Kate Hackett
The BuzzFeed community recently had a huge swell of people sharing truly atrocious stories of best friend breakups and betrayals. It all started with a Reddit thread by u/NoctisCaelus and ballooned from there.
Here are some of the BuzzFeed Community’s most harrowing stories.
1. My mom had cancer
“I literally had a friend get mad at me because I wanted to talk about my mom being diagnosed with terminal cancer. She yelled at me that she isn’t good with that kind of ‘sad’ stuff, and I shouldn’t force her to deal with it. She had a date that night and said I should be helping her pick out an outfit instead. Eight months later, I mistakenly cried in front of her, and she got mad again.
“I was 15, so I didn’t dump her as a friend as I should have. And sadly I still put up with her for three more years. When I finally got rid of her, I felt a weight lifted. Life’s too short! Don’t waste it with awful people who don’t deserve your special light.”
2. Their own group
“I planned a 4th of July party this year and invited my five closest friends. I sent out a group text, and they all separately texted me back saying they had prior family commitments out of town, which, fine, I get it. But they were lying. They decided to plan a beach trip without me. Apparently, me inviting them to my thing gave them the idea to do their own thing. They came back and told me about how much fun they had without me.
“They created a separate group chat and everything. It still hurts me. I’m not sure what their intentions were, but I wish they could know how much it hurts to see people that you genuinely love and care about not show those same feelings in return.”
3. I didn’t abort the baby
“My ‘best friend’ in the entire world was my nurse during my miscarriage/ectopic pregnancy, and she was a Christian. So me getting emergency surgery was considered an abortion to her. While I was recovering from major surgery, she ran around telling the whole town I had an abortion.
“My pregnancy was very wanted, so I was grieving and heartbroken. The baby’s father had abandoned me too. It takes a truly evil person to do what she did to me.”
4. Wrong Surprise
“For one of my birthdays, I invited all my friends over to my party. While I was grabbing snacks from the other room, I found them all huddled together, whispering. I asked them what was up, and they quickly stopped talking. I stupidly figured it was a planned surprise for me. Shortly after, everyone left at the same time, pretty early in the evening. I was confused and kind of hurt. I saw later on Snapchat that they’d gone to a restaurant and were having a good time without me.
“I’ve never had a good birthday since. And I don’t have a single friend anymore. Yeah, it was a planned surprise for me, but it was the wrong kind of surprise.”
5. She lied to me about work due dates
“My ‘best friend’ and I worked together and were asked to give an important presentation to the board of executives. I worked my ass off preparing for it while my friend did nothing. She would go out partying while I would work for hours. The day before, my friend begged for my forgiveness and said she’d been really stressed, so I showed her the presentation. The day of the presentation arrived, and my best friend tells me the meeting had been pushed back to 4 p.m. instead of 2 p.m. I show up at 4 p.m. to find the meeting actually happened at 2 p.m., and my ‘bestie’ took credit for all my work.
“She lied to me about the time change, so I’d look bad not showing up. Karma kicked her ass when the IT guy went to my boss and was able to show proof that I did everything. My boss had me show the presentation to the board. They were so impressed I got promoted, and my friend got fired. And I ended up marrying the IT guy!”
6. Blew me off
“One of my best friends in high school completely blew me off when she got her first serious boyfriend. She would do things like invite me to watch her boyfriend play sports, and then when everyone went out to dinner after, I was not invited.
“We had been friends for so long; I was still her friend. I was there for her when she later broke up with the BF. Then out of nowhere, she decided we didn’t get along anymore.”
7. My brother died
“All my friends dumped me after my little brother died by suicide. Apparently, I was ‘too much to deal with,’ and I guess it was easier to dump me than realize life wasn’t all rainbows.”
8. Bolted
“When I was in high school, I had a really close friend that had a rough home life situation. I offered for her to come and stay with me as long as she needs to. My family built a little makeshift room for her, bought all of her school supplies and food, and I drove her everywhere she needed to go. She stayed with us for a couple of months until one day, she unexpectedly came home and told us she wanted to move out. It would’ve been fine if she had given us a warning, but she didn’t. She left that day barely saying goodbye, and my mom was heartbroken.
“She had treated her like a daughter, and she felt like she had just been taken advantage of. I left a note in one of her bags saying we would always be sisters. A few weeks later, she tried to punch one of my close friends. She hasn’t spoken to me since, and I have no interest in a relationship with her anymore. It just hurts knowing that someone you and your family invested so much time in to help took advantage of you and your kindness.”
9. Tormented me
“A friend from high school and I moved in together. I’ve had anxiety my whole life and wasn’t yet diagnosed at this point. By the end of our friendship, she and her best friend were texting me literally all night about how fucked up my brain is and how I need help. They tormented me for the last month I lived in that apartment because I was able to move to a new place.
“The kicker is that I was in a car accident the day I ended up moving out of that apartment that actually did cause brain damage (dyscalculia). Super fun. I have a few stories like this. Being highly empathetic and incredibly trusting unfortunately has attracted some shitty humans into my life.”
10. Absolutely lies
“I had just moved schools for the first time and went to a new elementary school across the country. I expected fitting in and making new friends to be pretty difficult, but to my surprise, I had a gigantic group of friends from the first day. Being from a very sheltered area, I never thought to question anyone’s motives. They did loads of passively messed up things from fifth grade to freshman year, but the worst was when they told me how they lied about our friendship and made fun of me the entire time. They also made a bet with different guys to pretend they liked me and see who could pretend the longest or go the furthest. Everything I had known turned out to be fake, and it’s been nearly impossible to get close to people since.
“Basically, it was a giant joke to everyone but myself. It made me so happy that I had this amazing group of friends, AND everyone wanted to be with me, but the fact that it was a consistent game for them for YEARS almost killed me. I just don’t believe that any of it is genuine anymore, even though I know that’s silly. I’m always expecting there to be some ulterior motive or for it to all be a giant joke for them now. It really messed me up.”
11. Too sad
“My best friend from kindergarten dropped me just before sophomore year of high school because, in her eyes, I was too ‘sad’ after being diagnosed with depression. I was diagnosed at 9, and I was 15 at that point, so of course I was sad, but that wasn’t the real problem. She had gotten in with a bad crowd and started asking me to cover for her whenever she went to get drunk with college kids, which I refused every time. She expected me to do it since I’d always been the people-pleasing friend, but I told her I wouldn’t lie to her mom considering all she’d done for me.”
“Once she realized I really wasn’t going to cave for her, that was the end of the friendship. It’s sad to realize your so-called friends don’t always see you as a human being; they just see what you can get them.”
12. Didn’t call her my best friend
“My college ‘friend’ and I had been roommates all of three weeks into the next school year before I said one of my best friends from high school was visiting me. The day after my BFF visited, I get called to a meeting with the RA and RD saying my ‘friend’ came to them crying about how I was letting strangers into our dorm room without her permission, I was buying alcohol for minors, and that I threw a rave in the room and let people take drugs there. The reason for all this? Because I didn’t call her my best friend and called my high school friend my best friend.
“What complete and utter bullshit! I wasn’t even of legal age to drink then and also never tried drugs! What she didn’t know was I was friends with the RA and RD, and they didn’t believe her and helped me move out that day and get a restraining order on her because she proceeded to stalk me on campus, tearfully trying to apologize and talk.”
13. Dad passed away
“My dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer when I was 19. I was devastated, and finally one of my best friends abruptly cut me off while I was crying and venting and said, ‘Everybody dies. You need to stop being such a downer.'”
“I was gutted. Years after my dad died, the same friend had his dog die of cancer and texted me some long apology that he now ‘understood what I was going through.’ Listen, I love my pets like family, but no…you have no idea what I was going through. I guess at the very least I got an apology.”
—shays17
14. Son with autism
“My entire friend group ghosted me when my toddler started showing autistic traits. They stopped responding to messages, didn’t invite us out with them and their kids anymore, and didn’t show up to my wedding, which they had all RSVP’d to.
“After my son’s diagnosis, I found some SEND playgroups and met some lovely people, so it all worked out. To this day, I am unable to make friends with parents of neurotypical kids because they don’t think my son is good enough for their kids, and often their kids don’t want to know either. It’s their loss. 🤷🏼♀️My son is such a sweet, funny, kind, beautiful soul, and I wouldn’t change him for the world.”
15. Slept with an ex
“I dated a guy when I was 19 and lost my virginity to him. He broke things off with me two weeks later, and I was devastated. He was a jerk obviously and not worth my time, and that’s what my close friends kept telling me as I was trying to get over him. I was young and naive, and he and I keep sleeping together on and off for the next few months. I found out about six months later that one of those friends had said something about how she could sleep with him, and he wouldn’t care if it would hurt me. I was so angry she’d said something like that and confronted her. She then admitted she had actually slept with him.”
16. Too depressed
“My best friend of over 10 years left me at the lowest point in my life because I was ‘too depressed’ and confided in her too much about what I was going through. She literally called me a ‘burden’ and didn’t want to be friends with me anymore.
“I never knew I was being too much because she never said anything, and I wish she had told me it was taking a toll on her because I would’ve respected her boundariesThis was over four years ago, and it still hurts. I still miss her so much to this day, even though I know she was a terrible friend. To me, it’s the worst heartbreak I’ve ever felt, and TBH I feel like I’ve never recovered from it because I struggle so much with making new friends and opening up to people now.”
17. Brain surgery
“I had brain surgery two years ago to remove a tumor. After surgery, I didn’t get one call, card, or check-in from people I’ve known for over 20 years.
“Guess having brain damage wasn’t good enough for them. Fuck them all.” —teejayk
18. Dad’s parting gift
“The Christmas before my dad died, he had bought me a digital camera. He knew photography was one of my biggest hobbies. My so-called friend stole it two days later, and my dad died that following April.”
19. It’s not a race
“My ex-best friend never wanted me to date anyone ’cause she thought I was her competition. Anytime I started talking to someone who kinda liked me, she would swoop in, tell me he’s a jerk, and then start dating him.
“That happened maybe five times. And she was the one who stopped being friends with me. I was so loyal to her, and I loved her, but she treated me like crap.” —akatb720
20. Planted the seed
“When I was 22, I was living with my boyfriend for the first time, and we used to spend a lot of time with his best friend and his girlfriend. He always made jokes about how he liked his friend’s girlfriend because she was a gamer. Soon, his friend and girlfriend break up, and she starts spending more time with my boyfriend. One night, I told her it was making me paranoid, and she swore she would never do that to me. Cut to us breaking up but still living together. They get together while I’m still living in the spare room.
“Then they have the audacity to tell me that it’s all my fault because I ‘planted the seed.’ I was heartbroken.”
