Former Friends Are Exposing Exactly When They Realized They Were Associating With Truly Awful People, And It's Infuriating
It's tough when you realize friends who've been a part of your life for many years were actually jerks the entire time, and you're just now seeing it. I was reminded of that feeling when Reddit user u/Both-Support-7110 asked folks, "When did you realize your 'friends' were just assholes?" These are just a few of the revelations that made me audibly gasp:
1."Any time we would butt heads, they would blame it on me being emotional because of the hormones I was taking for my transition."
2."We were all friends for years, and we'd often hang out in bars. When I stopped drinking, they quit hanging with me."
—[deleted]
"I noticed the same thing, then I realized the only time I hung out with them was at bars. When I stopped going, they didn't. It clicked that they were mainly drinking buddies, not friends."
3."I won a free trip for two to a tropical island resort many years ago. I was single at the time, so I brought my friend. This friend managed to pick up some woman, who was there on her honeymoon, and cheated with her on the beach. Then, my friend took her back to our hotel room for more action."
4."My friends and I snuck into an abandoned building and entered a pit that we could only get out of with the help of one of us who stayed on top. We got spooked when we realized someone else was in the pit with us. The 'friend' at the top helped everyone out but me. They left me alone in the pit with this stranger. It was really scary. It turned out the man was harmless, and he helped me out of the pit. We chatted afterward, and he asked me not to tell anyone that we had seen him. I am still grateful to that stranger, and don't talk to my friends who abandoned me."
5."It clicked that they were assholes once I realized that other people don't tear down their friends on every possible occasion and that it isn't right when a 'friend' uses every known insecurity as an argument against you when you do not behave the way they want you to."
6."I had a friend who was very promiscuous, which I had no problem with until I found out she was using me and my 'innocent' personality at the time to distract her mom and make her think she was like me. She essentially used my house as a hotel once, with my family there and everything. I knew that was it."
7."My childhood 'friends' abandoned me during our teenage years after my parents got divorced. I really needed my friends during that time — I would've done anything for them, and thought that loyalty was mutual. Instead, they started excluding me from things. They made excuses whenever I called why they couldn't spend time with me. Over the years, they invited me to their weddings out of the blue, but screw them. I have a few funny memories left of them, but other than that, I haven't missed them, nor felt a loss or anything. It made me wiser about who I consider my friends."
"40 years later, my circle of close friends is small. We met through work, though we have common interests, support each other, and have practiced true friendship through our own struggles."
8."I let my friend borrow my Playstation 2 when I went to boot camp in 2006. When I came back, he said he sold it. He gave me $50 for it."
Rockstar Games / Via giphy.com
9."She got a boyfriend and would let him listen to our phone calls and not tell me, even if I was crying about personal stuff that I would only ever tell her. The breaking point was when they both lied to me about my crush liking me back, which ended up not being true. He had told them both directly. I was crying on the phone one night because I was so confused why my advances weren't working. They just kept explaining it away, pitting it on bogus reasons, and telling me to try again. The next day, they told me they were laughing throughout the whole call because I didn't catch on that they were messing with me. I was so upset. I had no dating experience at all then, and it really affected my self-esteem."
10."When they were nice at first, but then started to cut me out of conversations, telling me not to 'butt in.' A friend doesn't dictate when you're allowed to speak."
11."I realized it on January 6th, 2021. I grew up in Arizona and ran in pretty conservative groups up through college. Then, I moved to Seattle and abandoned my religion, which led me to discover my true values are more progressive. I still had a group chat with three of my close college friends — we had been drifting apart for a while due to our increasingly different worldviews. None of them actually participated in the insurrection, but when one of them seemed excited about the whole thing and texted 'Let them cower' in regards to the congresspersons hiding from the insurrectionists, I finally realized it was not a friendship I wanted to hang on to."
12."He's my former neighbor and friend. We didn't immediately hit it off, but after a while, we became good friends. I tried helping him out as he's an unemployed single dad of two kids who need special care. He eventually saw my kindness as something to take advantage of — he broke into my house and stole money from me last year. I had proof it was him, and when I confronted him about it, he attacked me."
"I can't say it doesn't hurt thinking about it"
13."We were 15-year-olds hanging out in the alleyway behind my friend’s house as we did almost every day after school. An upperclassman was with us that day, and she initiated us prank calling the child protective services emergency line. They pretended to be a child in distress, and were all laughing. After a few rounds of this, I felt queasy and left. I never hung out with them again."
"I still feel bad for not saying something or putting a stop to it, but the girl was older and 'cool.'"
14."They offered to trip-sit me while I was taking psychedelics, then kicked me out of the house right as I started peaking."
Netflix / Via giphy.com
15."I used to plan and host a lot of activities, anything from goofing around with one or two people at a park to 20 people playing Cards Against Humanity while making quesadillas. These hangouts grew over the course of about three years, mostly with people I worked with. I started noticing some things were a bit off. At game nights, we would do stuff like have a marshmallow fight or toss Nerf balls around, and at some point, I realized I wasn't really part of that. They would all be playing with each other, but no one ever threw anything to me. I wasn't sure what that meant. If I sat on a couch, people would all crowd onto the other couch while I had one to myself. Then, when I moved to a chair, they'd take the couch. Eventually, I realized no one initiated anything with me. So I stopped planning things. I figured I would give it a week or two, see what happened. It's been a few years now."
"I haven't hung out with those people, or anyone else, since. I just went back to my accustomed isolation, changed jobs, and never heard a word. I still have the same phone and such.
I guess the problem had to be me. I just don't know what it was."
16."Ahead of our senior year prom, I asked my friend group if they'd like to come to my house because my mom offered to make dinner for all of us. They said that they all had different plans already made, so I ended up doing my own thing and just showed up early to prom. I was waiting in my car for the doors to open and got on Facebook to see several posts from my friends. It turns out their different plans were meeting at one of their houses to have dinner, then taking group pictures. Without me. I left an hour in."
17."When I realized I was just as big an asshole. That's why we were friends."
18."I was friends with a group who I met online through a hacker community in the early days of the internet for over a decade. They were super supportive, kind, and funny. I credit them with helping me through dark periods of poverty. I was the youngest of the group, and when I hit my 30s, my fortune finally changed — my IT skills were in high demand during the dot com boom of the late 1990s. I started working on my investments and was able to buy a nice home which really changed my way of living. That's about when these friends started to act like I was a liar, and making it up. They'd put me down, talk behind my back online, and harass my other online friends. Then, they messed with my job — there were several hack attempts on my company and specifically me. My company's legal, HR, and security teams got involved. Through their investigations, I learned my hacker 'friends' were responsible. I was stunned."
"Grown adults with careers, children, and mortgages, and who I thought were my friends, had ganged up against me in some junior-high-school-mean-girl way.
Years later, one of them reached out to me and explained what happened. He told me that it was 'mob mentality' he'd gotten swept into. It started with a series of harmless pranks, and then they just kept ramping it up. He told me that my ex-friend group hated that I, someone they were okay with being a downtrodden loser, was suddenly doing well. They didn't think it was fair. They just got pissed off at the audacity that I thought I deserved what they had, so they wanted me to suffer. This ex-friend admitted he thought it was funny until my company came after them, and he finally realized they'd taken it too far. He was really sorry.
It was a slap in the face about how some adults never grow up. Before then, I thought, 'Pfft, nobody has the time or care to mess with me on that scale.' Oh, buddy. I was so naive."
19."I use to hang out with this guy every day. We were two alcoholics who used 'hanging out together' as an excuse to get wasted every day. He would constantly bum cigarettes from me and everyone we hung out with. He literally never bought his own. If somebody asked him for one, he'd go, 'Oh, I don't smoke.' After years of that, I finally confronted him about it and said, 'Dude, if you really believe you don't smoke, you're just lying to yourself.' He simply replied with, 'No man, I'm lying to you.' After an avalanche of crap he did to my friends and I, that remark was what flipped the switch. We never hung out after that."
"This was, like, 20 years ago. I really hope dude was able to turn his life around because he was a disaster when I finally gave up."
20."Every time I tried something new, they would tease me and tell me how 'gay' it was, or how I wouldn't last in my new endeavor. Trying to learn the guitar? To them, that was a waste of my time and money. Wanna learn how to rollerblade? They'd go into their 'What are you, gay?' tirades, and so on. Anything that indicated growth or change was met with skepticism, asshole behavior, and of course, anti-gay remarks. Eventually, I left the country. I have much better friends now."
21."I started my transition 20 months ago. It's been radio silence from them. Not even a word from most of them. It stung, but it is what it is."
22."I had a group that I was in from 2019–2021. They became assholes over time, and it took me longer to see that. It was when I failed my Psych 101 class, and they laughed at me to my face. I met up with them again for a concert months later, thinking it would be like old times before we all went our own ways. My one closer friend offered to drive me, and I accepted. When we got there, she strangely ignored me and hung around our other friends. When the show ended, she finally made eye contact to say 'Bye' before leaving with them to the doors. One of them doubled back and said, 'You can come with us to another town to a friend's place, or I can get my mom to drive you home.' I was so overwhelmed and embarrassed that I just went with them to the other town. I called my brother to come pick me up after an hour. They all left elsewhere while I waited for my brother. I haven't been in contact with them again after that."
What was the moment it clicked for you that your former friend was a jerk? Or, if you were the one who realized you were an asshole, what led you to that revelation? Share your truth in the comments.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
