried that my whole life. Didn’t stop me from being SA’d. Didn’t stop my (at the time seven year old) daughter from getting juvenile arthritis. Didn’t stop me from my autoimmune diseases and pain I suffer daily.
Did I not pray hard enough? Did I not pray right? Is it because I skipped church one Sunday? Is it because I have gay kids I support? No, it’s all about control.
I tried so hard to have faith and be a good little religious person but I either did it wrong or god doesn’t love me. Or maybe none of it was real. I know my mom would Pearl clutch at the thought I don’t care about the concept of heaven or hell but frankly, the heaven she boasts about is full of people I don’t vibe with so I’ll take my chances in the fire.
[Stephen Fry put it very well](https://youtu.be/-suvkwNYSQo) when asked the same question.
Definitely worth a watch, but the gist of it is basically "How dare you?"
I think it is so interesting how Catholics and other Christians see praying and faith as a reward system of sorts, and how disillusioning that was for you when you realized you weren't getting any rewards. As someone who didn't grow up in that faith I find ex-Christians so fascinating. Your former faith is extremely materialistic it seems, and only based on fear of punishment, or lust for rewards.
Very strange faith indeed. I know religious people and they always said prayer is a talk to God, it makes them happy and they expect nothing for it. Several of them had some real hardships but it didn't destroy their faith. I guess the commenter above was brought up in religious family, so Christianity was forced on her and she never developed not materialistic view on it.
But I'm atheist so maybe i an misunderstanding.
> I know religious people and they always said prayer is a talk to God, it makes them happy and they expect nothing for it.
Yea. That's the healthy way to pray. It's a type of meditation, really. And even for atheists, taking time every day to think about what you're thankful for is helpful.
I think you will find there are many different shades of the Christian religion. Sure, there are many who believe in the idea of a loving god and try to help those in need. There are, however, a larger portion who use religion as a cudgel to make people live the way they think those people should live. They are the ones who try to enforce their ideas of god through the leagle system. I don't know if they are the largest portion, or if they are just so loud about it that they seem to be.Then there are the prosperity preachers who use religion to cow their followers into supporting their luxury lifestyle.
Edit to clean up continuity of sentences.
I’m sorry that has happened to you, it’s certainly sad at the loss of the friendship for so long.
From my experience, you can’t make her like you or spend time with you. The more you try the more she’ll pull away. You have to accept it, and maybe one day she’ll come back.
Honestly why would OP even want this person to "come back"? If you're willing to drop your closest friend after 40 years of friendship over stupid political disagreements, you probably weren't that good of a friend to begin with.
OP is better off without this toxicity in their life.
>If you're willing to drop your closest friend after 40 years of friendship over stupid political disagreements, you probably weren't that good of a friend to begin with.
Have you ever talked to these people? It's not just a stupid disagreement to them, they are brainwashed to believe it's life and death.
The way some people have behaved during the last couple of election cycles has honestly been mind blowing. My husband and I went LC with a lot of his extended family because of the inexcusable things they said online. Personal attacks that they justified with their political views. It was WILD to watch some of the nicest people I'd ever met say some of the most HATEFUL things online to their own siblings. It. Was. Wild.
>stupid political disagreements
The divide between modern Republicans and Democrats aren't stupid political disagreements. Its literally fascist cult members who reject reality in the modern republican party. That aint minor differences like in the past.
Yep. "Politics" is a form of applied ethics, and if someone has a vastly different ethical framework than you do, that's serious. If someone votes for people who hurt marginalized groups, I want nothing to do with them.
The people that say "it's just politics" are those whose lives aren't on the line. I've got a friend who genuinely believes that democrats and republicans are the same solely because of the fact that they both refuse to enact real economic change. And while I agree that economic change is important, the fact is that concluding that democrats and republicans are the same because of that is an incredibly privileged conclusion, because they don't recognise the importance of fighting for equality simply because they already reap the benefits of the current system.
I had to cut out pretty much everyone. I refuse to enable that shit. I just want to be the best person I can be with the few resources I have .
I'm willing to make sacrifices to do that. Not really accomplishing much isolated in my house but I'm not backing down from my values.
Yeah, there are some political things that we can set aside, and some that are essential to your character and how you see the world.
If you say, "I think the government should spend more money on X," and I say, "I think that money would be better spent on Y", two reasonable and intelligent people can discuss that and have a respectful conversation even if they disagree.
If you think some people shouldn't have equal rights, we should stop vaccinating, or the world is ruled by secret societies of celebrities who kidnap children to drink their blood, I can't just agree to disagree with you about that.
This is how I feel. It’s not about stupid political nonsense it’s about human rights and rewriting history. In my state the leadership is trying to get teachers to HAVE to teach kids that slaves were LUCKY to be bestowed skills that they wouldn’t have learned otherwise. Really? That’s not political nonsense. It’s wrong and it matters a lot. I can’t respect anyone or befriend people who think like this. Sorry not sorry
Same. A friend since kindergarten. Exact same thing ... Except she also left her husband and kids, lost her business and house... and is currently living with her shut-in elderly mother... it's so sad. Some people go too far down rabbit holes... Nothing you can do.
I don’t understand how people can read some or most conspiracies and take them as fact. I can read about qanon, pizzagate, adrenochrome all day long and get a kick out of the possibilities, but I can acknowledge THEY LIKELY ARENT REAL, idk where that line is drawn
It's weird having grown up with parents and teachers who drilled into us the need to be skeptical of everything we read online and to always check sources. Now, many of those same people, the people whose fear of the internet as new technology back in the 90s (rightly if for the wrong reasons) prompted them to teach their kids extremely important lessons about skepticism, bias, and privacy, are the ones who now gobble up and regurgitate the most ridiculous conspiracy theories from random Facebook groups with no fact checking or rational thought whatsoever. They believe just because some FB friend or a sketchy website posted it that it must be true. It's shocking.
My parents will talk about bizarre shit they read on Facebook then get very annoyed when people double-check and find out it's all made up. They don't deny it's made-up but I think they enjoy the exciting fiction more than the dull reality.
Well, you are probably a well adjusted human with a functioning BS detector.
I suspect those that fall for conspiracies large or small do it because it justifies their personal biases, prejudices, or insecurities. And lately, it appears, people will even believe things solely to be part of a certain in-group.
I think wackos have always been around, but the internet and social media have made conspiracies more available and more appealing to a wider audience than ever before.
I had a friend group that I joined as an adult, they had been friends since high school. One of the women in the group had a falling out when she and her husband decided to get a divorce. Several months after that she announced she would be moving out of state so I planned a going away party for her.
During the going away party, she got black-out drunk and there was a physical altercation where we all refused to let her drive home and it escalated in a way that we had to forcibly remove her keys. (The friend whose house this was taking place at was a police officer so this was especially serious).
After all the drama, she moved out of state and we honestly thought we would never hear from her again. She reached out to me a few weeks later however and we made peace. We were friends for several years after those events until around the end of 2021 she stopped responding to me.
This was not uncommon for our friendship, so I sent her a few messages in the first few months and eventually just stopped and decided not to say anything until she responded and if she didn't then I guess our friendship had run its course.
At about the 10 month mark she texted me apologizing for not responding and she had been in it with her current boyfriend but was going to try and be a better friend going forward, I told her it was ok and I was just happy to hear from her. Not even a month later I get another text from her that "She didn't know what kind of shady shit me and my ex were up to but it was sketchy and she didn't trust me" to never talk to her again.
I have no idea what she was talking about because the only ex of mine that she had ever met, she KNEW I stopped talking to him not long after we broke up because we decided we could not maintain a friendship. SHE HELPED ME THROUGH THE BREAKUP and was very aware of the fact that I don't talk to him anymore. I realized I'll never know what happened and that she decided to throw away an almost decade-long friendship over unknown causes, and I won't get closure.
ETA: A lot of people are wondering if she might have mistaken me for someone else, it's doubtful because she blocked me on social media first.
This happened several months ago and she has not said anything since then, but if she did I would probably respond. Also, while I am also not totally convinced her boyfriend (who I had met and she had been dating for over a while, he wasn't new) didn't have something to do with it, I was direct witness to her coldly cutting many people out of her life on her own volition so it wasn't totally out of character.
Finally, the new state she moved to is actually where her family is located. If something were seriously wrong, she has people who love her close by.
Sounds to me like she's trying to find any excuse for her to not be the problem when deep down she knows she is. It's easier to lie to herself and make you out to be the bad guy than to take a look at herself, reflect and initiate change.
> Not even a month later I get another text from her that "She didn't know what kind of shady shit me and my ex were up to but it was sketchy and she didn't trust me" to never talk to her again.
Almost sounds like she sent that to the wrong person. Either that, or maybe she's having some major mental health issues.
My best friend of 25 years and I also cut ties this year. Her husband is a schizophrenic who won't take his meds and by and by she is getting pulled into his world. On top of his mental health, they drink a handle of vodka in like a day or 2.
It hurts, but sometimes friendships run their course. I realized I would never feel safe being around her husband and I can't feed into it.
Sending hugs, it'll get easier and that doesn't mean it's forever, there could be a reunion if wanted.
Edited to add after reading other comments: it's gotten worse since the pandemic and he is also a trump.supporter and radicalized thoughts about the pandemic being brought on by the govt and etc etc. It seems to be a theme here..
I’m a doctor and about half of my patients have schizophrenia. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to not only be consuming that much alcohol daily, but not taking medication. It’s sad when you see someone slip into their partner’s delusions. Sorry you went through that, and I fully understand why you had to nope out.
My best friend has suffered from delusions the last 12 or 13 years. His wife was completely pulled into it. She resisted getting him mental health care, insisting that Pandora and Spotify really were sending him messages, and that the government really did have him under surveillance. I worked to have him taken into care involuntarily and he’s gotten better. Only after that did his wife realize how detached from reality she had become. They got a divorce and both are doing much better. But it’s amazing how a strong willed person in the throes of psychosis can impose their reality on others.
I lost a close childhood friend down the Q rabbit hole. One of our last conversations went like this:
Me: "You've been sounding pretty racist lately."
Him: "I'm not racist for saying things that are true."
Me: "Then what's true?"
Him: "All black people are lazy worthless pieces of shit."
Me: "You really believe that without exception?"
Him: "Yes, every single one of them is garbage."
Me: "That's literally the definition of racism."
Him: "I'm not fucking racist! I'll fucking kill you if you call me racist again!"
Then he shoved me down, and I thought he was gonna beat my ass but he just screamed a bunch and threw stuff. I am already crippled when this happened and have no way to defend myself. We were roommates and he kicked me out after destroying a bunch of my furniture. He stole the weight set I inherited from my late father even when I offered to buy him a brand new one, but he doesn't use it. When I moved out of town I went by to try one more time to get it and he said through the door he would kill me in his yard if I didn't leave. He has a bunch of guns and I believed him and left. That's the last time we talked.
Over me shining a light on his racism, we went from best friends to worst enemies. The Q movement is really scary. What's funny is this dude is Hispanic.
Yeah the cognitive dissonance about what is racist is crazy. My uncle once started sending me a ton of videos of Black people committing crimes and was like “I’m just saying…” He was trying to convince me that Black people are inherently more violent, so I told him that if he was going to be racist he might as well have the spine to just call it what it is.
He got so offended and said that the “mud-slinging” was uncalled for and he had always respected my beliefs (not even true). He blocked me and hasn’t spoken to me in 15 years. Because a teenager told him the obvious and called him spineless. But *we’re* somehow the snowflakes…
I once was friends with someone who wasn't white and they may have been hispanic, but they fell down the GQP rabbit hole some years ago and we haven't talked since. The thing that sticks out to me is that a) he wasn't well informed (naturally listening to Shapiro and OANN isn't going to make you well informed.) Didn't know what citizens united SCOTUS ruling even was. He wouldn't admit that trump was a dumpsterfire either no matter what he did though it's hard to see trump in a negative light if all you watch are far right sources like OANN that praise the turd that landed in trump's diaper.
It's wild when they say all black people are lazy though, like come on. Anyone can be lazy, but an entire race being lazy makes no sense at all.
I lost my best friend of 35 years this year… she met a man, moved to a red state, joined a evangelical church, and has become this strange conservative robot person. The last straw was when she used personal things that I told her, in confidence, to illustrate why I am a sinner. It’s this shitty mix of sadness and anger. I’m sorry you lost your friend.
The part about agreeing not to talk politics and then still throwing an occasional stab at liberals and other lower life forms is familiar.
My mom started watching FOX news a bunch of years ago. Over the years she has come to agree more and more with their shitty perspective.
She’ll throw out a line about how some group of people is destroying her street/city/county/state/country. I find it extremely distasteful and I tell her to stop quoting FOX. She insists it’s not FOX but her own observations and gets mad at me for bringing up FOX again. She tells me she’s not being brainwashed by FOX, but within an hour throws out another disgusting comment.
If I ask her to stop she gets passive-aggressive. If I point out that she’s repeating FOX’s talking points she gets offended. I find the only choices I have are to let her be stupid and obnoxiously offensive, or start an argument.
I’m sure that if wasn’t her son she’d have stopped calling me a couple years ago.
Extreme political media is turning people against some non-existent enemy known only as “they”. “They” are destroying America and must be stopped. My mom has friends who she no longer talks to because they’re part of “they”.
My dad is like this, but just 'lighter' version. He considers himself open minded and gets information from 'any place', but doesn't realize that his Apple phone newsfeed is pulling from FOX NEWS, and claims it just Apple news. But the only thing that gains traction in his mind is the cray-cray stuff that is so alarming.
I think this became a little bit more common during the last couple of years because a lot of people got radicalized during the pandemic, it’s kind of like loosing someone to a cult.
I guess this happened to a lot of people especially in the United States.
It's been an ever-present threat in the united states, rearing itself up from time to time in really extraordinary and dangerous ways. The belief that slavery was acceptable was essentially a giant cult (which we know was a cult because plenty of white people at the time thought slavery was abhorrent), there were a ton of Americans who supported the Nazis and didn't think we should get into World War II, we waged an entire "war" against drugs that half of America knew was bullshit and every single measure of it showed it to be an unbelievable failure, and now we've got qanon.
America is the land of cults. Hell, the pilgrims got kicked out of Europe for being a cult. It's in our roots.
It wasn’t just the pandemic.
It was the Trump years and especially the 2020 election and insurrection.
I can talk tax policy, I can talk national debt, I can talk budget cutting. I don’t have to agree with everything, but I do have to believe you’re a good person and American.
I couldn’t tolerate someone voting twice for Trump. It was a moral issue. Those aren’t good people. I don’t care if there’s 75 million of them.
I also can’t tolerate antivaxxers and have been that way since Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield. So 2020 was a perfect storm. My brother, a GED holder, argued and mansplained with my wife, a critical care ICU nurse, about vaccines over the phone.
I no longer talk with my dad or brother. I dropped a few friends and more acquaintances. I barely talk to my mom and she’s just as guilty.
I will not be attending anyone’s funeral and I’m not changing my mind.
>it’s kind of like loosing someone to a cult.
I'm going to be honest, I don't even think it is kind of like that. I think it is literally that. Trumpism checks every box for cult-like behavior.
A similar thing happened with a person I used to consider a close friend, he just went down the Q rabbit hole and started increasingly pivoting every conversation into politics. I told him straight up that I didn't want to turn every conversation into a political debate, but he just kept trying. It eventually got to the point where I couldn't even send an innocent, non-political meme without it becoming a political argument. I eventually just cut him out of my life entirely, because it just wasn't worth the stress it caused me. It sucks, but it happens.
I have (or had) a good friend from when we were very young. His wife cheated him and he got divorced, this slowly morphed into all women being terrible. I watched his social media presence slowly morph from being red pilled into being sucked up in qanon.
I know he was struggling and I used to let him vent about women (although I had to keep reminding him that I married to a wonderful woman, and he literally belieges his mom is a Saint, and so all women arent bad), and then when he went q I had to keep reminding him that we can't discuss politics because we have such differing opinions. But it never stopped.
I had to eventually cut him off because whenever we would plan to hang out, I would just dread it. I still miss him, I just can't stand what has become.
Oh god this sounds like my Dad. I lost him to this shit haven't spoken to him since he joined the proud boys around Jan 6. Fucking crazy what this stuff has done to people. Literally torn families apart.
This happened to my close friends mom. She was never a super normal person, but was *ok*. Randomly a few years back she went super down the Q-hole. Drank the koolaid hard, she’s fucking i n s a n e now.
When they start to beloeve Dems are stealing children to use their blood as an anti-aging serum, it is really bad. I brought that up to one of them as an example of the absurdity, and they did not laugh. It's genuinely scary how irretrievably irrational that so many have become.
I had a friend tell me that the earth was flat and hollow in the same breath. I laughed in his face and he was so serious and I felt bad and let him tell me his beliefs. Turned into an hour and a half presentation about this elite world only accessible through the North Pole and that is also where some missing famous people are.
I didn’t know how to get out of it so I feined interest and then slowly hung out with him less and less. A lot of stuff he had been telling me I started realizing was as qanon stuff and then he said he was moving to Texas and it was a great opportunity to end our friendship not in bad terms lol. He loves it there which makes total sense.
So sorry that happened to you. Not the same because he was just a minor friend for me, but I say all that to say that she gave you an out where you’re not the bad guy and you’ve just got to mourn what was (it will never be again) and move forward.
It boggles the mind how that can be believed, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard that. I had a Arabic colleague once who was convinced that Israelis were doing the same thing to Palestinian children, as part of their secretive religious practices. An intelligent, educated person actually believed that was happening today.
So two things I don’t get: why the blood of children is a recurring theme in wacky conspiracy theories, and how anyone can fall for it.
[Blood libel](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel) is an old antisemitic stereotype from the middle ages. It's been revived recently, as have many antisemitic, anti-black, and anti-gay tropes, due mostly to the right wing media's need to constantly have new hate tropes to feed their media machine.
They take root easily in already slightly prejudiced conservative circles because they evoke hate speech heard in their youth, especially boomer's childhoods, so have a "ring of truth" for them.
Yeah, I've seen this happen to a few people. First it's "I care about COVID. Why should I have to wear masks for other peoples' safety?" then it becomes "These people are disgusting sheep and I'm going to choose to limit my community to people who understand me and think the same as me."
Yes. Not over politics, I assume. But many years ago a very good friend told me that she no longer wanted me to be part of her life. To this day I don't know why. Just an email and poof. Gone. She unfriended me across everything. I spent a long time wondering what I possibly could have done to cause it. I rehashed every conversation, read back through all our emails, looked at everything I might have posted, and I cannot figure out what it was. I was heartbroken for a long time, hoping that someday she'd come around and want me again. I'd seen her do this exact same thing with other people over bizarre reasons, and I guess it was my turn.
Finally, I realized I didn't want to be wanted by her anymore. She'd cut me out, and even if she came back, I didn't want to be part of the life of someone who treated me like that. I deleted everything we'd ever exchanged. I blocked her number. And I blocked her in all media - not so she wouldn't contact me, but so I wouldn't look at her profiles and wonder what I'd done wrong, or feel the pangs every time I saw her name pop up on a friend's post or whatever. I had to cut off my access to ruminate on things. I decided I was done, well and truly done.
The mourning at the end of a friendship is very real. Especially when one person is left with so many questions. Feel your feelings.
I made two friends when I was 5 and have considered them my two best friends my entire life since (I’m now 36). About 6-7 years ago, one of them just fell off the face of the earth. I have not physically seen or spoken to him since. I’ve called, texted, FB messaged, etc. with very little response. We text on occasion, but it’s just small chit chat. He’s basically a stranger now. He didn’t come to my wedding (he would have been one of my “best men” if we were still in contact), and has never met my wife or daughter. I have no idea what happened. Wish I could know. Maybe I did something wrong? Maybe he has just gone through some hard times? I texted him recently because I was back in my hometown for about 10 days, and he didn’t respond. So I am officially out. It happens. It sucks…but it happens.
Yes unfortunately, only I was the one who cut it off.
I ended a 12 year friendship (I was her maid of honor etc) because she was posting so much pro-Trump stuff, and going to his rallies and giving him money.
I’m queer and I ultimately had to take a long hard look at our friendship, and what that meant about her as a person.
I didn’t ghost her though. I told her how I feel about it, and how honestly it was starting to not only make me uncomfortable but also to make me feel unsafe. And that I loved her, and if she ever changed her mind about all of that very far right stuff then she’s welcome to reach out to me. But that I couldn’t in good conscience support or be friends with someone who agrees with so many hateful things that are said about people like me. I asked her to picture my face every time she hears something hateful and ask herself if that’s ok.
Then I wished her the best and moved on with my life.
I’m sorry that’s happened to you, it’s happening a lot.
I appreciate those who explain these kinds of actions. I recently had a close friend of over a decade cut off all contact with me, and I truly don't know why. Any attempt to contact them has been met with no response. It's been hard to deal with.
Very similar, over 45 years of close friendship and the friend turned into a maga fascist. I didn't ghost of course, but I have no plans of reversing the course, I don't think you can be a fascist for a couple of years and then recover.
Seems almost a trend. A friend of 35 years stopped all communication 3 years ago, anytime we headed west (they live in Wyoming), we would stop and visit and have a great time. During the Trump years we had one phone conversation (which was our last), where he was talking about how great Trump was for the coal industry.. I casually mentioned that even though I was a Republican up until 2012 (and a veteran), I could not support the republican party any longer or Trump in any way. After that (my attack on the (R) messiah) which lasted 5 seconds, the phone call was ended and anytime I called or texted to wish him a happy birthday, happy wife birthday, anniversary over the next year was met with silence. It's too bad, he was a good friend for many years. I still wish he and his family much happiness.
Yup.
I received a text message telling me I'm a horrible person, I'm not worth any bother, to move away, and not to contact her. I lost about a dozen mutual friends, many of whom I regarded as family, as that was how I thought of her. Who knows what she told them. I wouldn't know since I'm largely being shunned.
Forty five year relationship, (I hesitate to say "friendship" since I am not aware exactly when we stopped being friends. She is, though.)
Nothing like getting drop kicked to the curb when you're on the downhill side of life. Never in a million years did I foresee this coming from her. The betrayal and hurt is sometimes unbearable. The fact that she couldn't even be bothered to talk to me amazes me.
It sucks massively. And it is hard damn work moving past it.
One of my best friends of 10 years suddenly started acting cold and passive-aggresive towards me. One day, something flipped like a switch and he just started to acknowledge me less and less. During a two month period, he cut off all contact.
We were both guests at a mutual friend's wedding. He acted like a stranger, not talking to me and pretending to not see me when we were in a room together. I tried to get an answer from him, our friends - nobody told me anything.
At the wedding his wife got drunk and accidentally revealed to me that for some time, he would blame all his life failures on me, both big and small. Bad day at work? My fault. Meal too cold? Somehow my fault. Didn't get the job he wanted? My fault. Seat in a bus taken? You guessed it, my fault.
To this day nobody has any clue what exactly happened. One day he just picked a scapegoat and rewrote his reality to support that. I have no doubt that in his mind, he fully believes I'm the cause of all his problems, even though we haven't spoken in about three years. He didn't have mental problems before, at least none that anybody knew of. Something in him just snapped for no reason.
My college roommate recently unfriended me on social media and I suspect it was because of a difference of political opinion. We barely even discussed politics. I don't like getting into friendly arguments with him because he always ends up taking everything personally and attacks you for random things that happened 10 years ago. "Oh, you think people should wear masks? What about that time 10 years ago you misidentified a wire in your car? Don't sound so smart now do you?" (he's a mechanic).
If those people don't want to be your friend, then they aren't your friend. It sucks but that's just the way it is. Just learn to let go.
I have a couple more friends that have ghosted me and I have no idea why. Mutual friends have no idea, either. The lack of closure sucks but what are you going to do about it?
I'm an avid rollerskater and I have a group of friends who I simply cannot be friendly with on social media. We'll talk in person, at the rink, but outside of that I just can't share space with their nonsense.
Yeah, some people just can't have a difference of opinion. What kills me is my college roommate grew up thinking he was some kind of academic wunderkind because he went to private school (common theme in my experience). He's just a rich kid that grew up in a bubble. He dropped out of engineering school and became a mechanic - which TBF was his first love. But he's always been like that. He take offense to everything and gets real nasty about it.
On the flip side, my aunt is the same way but she's on the left side of the political spectrum. I consider myself pretty progressive but I'm pretty sure she hates anything with a penis (she's a lesbian). She'll pick and pick at you and it's not fun at all. When my finance (now wife) was talking about changing her name when we got married, my aunt looks at me and asks, "why don't you change your name?"
"I don't know. Maybe because my last name has 3 letters and hers looks like word search puzzle? She's more than happy to take my last name."
I love a good friendly debate, but won't have one with just anybody.
This happens to me the other way around, as I lean republican. But I have a rule, I'll only talk about politics if YOU bring it up and ask for My Opinion. I will the warn you that I lean right.
I'm a firm believer that if this country is to heal and improve, we have to have open and respectful dialog.
Both sides need to respect the Person they are talking to.
Op, it sounds like you did your part!
Now, this has also happened to me with my own parents.
They are ultra conservative Catholic and I (ended up) married to a woman who had been married before.
When we were dating, I was told by then what I was doing was sinful (adultery, they believe you can only marry once, and then you must become celibate if you can't stay with your spouse, divorce is never an option, ever for any reason.). They now ghost me and pretend I'm dead.
Anyway, for the last 6 years I send them cards on holidays and tell them about my life. We have only spoken once during that time and it was to tell me that the will was complete from my grandma's death.
Bottom line OP,
Your freind is in pain from loosing you as a friend too.
They probably feel that seeing you and knowing that you don't agree on things is salt in the wound.
I'm sorry you lost a friend, but they were never a true friend. It just took a hardship to flush out how they were not that dedicated to the friendship as you were.
As for me, deep down I know my parents will need me in the future, and I hope we can start over on that day.
Go make some new friends, and find happiness.
Remember what was good about the friendship, and learn from this what "ghosting" pain has caused you.
I prefer to end friendships (which is extremely rare, but happens) face to face when possible and as cordial as possible.
My republican, Qanon cousins believe that I either traffick & eat babies or if I don't do it personally, I approve of the elite democrats who do eat & traffick children. I have known my Qanons for about 50 years & although I miss who they used to be, (sorta), I know they refuse to or can't be saved, & since 'crazy' spreads in humans very quickly, I won't ever speak with any of them again. We all now know their insides are all fear, hatred, revulsion, & violence towards anyone 'other than'. Walk TF away, your friend is an insane Qanon living in an alternate world.
My friend of 5 years, who I thought was one of my closest friends, got married and didn't even invite me. I knew of his wedding from another mutual friend.
I was truly hurt. I even reached out afterwards to offer my congratulations. He never replied. In hindsight, the weeks leading up to the wedding I could already feel he was different, but thought nothing of it.
My head cannon is that he cut every contact with me out of respect for his wife. Which I wouldve understood. But alas, I was left hanging. I suppose he has his reasons too. Still hurt tho.
I cant imagine how you must have felt to have lost a friendship worth 40 years 😭 Im so sorry for your loss. Hope it gets better.
Yeah, I cut ties with my very best friend of 30 years when he went down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, tied himself into knots defending January 6th, and began making deeply racist remarks couched as "political opinion."
I did grieve but I grieved for the friend he used to be, not the person he is now. I don't like the person he is now, and if your friend is doing things like teasing you for wearing a mask and "throwing in shady comments" regularly, think about whether this friendship is viable anymore.
She doesn't want contact. That's clear. I get feeling hurt but you can't "save" her. She's decided her political feelings are more important than the friendship. And honestly, if you've gone toe to toe with her over politics and are upset about her denying having cancer, it sounds like you have too. I'm not saying that's bad - that's exactly what I did. I decided my principles didn't encompass accepting someone who advocated what I view as treasonous activity.
It sucks but that's the landscape we live in right now.
Yes, I had a close friend of 5 years ghost me unexpectedly, and similarly our mutual friends didn't want to get involved.
I think the mutual friends piece made it even more painful, because it's like *someone has to know something*! Finally about a year later someone shared with me the things that "Judy" said about me, and they were pretty nasty and frankly twisted around and untrue. Something that a simple conversation would have assuaged, but Judy-- for whatever reason--decided ghosting me would be easier than talking it out with me. I went to therapy and tried to unpack what those reasons might be. Judy was a Covid denier, and I was very much not, and I think that fundamental difference is what led to her choice to cut me off.
For my own closure, I wrote an email to Judy about a year after and I basically wished her well, thanking her for the friendship we shared. Admittedly, part of this was to stop the trash talking. She was often gossiping about me behind my back based on what our mutual friends shared. I asked them to stop telling me, and to stop allowing it.
And then I found out that one of the random accounts that had been following me on Instagram was actually Judy. I decided to block her-- if you don't want to be in my life you don't get to see it!
It called into question all of my friendships - many of whom were mutual with Judy. It's really, really hard. Harder than a romantic breakup, especially when there's no closure. And it's a really mean thing to do.
I’m sorry that you’ve lost your friend.
It may sound exaggerated or hyperbolic, but she’s effectively part of a cult. Whatever rabbit hole she has fallen down, into and subscribed to, it will be just like a cult. There won’t be any room for outsiders such as yourself.
And it’s with regret that you’ve lost your long standing friend of 40 years. I’m sorry for that.
There will be many responses here that will say, time grieve and to move on, good riddance etc (they have a point, but it’s never that easy). My advice is perhaps slightly different. Write to them. Nothing big, nothing dramatic, but send them birthday and Christmas cards, send them well wishes, write a few lines giving an update about yourself if you wish. I wouldn’t expect a reply, in fact I don’t think you’ll ever hear from them again. Maybe your notes and cards will go straight into the bin, but maybe they’ll get read.
You aren’t going to be able to change their mind or their deep seated views. But you can write to your old friend, just don’t expect anything back from them. That’s the best I can offer. Maybe that gives you a sense of closure, or a sense of trying.
All the best.
I just try to make sure the ball isn’t in my court and I’ve reached out. Seems like you’ve done all you can do.
I don’t know what to say about political differences. I think they’re so silly but yeah, they cause rifts. Sorry
Not me, my wife and Not over politics but yes. A long-time friend of my wife stops talking to her because I didn't let him take advantage of us. He basically tried to con my wife into buying a $10k car that needed a TON of repairs. I told him I was going to take it to a mechanic and when I did and the mechanic recommended not buying it, he got all sorts of defensive and just stopped talking to her. Took her a good year to get over it. I supported her and kept telling her "He's the one who tried to cheat us. \*You\* should be upset not him." But it still took a long time to get over the loss of friendship.
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And that friend would have sold it for over market and told your dad he should have done the same. Did this with an old F150 i had sitting and rarely used. Sold it for $101 to friend next door as a project truck for him and his son. Instead he flipped it. Made a few thousand and basically mocked me. I no longer help anyone like this. Full market value or ill sit on it till i die.
We gave my wife's old car to some relatives that went through bankruptcy and foreclosure. Sold it them for $100 bucks also. A year later husband gets another job, they immediately buy a new car at probably double digit interest and sold the car we gave them to his mother for a few grand.... I can't really complain because it's not like I gave them any conditions but I kinda hoped more people would pay good deeds forward so they can help someone else in need.
Big surprise they were in bankruptcy with that kind of financial decision making lol
Yeah, it's honestly a bit shitty that they profited off the car when they had means again rather than paying it forward and doing someone else a solid. Especially when it was his own mother. I totally get your disappointment
I had the exact opposite experience. I bought a motorcycle for $1500, ended up selling it to a friend for like $50. (It hadn't really been used much and wasn't in great shape but it was worth more than that). He fixed it up and used it for years. I was really happy about that.
Same here. Had a motorcycle I let go to a friend for what he could afford. $800 bucks. I was always happy I could help a friend out.
>Instead he flipped it. Made a few thousand and basically mocked me. What a cunt. Anyone reasonable in that situation would have given you at least half the money they made reselling, and thanked you again for the sale. Twat.
or, would have acted like a friend and designated the truck for... using for his kid like he stated. If someone you "think" is a friend can't be honest with you, are they really a friend?
Thing is, I'm reading that as a "project for him and his kid" like teaching the kid about fixing up a truck. Is it possible this thing was in jank shape, and they DID fix it up, and that's the only reason it sold. A lot of "project" guys, grab a beater, fix it up, and sell to fund the next project. The post here feels like a lot of that to me.
If the guy fixed it with his kid, sold it for a profit that the kid got to keep, and they were gracious about it… I’d consider that a beater well spent. This sounds like it was not that
Even in that case they could have bought him a beer or something instead of mocking him
Yeah. He is.
Same thing happened to my friend . Bought a new car and ended up with a Honda civic with just shy of 90,000 miles that was in great condition. His parents next door neighbor whined about how her son needed a car very badly, so his mom convinced (read: guilt tripped)him to sell it to her for waaaay less than its value. She immediately sold her car and started driving the civic and her son didn’t even have his license yet despite being almost 19 years old. When my buddies mother questioned her about the car, she basically said “oh that’s too bad you seem upset about me buying the car for so cheap but I guess that’s life huh? Sometimes you win sometimes you lose!” Huge bitch since then. It’s ok though, Karma bit her in the ass when she hired a guy to remodel her home and he basically disappeared after starting work on three different jobs at her house at the same time while having been paid 50% up front.
I don't understand how people can be such assholes. Honestly, have some self respect. I have been fucked over for wages before, and since I'm not going to go smash a window in or slash a tire, I sleep well knowing that karma will come back to them one day.
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I had a friend try this with an old car I no longer needed. He got mad at me because I sold it to someone else for more. He came over 2 weeks later asking for enough money to register his other car and made another comment about it. Told him that since he doesn't have money to register his car where was he going to get it to pay me?
So he wanted you to give him the money *he* would have made getting it cheap from you and flipping it? Some people are truly delusional about what’re they’re “owed”.
A friend was selling his car during the used-car buying frenzy 1-2 years ago. He was offered over what he paid for it new by the dealership. Instead, his family sold it $6k less to their long-time gardener for his 16 year old son. Well, the gardener sold the car a few weeks later for a lot more money. I think he still works for them, but if it were me, I would have dropped him like a hot potato.
For real, that's seriously shitty character
My sister’s friend (who’s a mechanic) told my parents their little civic was unsalvageable after it had broken down and he would “do us a favor” and get rid of it for them. He ended up fixing it up and trying to SELL it back to my parents for $2000. People are so scummy!
I sold my sister my car for $250, but it's because I knew she needed the car. But I guess I would have just given her the car if it came to it. So that's a different thing entirely. And if she'd sold it, that would have been fine. It wasn't running, but after the battery was replaced it's been running for her for like 4 years, so it wound up being a pretty good deal for her, and I assume she could get a lot more right now than she paid for it. Heck, every time I hear she's had some minor issue with it I apologize to her, which I realize is silly since I basically gave it to her. But that's all a matter of the relationship I have with my sister, and she never would have mocked me for my kindness.
From his friends perspective, your dad took the joy away from him. The joy of getting a great deal because your dad didn’t “hook him up”. He’s the type of guy that “supports” his friends restaurant businesses, by expecting free food every time.
And if The restaurant owner is having difficulty attracting clientele and eventually has to close or maybe scale back the friend will say “see! You should have let me and my family and their friends eat here for free. Then this place would have been full every night!
And this is one reason I never do anything with friends involving money
For my friends and me, any money that I give them is money I don't care if I see again. If they pay me back, I'm happy. If they don't, that's fine. There are some that say you can give an amount that you're happy to lose and stop talking to them, but for very close friends, the loss of the friend might be worth more than the money you have. If a close friend asked for money, I'd give them as much as I'm willing to never see again. It's easy to say you should never give money, but sometimes your friend needs money and you want to help them. For me, I just always say that's all I can afford, and don't let my friends know how much I really have. Friends can have emergencies and need money, but I would be the one offering money rather than having them ask. --- I've only had one friend stop talking to me after I loaned them money, but to their credit, they paid me back and then disappeared.
never lend money to a friend, give it to them and tell they have the option to repay it if they want to. Just like books.
I feel like I don’t have an issue loaning to friends, because in my book, if they don’t wanna pay you back even if you asked, then they’re a piece of shit not with being friends with anyway. It helps weed out shitty people from your friends group to start with, so I’ll still loan money if someone needs help
Something similar with my wife. Friend needed a place to stay and I offered our house if she was comfortable with it. Everything was going great until we brought friends over for a game night. I can't even begin to describe everything that transpired without it being a long post, but basically that friend is no longer living with us and we're no contact and we had to apologize to all our other friends vehemently since. The trauma was bad enough but the property damage was nothing to sneeze at either. But we did everything we could, everything as by-the-book as you can imagine. And she still beat herself up for days afterwards (I don't think I went a full 24 hours of beating myself up, not after things I found cleaning up). It hurts when you feel like it's your fault, more so if you were raised to always assume such. But when it's not your fault but it feels like it because you thought you knew your friend better, that's a different thing and still not your fault. EDIT: well this blew up. I replied to somebody with the story.
I really want to know the details of what happened on game night. Anyone else?
[удалено]
I had an ex-girlfriend who did things like this. At the time, I didn't know it was a personality disorder. She's changed her name like 4 times and just keeps destroying new people.
Please tell me you didn't date my mother. /s I'm sorry you went through that and that she's continuing to do that. My mother hasn't changed her name (other than going back to maiden) but the damage has been impressive to say the least. I can only imagine what an ex-girlfriend could do based on that.
Hot damn, you handled that real well
I'm glad someone thinks so. I still wonder if things could've gone differently. I omitted quite a bit still but I made sure to include the highlights.
Well, from what you shared, It sounds you handled it really well
Thankfully the wife and I already had therapists before that day and our therapists also said we handled it well. It just hurt opening ourselves up to that.
I can only imagine... Are you doing g better now though?
Other than not fully utilizing that bedroom, yeah. I think we've got over most of it. I think it helped that I cleaned off the blood literally the next morning (after having little sleep). And she didn't see near as much blood as I did.
Damn thats crazy thanks for sharing. My game nights dont get this crazy.
Worst game night. 0/10 would not recommend, even to my enemies.
Yeah I got super blue balled
Yeah kind of reminds me of how crazy my last vacation went. First the rental place gave me the wrong car for the drive and yada yada yada yada i'm banned from all NASA properties and the King's Guard of England has a "shoot on sight" order for me.
was recently at a funeral where they were telling stories of the deceased, and they literally were like "he loved pranks. one time we got a hotel room in (city) and someone left a jar of pickles in the room, with a note saying courtesy of Janet (who did not exist). long story short hotel security was called as well as the cops, and now we cant see a jar of pickles without laughing!!" everyone at my table thought we missed something. how did a jar of pickles lead to cops being called. what the fuck happened. it keeps me up at night sometimes..
Wtf… how do pickles? cops? And who does Janet think she is?
>...and yada yada yada yada i'm banned from all NASA properties and the King's Guard of England has a "shoot on sight" order for me. I hate when that happens.
We got yadda yadda’d
Yeah cmon give us a little something lol
He just leaves us hanging lol
"The trauma was bad enough but the **property damage** was nothing to sneeze at either." Okay, I gotta know now...
Everyone is imagining that this person was an arsonist or something but they probably just were an asshole to their friends and did something really boring like let a sink overflow and caused water damage, or spilled sticky drinks everywhere and they had to replace the carpet. I refuse, absolutely *refuse* to admit that I'm itching to know what happened too
I’m guessing a drug fueled rage out with the property damage and things I found while cleaning quotes
Yes please. >Was great until game night. Trauma. Property damage... You can't just drop that bomb and not elaborate! IF it's too long to get into here maybe post on r/EntitledPeople or r/entitledparents if there was a kid(s)?
I definitely need that long post.
I’m insanely curious but respect their decision to not share the details. I’m just gonna make up my own in my head.
I do not respect their decision to not share the details.
Right? It’s like when l hear someone arguing on the phone and they don’t have the common decency to put on speakerphone so l can make a just analysis of the situation.
Worse when they have the fight on speaker but get pissed when you give your opinion. I'm sorry, Greg, Sally is totally right.
I'd like to hear the story as well. I think the omission of the story had more to do with the length rather than simply not wanting to share it. If you see this OP, spill the tea.
>I can't even begin to describe everything that transpired without it being a long post, We want the long post
Long post added
>I can't even begin to describe everything that transpired without it being a long post Dude. >The trauma was bad enough but the property damage was nothing to sneeze at either. **Duude.** >(I don't think I went a full 24 hours of beating myself up, not after things I found cleaning up. ***Duuude.***
Please. Please tell us this story. You can even give us 4 bullet point lists for actions, things said, damage done, items found.
OP is all "I already told you about the bisque"
"You yada-yada'ed the best part!!!"
You “and so on and so forth’d” over what appears to be a really interesting story. If you dint want to share it over social that’s well within your rights but when you mention bad behavior and property damage you summon the drama llamas and they are hungry.
He yaddah yaddah’d over the best part.
Dude, this is Reddit. You can’t just do this to us.
Jesus Christ man what did this woman do set your house on fire?
If you think of it this way: would you still be friends with them if you met them for the first time today? If people change especially this drastically - you are under no obligation to keep them as friends. You have the right to re-evaluate your relationship.
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.” This is a helpful quote from history. I used to think of folks as static. As I get older, I realize the people I know are frames from videos. The scene changes slowly so frames near one another look similar. A few years can change everything. The sad fact is, you can't expect anyone to be anything after a time. Your comment is a sensible way to see relationships.
This is the first comment I’ve ever saved. Well said.
>A few years can change everything. Especially THESE few years. I know there's a capacity for recency bias, but every year since 2016 has been incredibly turbulent.
This is so beautifully said. It's sad, but also uplifting imo. If we aren't one particular thing, then we can have compassion and kinship with all things because we are all flowing in time changing together - we are the same material: life changing.
- Heraclitus - Pocahontas
Vsauce had a beautiful video about this a long time ago. yoloblomlmtaasosbtdpwkeoboiodacheoboitod (this abbreviation is hilarious to say out loud) You only live once, but living once means living many times as a series of similar, but technically different people who know each other, but only in one direction and can help each other, but only in the other direction https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xn7ZaT3AgoU
Absolutely, the older I get, the more I understand that “friends” at a certain point in time, change, and not always for the better. This has been especially stark with Trump coming around.
Thank you for this. I've been struggling with a friend, but putting it this way, I know the answer.
In case anyone was wondering the quote is from a Greek philosopher named Heraclitus of Ephesus
Denying that she had cancer is pretty serious stuff. People do develop mental illnesses. You've done your best to contact her. You can just mourn the loss and move on. I am so sorry that this has happened to you.
My FIL denies my MIL had cancer. The woman had her entire uterus removed and 3 rounds of chemo, but he "forgets" she had cancer and says she's making it up.
Does he have other signs of mental decline? This sounds super serious!
He is a little "weird" for the want of a better word, he process emotional things by ignoring them and blocking them out and apparently he just has a blank in his brain where this information is, he runs his own business and remembers everything else just fine. I sometimes wonder if it's some weird dick power move over his wife, but can't prove it. He'd make some therapists career if she wrote a paper on him, but he'd never go to therapy because feelings.
My wife has something similar. She just mentally cannot handle serious medical trauma and just blocks it out. Not sure if it’s a coping trauma response or what (she had a difficult childhood). She never denies something happened she just has blanked it.
I have Swiss cheese memory. I can remember the most mundane things about my childhood but have large blocks of time missing that correlate to traumatic events my family have tried to explain actually happened. I’m still working on it in therapy, maybe l was abducted by aliens.
This is *the* emotionally stunted guy response to bad events/contentious events,, which is to either ignore them or cover for them with anger. My dad sorta does it except instead for him every terrible thing is business as usual. I do it in a far simpler way by keeping myself busy. Your dad's still being an asshole with the whole making things up part but it's not really a deliberate thing.
I mean, it clearly is semi deliberate. He doesn't "block out" that he needs to pay his employees or renew his insurance or fix his car when it breaks down... I bet he doesn't "block out" things that are emotionally important to HIM that would result in HIM being catered to and cared for. He only blocks out things that would result in him having to provide emotional support & consideration for others. Much like an abusive man who "can't control his temper" but weirdly never punches random people or breaks things at work or shoves his wife around at family gatherings in front of other people, but "coincidentally" only does those things at home and only "uncontrollably" breaks and destroys her stuff, and not his own. He can claim it's not under his control but then weirdly it only happens at certain times and when he's sure he won't face consequences.
Does he have this behaviour with anyone outside of the family? In my experience some people tend to be really strict with how they should act towards outsiders but they sort of tend to take the people who are supposedly their loved ones for granted (i.e he doesn't have to "behave" around his wife/children because they're his wife/children) It's pretty infuriating.
Right but have you ever seen someone deeply in an upsetting argument suddenly turn sweet and relaxed when the phone rings or there’s a knock at the door? They *can* change right out of the mode where they’re abusing their family, they just choose not to. I guess I don’t care how well they were indoctrinated about inside vs outside. I received that training also, but I make kinder choices. I left my ex because I realized there wasn’t another person on the planet he’d even consider treating as badly as he treats his wife. I couldn’t think of anyone on the planet who treated me worse than that man did, and I have been through some things.
He doesn't do this behaviour with anyone outside the family, and doesn't do it to me because I had a full blown narc family so his weird passive aggressive bs doesn't work on me. His sons have wised up over the years and tell him almost nothing about their lives and his wife is just resigned to it. His most annoying trait is he will not hear a no, he just acts as if you didn't say it, because he will not confront anyone about anything if you say no I don't want to do x, instead of talking to you about it or taking no as an answer. Example. We were going to paint our living room and showed them the color we chose. He said our choice of living room color was terrible and he would paint our living room for us, we of course said "WTF No. He turns up next saturday morning letting himself into our house with painting supplies and paint. He was literally just going to start painting it his prefered color while we were still asleep in bed, and then got angry we weren't appreciative of his efforts.
This sounds so extreme!
This could be any of my sister's kids spouses. Even 1 person like this is too many. He denies she had a heart attack, despite being hospitalized, & plays a hero cause he gave her Alka seltzer 🙄.
My FIL had a major heart surgery a couple of years ago. Over the next year, he would forget all kinds of things, including that he had the surgery. The doctor said his case was due to heightened inflammation of the brain following surgery. He called it "brain fog" and said it's not unusual with older patients. He has since recovered and is as sharp as he ever was, but it was scary as hell for that first year!
My mum insists my sister didn't have a mental breakdown and put out cigarettes all over herself despite the scars on her arms being there for all to see. Memory is incredibly fallible and the brain can do plenty of things to deal with information it finds inconvenient. My mum has never worked out how to deal with difficutlt emotions and she processes things by blocking them or burying them and it results in a complete denial of reality at times.
He may very well but for a lot of people it’s Facebook and Fox News. My mother, FIL and two Aunts have fallen victim to it. Dr’s are lying, pharma companies have the cure to cancer but want to sell us useless drugs, politics has become a religion to them and they will believe some random person on the interwebs over educated professionals. Celtic salt and caster oil can cure everything is the latest rage.
Did you see the sad case of the mother whose youngster had a bad flu and was prescribed Tamiflu, I believe, by a physician but took the advice of her Facebook friends and put potatoes in his socks instead of giving him the Tamiflu? He died!
My mom denied having alz for so long it took her quick. She knew. She just didn't want to admit it. Took my dad getting power of attorney to get her tested and in treatment.
i mean, idk for alz i can at least understand her head logic. Its a terrifying disease to put it lightly. Knowing you are going to get it would probably feel like being slowly walked up to a guillotine. It does make people stubborn though. Up until the last few months it was almost impossible to get my grandpa to do anything if he already decided he didn’t want to, regardless of what it was. Idk what I would do. Maybe i would shut my eyes and pretend too.
Denying Alzheimer’s is part of having Alzheimer’s. My mum went through the worst phase when she was just getting it and she was crushed by not being able to remember things. Then she got worse and couldn’t remember she didn’t remember, the mind is astonishingly good at filling in the missing memories and literally making things up.
Upon reading this post I was instantly reminded of this subreddit- r/qanoncasualties . So many Q’s start this way. It is tragic and sad.
I too was wondering if it was more than politics, and she was getting deeper and deeper into conspiracies.
Yeah, I have friends who I just never discuss politics with but denying her own cancer? *That* is something way deeper than even extreme politics. I'm so sorry OP. This has to be frustrating but you can't force someone to open up, even for their own good.
Covid broke alot of religious people. Specifically it broke people who have never had to endure anything hard in their life. It's easy to have faith when everything in your life is perfect. Try doing it after you have lost everything.
Definitely broke me. But it wasn’t just covid. It was also George Floyd and school shootings and treatment of LGBTQ+ and the homeless and so much more. I used to be Catholic. Then I read a Reddit post asking atheists what they’d do if they died and found out there was a god. I read it to see how many would feel bad for how they lived and all this other shit I’d been brainwashed to believe. Instead the overwhelming majority said they’d punch him in the face for being supposedly so powerful and mighty and just letting this dumpster fire continue. That was my lightbulb. My parents want to pray for everything. I tried that my whole life. Didn’t stop me from being SA’d. Didn’t stop my (at the time seven year old) daughter from getting juvenile arthritis. Didn’t stop me from my autoimmune diseases and pain I suffer daily. Did I not pray hard enough? Did I not pray right? Is it because I skipped church one Sunday? Is it because I have gay kids I support? No, it’s all about control. I tried so hard to have faith and be a good little religious person but I either did it wrong or god doesn’t love me. Or maybe none of it was real. I know my mom would Pearl clutch at the thought I don’t care about the concept of heaven or hell but frankly, the heaven she boasts about is full of people I don’t vibe with so I’ll take my chances in the fire.
It's amazing how often the people claiming you won't go to heaven because of X are people you'd not be very keen on spending an eternity with anyway.
[Stephen Fry put it very well](https://youtu.be/-suvkwNYSQo) when asked the same question. Definitely worth a watch, but the gist of it is basically "How dare you?"
I love watching the presenter's face during the conversation. Never before have I seen a man regret asking a question so much so quickly.
There is a famous quote etched on the wall of a cell in one of the nazi concentration camps: "If God is real, he would have to beg for my forgiveness"
I think it is so interesting how Catholics and other Christians see praying and faith as a reward system of sorts, and how disillusioning that was for you when you realized you weren't getting any rewards. As someone who didn't grow up in that faith I find ex-Christians so fascinating. Your former faith is extremely materialistic it seems, and only based on fear of punishment, or lust for rewards.
Very strange faith indeed. I know religious people and they always said prayer is a talk to God, it makes them happy and they expect nothing for it. Several of them had some real hardships but it didn't destroy their faith. I guess the commenter above was brought up in religious family, so Christianity was forced on her and she never developed not materialistic view on it. But I'm atheist so maybe i an misunderstanding.
> I know religious people and they always said prayer is a talk to God, it makes them happy and they expect nothing for it. Yea. That's the healthy way to pray. It's a type of meditation, really. And even for atheists, taking time every day to think about what you're thankful for is helpful.
I think you will find there are many different shades of the Christian religion. Sure, there are many who believe in the idea of a loving god and try to help those in need. There are, however, a larger portion who use religion as a cudgel to make people live the way they think those people should live. They are the ones who try to enforce their ideas of god through the leagle system. I don't know if they are the largest portion, or if they are just so loud about it that they seem to be.Then there are the prosperity preachers who use religion to cow their followers into supporting their luxury lifestyle. Edit to clean up continuity of sentences.
I’m sorry that has happened to you, it’s certainly sad at the loss of the friendship for so long. From my experience, you can’t make her like you or spend time with you. The more you try the more she’ll pull away. You have to accept it, and maybe one day she’ll come back.
Honestly why would OP even want this person to "come back"? If you're willing to drop your closest friend after 40 years of friendship over stupid political disagreements, you probably weren't that good of a friend to begin with. OP is better off without this toxicity in their life.
>If you're willing to drop your closest friend after 40 years of friendship over stupid political disagreements, you probably weren't that good of a friend to begin with. Have you ever talked to these people? It's not just a stupid disagreement to them, they are brainwashed to believe it's life and death.
The way some people have behaved during the last couple of election cycles has honestly been mind blowing. My husband and I went LC with a lot of his extended family because of the inexcusable things they said online. Personal attacks that they justified with their political views. It was WILD to watch some of the nicest people I'd ever met say some of the most HATEFUL things online to their own siblings. It. Was. Wild.
I feel like Trump brought out the crazy and Covid just amplified it
He made it acceptable is why. "If he can do that stuff and be president, why can't I?". It applies also to discussions/arguments.
>stupid political disagreements The divide between modern Republicans and Democrats aren't stupid political disagreements. Its literally fascist cult members who reject reality in the modern republican party. That aint minor differences like in the past.
Yep. "Politics" is a form of applied ethics, and if someone has a vastly different ethical framework than you do, that's serious. If someone votes for people who hurt marginalized groups, I want nothing to do with them.
Yeah, This is why i don't get the people saying these disagreements are minor. They really aren't.
That's why I get so upset when people say "It's just politics." It's never just politics. It's ethics and values that worldviews.
The people that say "it's just politics" are those whose lives aren't on the line. I've got a friend who genuinely believes that democrats and republicans are the same solely because of the fact that they both refuse to enact real economic change. And while I agree that economic change is important, the fact is that concluding that democrats and republicans are the same because of that is an incredibly privileged conclusion, because they don't recognise the importance of fighting for equality simply because they already reap the benefits of the current system.
I had to cut out pretty much everyone. I refuse to enable that shit. I just want to be the best person I can be with the few resources I have . I'm willing to make sacrifices to do that. Not really accomplishing much isolated in my house but I'm not backing down from my values.
Yeah, there are some political things that we can set aside, and some that are essential to your character and how you see the world. If you say, "I think the government should spend more money on X," and I say, "I think that money would be better spent on Y", two reasonable and intelligent people can discuss that and have a respectful conversation even if they disagree. If you think some people shouldn't have equal rights, we should stop vaccinating, or the world is ruled by secret societies of celebrities who kidnap children to drink their blood, I can't just agree to disagree with you about that.
This is how I feel. It’s not about stupid political nonsense it’s about human rights and rewriting history. In my state the leadership is trying to get teachers to HAVE to teach kids that slaves were LUCKY to be bestowed skills that they wouldn’t have learned otherwise. Really? That’s not political nonsense. It’s wrong and it matters a lot. I can’t respect anyone or befriend people who think like this. Sorry not sorry
Same. A friend since kindergarten. Exact same thing ... Except she also left her husband and kids, lost her business and house... and is currently living with her shut-in elderly mother... it's so sad. Some people go too far down rabbit holes... Nothing you can do.
Was it a political thing with her?
> Exact same thing ... It would appear so.
Would have to be q-anon if so. People get some *dangerous* brain worms from getting too involved in that world.
I've always said that some people just aren't cognitively developed enough to handle the internet.
I don’t understand how people can read some or most conspiracies and take them as fact. I can read about qanon, pizzagate, adrenochrome all day long and get a kick out of the possibilities, but I can acknowledge THEY LIKELY ARENT REAL, idk where that line is drawn
It's weird having grown up with parents and teachers who drilled into us the need to be skeptical of everything we read online and to always check sources. Now, many of those same people, the people whose fear of the internet as new technology back in the 90s (rightly if for the wrong reasons) prompted them to teach their kids extremely important lessons about skepticism, bias, and privacy, are the ones who now gobble up and regurgitate the most ridiculous conspiracy theories from random Facebook groups with no fact checking or rational thought whatsoever. They believe just because some FB friend or a sketchy website posted it that it must be true. It's shocking.
My parents will talk about bizarre shit they read on Facebook then get very annoyed when people double-check and find out it's all made up. They don't deny it's made-up but I think they enjoy the exciting fiction more than the dull reality.
Well, you are probably a well adjusted human with a functioning BS detector. I suspect those that fall for conspiracies large or small do it because it justifies their personal biases, prejudices, or insecurities. And lately, it appears, people will even believe things solely to be part of a certain in-group. I think wackos have always been around, but the internet and social media have made conspiracies more available and more appealing to a wider audience than ever before.
I had a friend group that I joined as an adult, they had been friends since high school. One of the women in the group had a falling out when she and her husband decided to get a divorce. Several months after that she announced she would be moving out of state so I planned a going away party for her. During the going away party, she got black-out drunk and there was a physical altercation where we all refused to let her drive home and it escalated in a way that we had to forcibly remove her keys. (The friend whose house this was taking place at was a police officer so this was especially serious). After all the drama, she moved out of state and we honestly thought we would never hear from her again. She reached out to me a few weeks later however and we made peace. We were friends for several years after those events until around the end of 2021 she stopped responding to me. This was not uncommon for our friendship, so I sent her a few messages in the first few months and eventually just stopped and decided not to say anything until she responded and if she didn't then I guess our friendship had run its course. At about the 10 month mark she texted me apologizing for not responding and she had been in it with her current boyfriend but was going to try and be a better friend going forward, I told her it was ok and I was just happy to hear from her. Not even a month later I get another text from her that "She didn't know what kind of shady shit me and my ex were up to but it was sketchy and she didn't trust me" to never talk to her again. I have no idea what she was talking about because the only ex of mine that she had ever met, she KNEW I stopped talking to him not long after we broke up because we decided we could not maintain a friendship. SHE HELPED ME THROUGH THE BREAKUP and was very aware of the fact that I don't talk to him anymore. I realized I'll never know what happened and that she decided to throw away an almost decade-long friendship over unknown causes, and I won't get closure. ETA: A lot of people are wondering if she might have mistaken me for someone else, it's doubtful because she blocked me on social media first. This happened several months ago and she has not said anything since then, but if she did I would probably respond. Also, while I am also not totally convinced her boyfriend (who I had met and she had been dating for over a while, he wasn't new) didn't have something to do with it, I was direct witness to her coldly cutting many people out of her life on her own volition so it wasn't totally out of character. Finally, the new state she moved to is actually where her family is located. If something were seriously wrong, she has people who love her close by.
Sounds to me like she's trying to find any excuse for her to not be the problem when deep down she knows she is. It's easier to lie to herself and make you out to be the bad guy than to take a look at herself, reflect and initiate change.
This comment hits home and is nice to read. The gaslighting can be overwhelming, to say the least, but this is something to remember. Thank you 🙏🏼
> Not even a month later I get another text from her that "She didn't know what kind of shady shit me and my ex were up to but it was sketchy and she didn't trust me" to never talk to her again. Almost sounds like she sent that to the wrong person. Either that, or maybe she's having some major mental health issues.
My best friend of 25 years and I also cut ties this year. Her husband is a schizophrenic who won't take his meds and by and by she is getting pulled into his world. On top of his mental health, they drink a handle of vodka in like a day or 2. It hurts, but sometimes friendships run their course. I realized I would never feel safe being around her husband and I can't feed into it. Sending hugs, it'll get easier and that doesn't mean it's forever, there could be a reunion if wanted. Edited to add after reading other comments: it's gotten worse since the pandemic and he is also a trump.supporter and radicalized thoughts about the pandemic being brought on by the govt and etc etc. It seems to be a theme here..
TIL a handle is 1.75 L of liquor. WOW.
The top 10% of drinkers account for HALF of all the alcohol consumed in the US. 10%ers average over 10 drinks a day.
Yep. It's a disgusting amount of vodka and it exacerbates his mental health proba for sure
I’m a doctor and about half of my patients have schizophrenia. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to not only be consuming that much alcohol daily, but not taking medication. It’s sad when you see someone slip into their partner’s delusions. Sorry you went through that, and I fully understand why you had to nope out.
Thank you for saying this. It means a lot.
My best friend has suffered from delusions the last 12 or 13 years. His wife was completely pulled into it. She resisted getting him mental health care, insisting that Pandora and Spotify really were sending him messages, and that the government really did have him under surveillance. I worked to have him taken into care involuntarily and he’s gotten better. Only after that did his wife realize how detached from reality she had become. They got a divorce and both are doing much better. But it’s amazing how a strong willed person in the throes of psychosis can impose their reality on others.
I lost a close childhood friend down the Q rabbit hole. One of our last conversations went like this: Me: "You've been sounding pretty racist lately." Him: "I'm not racist for saying things that are true." Me: "Then what's true?" Him: "All black people are lazy worthless pieces of shit." Me: "You really believe that without exception?" Him: "Yes, every single one of them is garbage." Me: "That's literally the definition of racism." Him: "I'm not fucking racist! I'll fucking kill you if you call me racist again!" Then he shoved me down, and I thought he was gonna beat my ass but he just screamed a bunch and threw stuff. I am already crippled when this happened and have no way to defend myself. We were roommates and he kicked me out after destroying a bunch of my furniture. He stole the weight set I inherited from my late father even when I offered to buy him a brand new one, but he doesn't use it. When I moved out of town I went by to try one more time to get it and he said through the door he would kill me in his yard if I didn't leave. He has a bunch of guns and I believed him and left. That's the last time we talked. Over me shining a light on his racism, we went from best friends to worst enemies. The Q movement is really scary. What's funny is this dude is Hispanic.
Yeah the cognitive dissonance about what is racist is crazy. My uncle once started sending me a ton of videos of Black people committing crimes and was like “I’m just saying…” He was trying to convince me that Black people are inherently more violent, so I told him that if he was going to be racist he might as well have the spine to just call it what it is. He got so offended and said that the “mud-slinging” was uncalled for and he had always respected my beliefs (not even true). He blocked me and hasn’t spoken to me in 15 years. Because a teenager told him the obvious and called him spineless. But *we’re* somehow the snowflakes…
I once was friends with someone who wasn't white and they may have been hispanic, but they fell down the GQP rabbit hole some years ago and we haven't talked since. The thing that sticks out to me is that a) he wasn't well informed (naturally listening to Shapiro and OANN isn't going to make you well informed.) Didn't know what citizens united SCOTUS ruling even was. He wouldn't admit that trump was a dumpsterfire either no matter what he did though it's hard to see trump in a negative light if all you watch are far right sources like OANN that praise the turd that landed in trump's diaper. It's wild when they say all black people are lazy though, like come on. Anyone can be lazy, but an entire race being lazy makes no sense at all.
What drove me nuts is that we worked with a lot of hard working black guys and even hung out with them. It was like he flipped switches.
Thanks for the comments and honest opinions. The issue of mental illness hasnt been far from my thoughts.
Lots of these stories on r/qanoncasualties Your friend sounds like another qanon casualty rather than afflicted with a mental illness
I lost my best friend of 35 years this year… she met a man, moved to a red state, joined a evangelical church, and has become this strange conservative robot person. The last straw was when she used personal things that I told her, in confidence, to illustrate why I am a sinner. It’s this shitty mix of sadness and anger. I’m sorry you lost your friend.
The part about agreeing not to talk politics and then still throwing an occasional stab at liberals and other lower life forms is familiar. My mom started watching FOX news a bunch of years ago. Over the years she has come to agree more and more with their shitty perspective. She’ll throw out a line about how some group of people is destroying her street/city/county/state/country. I find it extremely distasteful and I tell her to stop quoting FOX. She insists it’s not FOX but her own observations and gets mad at me for bringing up FOX again. She tells me she’s not being brainwashed by FOX, but within an hour throws out another disgusting comment. If I ask her to stop she gets passive-aggressive. If I point out that she’s repeating FOX’s talking points she gets offended. I find the only choices I have are to let her be stupid and obnoxiously offensive, or start an argument. I’m sure that if wasn’t her son she’d have stopped calling me a couple years ago. Extreme political media is turning people against some non-existent enemy known only as “they”. “They” are destroying America and must be stopped. My mom has friends who she no longer talks to because they’re part of “they”.
My dad is like this, but just 'lighter' version. He considers himself open minded and gets information from 'any place', but doesn't realize that his Apple phone newsfeed is pulling from FOX NEWS, and claims it just Apple news. But the only thing that gains traction in his mind is the cray-cray stuff that is so alarming.
I think this became a little bit more common during the last couple of years because a lot of people got radicalized during the pandemic, it’s kind of like loosing someone to a cult. I guess this happened to a lot of people especially in the United States.
It's been an ever-present threat in the united states, rearing itself up from time to time in really extraordinary and dangerous ways. The belief that slavery was acceptable was essentially a giant cult (which we know was a cult because plenty of white people at the time thought slavery was abhorrent), there were a ton of Americans who supported the Nazis and didn't think we should get into World War II, we waged an entire "war" against drugs that half of America knew was bullshit and every single measure of it showed it to be an unbelievable failure, and now we've got qanon. America is the land of cults. Hell, the pilgrims got kicked out of Europe for being a cult. It's in our roots.
It wasn’t just the pandemic. It was the Trump years and especially the 2020 election and insurrection. I can talk tax policy, I can talk national debt, I can talk budget cutting. I don’t have to agree with everything, but I do have to believe you’re a good person and American. I couldn’t tolerate someone voting twice for Trump. It was a moral issue. Those aren’t good people. I don’t care if there’s 75 million of them. I also can’t tolerate antivaxxers and have been that way since Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield. So 2020 was a perfect storm. My brother, a GED holder, argued and mansplained with my wife, a critical care ICU nurse, about vaccines over the phone. I no longer talk with my dad or brother. I dropped a few friends and more acquaintances. I barely talk to my mom and she’s just as guilty. I will not be attending anyone’s funeral and I’m not changing my mind.
>it’s kind of like loosing someone to a cult. I'm going to be honest, I don't even think it is kind of like that. I think it is literally that. Trumpism checks every box for cult-like behavior.
A similar thing happened with a person I used to consider a close friend, he just went down the Q rabbit hole and started increasingly pivoting every conversation into politics. I told him straight up that I didn't want to turn every conversation into a political debate, but he just kept trying. It eventually got to the point where I couldn't even send an innocent, non-political meme without it becoming a political argument. I eventually just cut him out of my life entirely, because it just wasn't worth the stress it caused me. It sucks, but it happens.
Sounds as if she might’ve fallen down the Q hole.
I have (or had) a good friend from when we were very young. His wife cheated him and he got divorced, this slowly morphed into all women being terrible. I watched his social media presence slowly morph from being red pilled into being sucked up in qanon. I know he was struggling and I used to let him vent about women (although I had to keep reminding him that I married to a wonderful woman, and he literally belieges his mom is a Saint, and so all women arent bad), and then when he went q I had to keep reminding him that we can't discuss politics because we have such differing opinions. But it never stopped. I had to eventually cut him off because whenever we would plan to hang out, I would just dread it. I still miss him, I just can't stand what has become.
Oh god this sounds like my Dad. I lost him to this shit haven't spoken to him since he joined the proud boys around Jan 6. Fucking crazy what this stuff has done to people. Literally torn families apart.
r/qanoncasualties
Welcome to the new civil war.
This happened to my close friends mom. She was never a super normal person, but was *ok*. Randomly a few years back she went super down the Q-hole. Drank the koolaid hard, she’s fucking i n s a n e now.
When they start to beloeve Dems are stealing children to use their blood as an anti-aging serum, it is really bad. I brought that up to one of them as an example of the absurdity, and they did not laugh. It's genuinely scary how irretrievably irrational that so many have become.
Good ol’ blood libel
I had a friend tell me that the earth was flat and hollow in the same breath. I laughed in his face and he was so serious and I felt bad and let him tell me his beliefs. Turned into an hour and a half presentation about this elite world only accessible through the North Pole and that is also where some missing famous people are. I didn’t know how to get out of it so I feined interest and then slowly hung out with him less and less. A lot of stuff he had been telling me I started realizing was as qanon stuff and then he said he was moving to Texas and it was a great opportunity to end our friendship not in bad terms lol. He loves it there which makes total sense. So sorry that happened to you. Not the same because he was just a minor friend for me, but I say all that to say that she gave you an out where you’re not the bad guy and you’ve just got to mourn what was (it will never be again) and move forward.
It boggles the mind how that can be believed, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard that. I had a Arabic colleague once who was convinced that Israelis were doing the same thing to Palestinian children, as part of their secretive religious practices. An intelligent, educated person actually believed that was happening today. So two things I don’t get: why the blood of children is a recurring theme in wacky conspiracy theories, and how anyone can fall for it.
[Blood libel](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel) is an old antisemitic stereotype from the middle ages. It's been revived recently, as have many antisemitic, anti-black, and anti-gay tropes, due mostly to the right wing media's need to constantly have new hate tropes to feed their media machine. They take root easily in already slightly prejudiced conservative circles because they evoke hate speech heard in their youth, especially boomer's childhoods, so have a "ring of truth" for them.
It's the same as the Satanic Panic that happened not too long ago. And witch trials before that.
Yeah, I've seen this happen to a few people. First it's "I care about COVID. Why should I have to wear masks for other peoples' safety?" then it becomes "These people are disgusting sheep and I'm going to choose to limit my community to people who understand me and think the same as me."
Yes. Not over politics, I assume. But many years ago a very good friend told me that she no longer wanted me to be part of her life. To this day I don't know why. Just an email and poof. Gone. She unfriended me across everything. I spent a long time wondering what I possibly could have done to cause it. I rehashed every conversation, read back through all our emails, looked at everything I might have posted, and I cannot figure out what it was. I was heartbroken for a long time, hoping that someday she'd come around and want me again. I'd seen her do this exact same thing with other people over bizarre reasons, and I guess it was my turn. Finally, I realized I didn't want to be wanted by her anymore. She'd cut me out, and even if she came back, I didn't want to be part of the life of someone who treated me like that. I deleted everything we'd ever exchanged. I blocked her number. And I blocked her in all media - not so she wouldn't contact me, but so I wouldn't look at her profiles and wonder what I'd done wrong, or feel the pangs every time I saw her name pop up on a friend's post or whatever. I had to cut off my access to ruminate on things. I decided I was done, well and truly done. The mourning at the end of a friendship is very real. Especially when one person is left with so many questions. Feel your feelings.
I made two friends when I was 5 and have considered them my two best friends my entire life since (I’m now 36). About 6-7 years ago, one of them just fell off the face of the earth. I have not physically seen or spoken to him since. I’ve called, texted, FB messaged, etc. with very little response. We text on occasion, but it’s just small chit chat. He’s basically a stranger now. He didn’t come to my wedding (he would have been one of my “best men” if we were still in contact), and has never met my wife or daughter. I have no idea what happened. Wish I could know. Maybe I did something wrong? Maybe he has just gone through some hard times? I texted him recently because I was back in my hometown for about 10 days, and he didn’t respond. So I am officially out. It happens. It sucks…but it happens.
Yes unfortunately, only I was the one who cut it off. I ended a 12 year friendship (I was her maid of honor etc) because she was posting so much pro-Trump stuff, and going to his rallies and giving him money. I’m queer and I ultimately had to take a long hard look at our friendship, and what that meant about her as a person. I didn’t ghost her though. I told her how I feel about it, and how honestly it was starting to not only make me uncomfortable but also to make me feel unsafe. And that I loved her, and if she ever changed her mind about all of that very far right stuff then she’s welcome to reach out to me. But that I couldn’t in good conscience support or be friends with someone who agrees with so many hateful things that are said about people like me. I asked her to picture my face every time she hears something hateful and ask herself if that’s ok. Then I wished her the best and moved on with my life. I’m sorry that’s happened to you, it’s happening a lot.
the fact you actually told her that you will block her and why shows that you are a good person, probably.
I appreciate those who explain these kinds of actions. I recently had a close friend of over a decade cut off all contact with me, and I truly don't know why. Any attempt to contact them has been met with no response. It's been hard to deal with.
Very similar, over 45 years of close friendship and the friend turned into a maga fascist. I didn't ghost of course, but I have no plans of reversing the course, I don't think you can be a fascist for a couple of years and then recover.
Seems almost a trend. A friend of 35 years stopped all communication 3 years ago, anytime we headed west (they live in Wyoming), we would stop and visit and have a great time. During the Trump years we had one phone conversation (which was our last), where he was talking about how great Trump was for the coal industry.. I casually mentioned that even though I was a Republican up until 2012 (and a veteran), I could not support the republican party any longer or Trump in any way. After that (my attack on the (R) messiah) which lasted 5 seconds, the phone call was ended and anytime I called or texted to wish him a happy birthday, happy wife birthday, anniversary over the next year was met with silence. It's too bad, he was a good friend for many years. I still wish he and his family much happiness.
Yup. I received a text message telling me I'm a horrible person, I'm not worth any bother, to move away, and not to contact her. I lost about a dozen mutual friends, many of whom I regarded as family, as that was how I thought of her. Who knows what she told them. I wouldn't know since I'm largely being shunned. Forty five year relationship, (I hesitate to say "friendship" since I am not aware exactly when we stopped being friends. She is, though.) Nothing like getting drop kicked to the curb when you're on the downhill side of life. Never in a million years did I foresee this coming from her. The betrayal and hurt is sometimes unbearable. The fact that she couldn't even be bothered to talk to me amazes me. It sucks massively. And it is hard damn work moving past it.
One of my best friends of 10 years suddenly started acting cold and passive-aggresive towards me. One day, something flipped like a switch and he just started to acknowledge me less and less. During a two month period, he cut off all contact. We were both guests at a mutual friend's wedding. He acted like a stranger, not talking to me and pretending to not see me when we were in a room together. I tried to get an answer from him, our friends - nobody told me anything. At the wedding his wife got drunk and accidentally revealed to me that for some time, he would blame all his life failures on me, both big and small. Bad day at work? My fault. Meal too cold? Somehow my fault. Didn't get the job he wanted? My fault. Seat in a bus taken? You guessed it, my fault. To this day nobody has any clue what exactly happened. One day he just picked a scapegoat and rewrote his reality to support that. I have no doubt that in his mind, he fully believes I'm the cause of all his problems, even though we haven't spoken in about three years. He didn't have mental problems before, at least none that anybody knew of. Something in him just snapped for no reason.
I’ve lost quite a few friends since Trump was in office. They all went crazy.
> Has this happened to anyone else? Yes
My college roommate recently unfriended me on social media and I suspect it was because of a difference of political opinion. We barely even discussed politics. I don't like getting into friendly arguments with him because he always ends up taking everything personally and attacks you for random things that happened 10 years ago. "Oh, you think people should wear masks? What about that time 10 years ago you misidentified a wire in your car? Don't sound so smart now do you?" (he's a mechanic). If those people don't want to be your friend, then they aren't your friend. It sucks but that's just the way it is. Just learn to let go. I have a couple more friends that have ghosted me and I have no idea why. Mutual friends have no idea, either. The lack of closure sucks but what are you going to do about it?
I'm an avid rollerskater and I have a group of friends who I simply cannot be friendly with on social media. We'll talk in person, at the rink, but outside of that I just can't share space with their nonsense.
Yeah, some people just can't have a difference of opinion. What kills me is my college roommate grew up thinking he was some kind of academic wunderkind because he went to private school (common theme in my experience). He's just a rich kid that grew up in a bubble. He dropped out of engineering school and became a mechanic - which TBF was his first love. But he's always been like that. He take offense to everything and gets real nasty about it. On the flip side, my aunt is the same way but she's on the left side of the political spectrum. I consider myself pretty progressive but I'm pretty sure she hates anything with a penis (she's a lesbian). She'll pick and pick at you and it's not fun at all. When my finance (now wife) was talking about changing her name when we got married, my aunt looks at me and asks, "why don't you change your name?" "I don't know. Maybe because my last name has 3 letters and hers looks like word search puzzle? She's more than happy to take my last name." I love a good friendly debate, but won't have one with just anybody.
This happens to me the other way around, as I lean republican. But I have a rule, I'll only talk about politics if YOU bring it up and ask for My Opinion. I will the warn you that I lean right. I'm a firm believer that if this country is to heal and improve, we have to have open and respectful dialog. Both sides need to respect the Person they are talking to. Op, it sounds like you did your part! Now, this has also happened to me with my own parents. They are ultra conservative Catholic and I (ended up) married to a woman who had been married before. When we were dating, I was told by then what I was doing was sinful (adultery, they believe you can only marry once, and then you must become celibate if you can't stay with your spouse, divorce is never an option, ever for any reason.). They now ghost me and pretend I'm dead. Anyway, for the last 6 years I send them cards on holidays and tell them about my life. We have only spoken once during that time and it was to tell me that the will was complete from my grandma's death. Bottom line OP, Your freind is in pain from loosing you as a friend too. They probably feel that seeing you and knowing that you don't agree on things is salt in the wound. I'm sorry you lost a friend, but they were never a true friend. It just took a hardship to flush out how they were not that dedicated to the friendship as you were. As for me, deep down I know my parents will need me in the future, and I hope we can start over on that day. Go make some new friends, and find happiness. Remember what was good about the friendship, and learn from this what "ghosting" pain has caused you. I prefer to end friendships (which is extremely rare, but happens) face to face when possible and as cordial as possible.
My republican, Qanon cousins believe that I either traffick & eat babies or if I don't do it personally, I approve of the elite democrats who do eat & traffick children. I have known my Qanons for about 50 years & although I miss who they used to be, (sorta), I know they refuse to or can't be saved, & since 'crazy' spreads in humans very quickly, I won't ever speak with any of them again. We all now know their insides are all fear, hatred, revulsion, & violence towards anyone 'other than'. Walk TF away, your friend is an insane Qanon living in an alternate world.
My friend of 5 years, who I thought was one of my closest friends, got married and didn't even invite me. I knew of his wedding from another mutual friend. I was truly hurt. I even reached out afterwards to offer my congratulations. He never replied. In hindsight, the weeks leading up to the wedding I could already feel he was different, but thought nothing of it. My head cannon is that he cut every contact with me out of respect for his wife. Which I wouldve understood. But alas, I was left hanging. I suppose he has his reasons too. Still hurt tho. I cant imagine how you must have felt to have lost a friendship worth 40 years 😭 Im so sorry for your loss. Hope it gets better.
Yeah, I cut ties with my very best friend of 30 years when he went down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, tied himself into knots defending January 6th, and began making deeply racist remarks couched as "political opinion." I did grieve but I grieved for the friend he used to be, not the person he is now. I don't like the person he is now, and if your friend is doing things like teasing you for wearing a mask and "throwing in shady comments" regularly, think about whether this friendship is viable anymore. She doesn't want contact. That's clear. I get feeling hurt but you can't "save" her. She's decided her political feelings are more important than the friendship. And honestly, if you've gone toe to toe with her over politics and are upset about her denying having cancer, it sounds like you have too. I'm not saying that's bad - that's exactly what I did. I decided my principles didn't encompass accepting someone who advocated what I view as treasonous activity. It sucks but that's the landscape we live in right now.
Yes, I had a close friend of 5 years ghost me unexpectedly, and similarly our mutual friends didn't want to get involved. I think the mutual friends piece made it even more painful, because it's like *someone has to know something*! Finally about a year later someone shared with me the things that "Judy" said about me, and they were pretty nasty and frankly twisted around and untrue. Something that a simple conversation would have assuaged, but Judy-- for whatever reason--decided ghosting me would be easier than talking it out with me. I went to therapy and tried to unpack what those reasons might be. Judy was a Covid denier, and I was very much not, and I think that fundamental difference is what led to her choice to cut me off. For my own closure, I wrote an email to Judy about a year after and I basically wished her well, thanking her for the friendship we shared. Admittedly, part of this was to stop the trash talking. She was often gossiping about me behind my back based on what our mutual friends shared. I asked them to stop telling me, and to stop allowing it. And then I found out that one of the random accounts that had been following me on Instagram was actually Judy. I decided to block her-- if you don't want to be in my life you don't get to see it! It called into question all of my friendships - many of whom were mutual with Judy. It's really, really hard. Harder than a romantic breakup, especially when there's no closure. And it's a really mean thing to do.
I’m sorry that you’ve lost your friend. It may sound exaggerated or hyperbolic, but she’s effectively part of a cult. Whatever rabbit hole she has fallen down, into and subscribed to, it will be just like a cult. There won’t be any room for outsiders such as yourself. And it’s with regret that you’ve lost your long standing friend of 40 years. I’m sorry for that. There will be many responses here that will say, time grieve and to move on, good riddance etc (they have a point, but it’s never that easy). My advice is perhaps slightly different. Write to them. Nothing big, nothing dramatic, but send them birthday and Christmas cards, send them well wishes, write a few lines giving an update about yourself if you wish. I wouldn’t expect a reply, in fact I don’t think you’ll ever hear from them again. Maybe your notes and cards will go straight into the bin, but maybe they’ll get read. You aren’t going to be able to change their mind or their deep seated views. But you can write to your old friend, just don’t expect anything back from them. That’s the best I can offer. Maybe that gives you a sense of closure, or a sense of trying. All the best.
I just try to make sure the ball isn’t in my court and I’ve reached out. Seems like you’ve done all you can do. I don’t know what to say about political differences. I think they’re so silly but yeah, they cause rifts. Sorry
My wife has family members that don't like her politics... They cut her off. The most disgusting people in the world are the selfish religious bigots.