Kate Hackett
The end of a friendship or a romantic relationship —really any human relationship of any kind — can be really difficult. There are all kinds of feelings that sway you back and forth about whether or not it’s a good idea: should you write this person off? is it fixable? are YOU the problem? And these are all valid, important questions to ask before you finally bite that bullet.
But then there are some people who make the choice SO EASY… and those are the folks we’ve rounded up in this list from the BuzzFeed community. We can all safely write off every one of these ex-friends.
1. I WHAT.
“When I broke up with the man that I had been living with for three years for being a cheater. He wrote me a letter to try to win me back. I opened it excitedly, only to find that he spelled my first name wrong.” —Anonymous, New York
2. What a jerk
“My ex-boyfriend had been on and off for a while and the final straw was when we were pulling into my gated apartment complex. An elderly woman was in her car ahead of us, attempting to punch numbers into the gate code box. She was obviously having a hard time and the gate wasn’t opening, but my ex started cussing and honking and was so annoyed with her. I knew at that moment that we were over.” —Anonymous, 40, Texas
3. Drama queen
“I had a friend that people had warned me about getting close to because she was very dramatic and always played the victim. I don’t like judging people based on others’ opinions so we got friendly during COVID lockdowns and, for the most part, had a great time together. Towards the end of the year, her behavior became a little erratic. She had gotten really jealous, clingy, and overly dramatic. She had gotten angry with me in public a few times and once had even yelled at me and another friend at the bar. It was really embarrassing. The final straw for me was when she publicly told people that she had COVID, isolated for a few days (maybe three tops), and I ran into her at a BAR.”
“After this, she tried to turn things around on me and make me out to be the bad guy to mutual friends even though she was at a bar with COVID, which is what really sealed the deal that she was not worth having in my life. Before we met, I had known her through social circles because we always went to the same concerts, and I had known of her mental health state and was sympathetic to it. But after I saw her at the bar, I started to slowly back off being friends with her in the nicest way that I could.
Eventually, we stopped hanging out as much and I was honestly relieved. I still see her around and wish her the best, but I am beyond happy to be out of that friendship. Maybe I could have handled things a little differently too but overall, I made the best decision cutting off ties.” —Anonymous, 30, Tennessee
4. Sister in law
“My brother’s wife lost a second sibling and started telling people that she had to quit hoping that one of my brother’s siblings would die so that he knew what she felt like. Who says things like that? When I called her out, she immediately became the victim. I don’t miss her or my brother, he is miserable in that marriage but he loves drama.” —Anonymous, 48, Illinois
5. Gutted my mom
“My mom, who had been the matriarch of my family, had been taken advantage of by a close family member. In 2014, my mom began showing signs of dementia and her health steadily declined. As she deteriorated, this family member secretly persuaded her to sign over power of attorney. The family member then proceeded to open credit cards and loans in my mom’s name and get work done on their house, while my mom’s own roof was falling down around her. By the time my husband and I found out the extent of it, the family member had wiped her out.”
“This person gutted my mom, and legally there was nothing that we could do about it because of the POA. I made a vow right then that when my mom passed, I would not have anything to do with members of my greedy family again, and I have stuck to that. My mom passed in 2017, and I have not talked to any of my family who are responsible for ruining and taking advantage of her, nor will I ever.” —Anonymous, 50, Pennsylvania
6. BFF From High School
“My best friend from high school moved away after graduation but we maintained our friendship. One summer, I paid for concert tickets, her roundtrip plane ride, food, gas, and more for a trip we had planned. This was all for her to ‘mistakenly’ text me (after I dropped her at the airport) about how I drove her crazy the whole week she visited. I cried during the whole drive home but never spoke to her again.” —Anonymous, 28, North Carolina
7. WHOA.
“When my husband told me that my mixed-race granddaughter would never amount to anything because she was half black. I left him the day after he said it, a full month before she was even born.” —Anonymous, 50, California
8. I feel like I’ve been here.
“I had a guy friend who basically friend-zoned me for a couple of years. I told him how I felt about him, and while he didn’t feel the same, we had the occasional hook-up. When I finally found the courage to move on, I met someone that swept me off my feet, and my guy friend was not happy for me. He became obsessed with destroying my new guy’s character and proceeded to stalk his social media and tell lies about him because they lived in the same city. The final straw was when he made up a huge lie that my guy was cheating on me and that he knew the girls personally. When it came time to ‘produce those receipts’ he backtracked on everything that he said.”
“My (ex) friend would also constantly start arguments with me and tell me that this guy was using me and that I was ‘dumb’ and ‘delusional’ for believing that this person could ever love me. I realized the friendship was extremely toxic and walked away immediately.” —Anonymous, 37, Delaware
9. It’s not a competition
“My sister had made visiting or calling my elderly mom a competition. I live with my mom and help her with pretty much everything because she needs it. I get no pay, she’s my mother, and that’s the right thing to do. I’d gotten my mother a cell phone, which she lost, unbeknownst to me. When my sister couldn’t get ahold of her, instead of calling me to see if mom was okay, she went directly to our state adult protective services and lied, telling them that I was abusing my mom by not letting her have contact with anyone.”
“Of course this is untrue, but we still had to go through an interview with a caseworker who wouldn’t reveal who’d ‘reported’ it, but I knew who it was. The kicker? Concerned sister never called, sent a card, anything, for months after this until Christmas. She called, leaving a voice mail saying she was moving out of state and it’d be the ‘last time she’d get to see Mom.’ Apparently, she was either joining a cult, going to prison or her new home state has no airports.
My mom decided that she had nothing to say to her after all she put her through. For me, it was Christmas, my sister was moving away, there really is a Santa! I am done with her forever and don’t claim her. Best decision ever.” —Anonymous, 59, Washington State
10. What diagnosis
“I had helped this person through a couple of surgeries, cancer treatment, and his mother having a stroke and then her passing. I always listened to his stories (again and again) and supported him. I had received a life-changing medical diagnosis, and it was quite a shock. My life was completely in chaos and I called him and told him about it. Cue to a few weeks later, I called him to say hello. He asked how I was, I answered, ‘I’m okay, but still upset about the diagnosis.’ He said, ‘What diagnosis?'”
“I couldn’t believe that he did not remember, and figured that if he could not remember that, then he did not need to be in my life.” —Anonymous, 53, California
11. Offered so little
“I flew out to Ohio from Texas to help my friend move across state lines. She never offered to pay for my ticket or anything else, and when I got there, she had a house full of stuff that she had not even started to pack. It was A LOT of work that I had essentially paid to fly out there to help her with. She spent the entire move yelling at me and making fun of me when I got her instructions wrong. She then mocked me for not staying up later to help one night when I fell asleep at 1 a.m.”
“I excused that because I assumed that she was stressed. We drove for several hours to get to Wisconsin where she proceeded to get drunk and curse me out for sharing stories about my own life with a friend who was also helping her. She then turned to him and said ‘Thank you for helping us. We could not have done it without you.’ I don’t know how he was helping us move. She just became more and more drunk and obnoxious, and when I came back to Texas, I ended the friendship.” —Anonymous, 38, Texas
12. Follow up mammogram
“I had a follow-up mammogram appointment due to the radiologist seeing a suspicious-looking mass in one of my breasts. After the second mammogram and ultrasound confirmed that there was indeed something there to worry about, I came home in tears. The entire day went by before I realized that my partner of nearly 14 years was not going to ask me if anything was found, so I decided to share the information myself. His reaction? He said, ‘Oh, that sucks,’ and then proceeded to take the dog for a walk and then went to bed. No follow-up questions or anything! Yeah, he was an ass.”
13. The cheating!
“When I came over for New Year’s Eve and he admitted that he had just met up with his ex a few days prior because she requested that they meet and talk. Clearly, if you’re completely over someone, you wouldn’t even entertain the idea and I said as much. I had a drink while he explained that nothing happened, and how he thought it was so ridiculous that she still wanted to be friends. As I sat quietly while he tried to read my thoughts, he said that he also needed to get it off his chest that he went on a couple of dates recently and also had a one-night stand about a month ago. I left without a word. He texted a couple of hours before midnight and I’ve never responded.” —Anonymous, 35, CA
14. Family toxicity
“My family was always a little toxic and not very caring towards me, but it got really bad after I was diagnosed with Celiac disease. My mother started using it to cut me off from the family. She would say things like, ‘You can’t come on a cruise with us because there won’t be anything for you to eat,’ or, ‘Your sister’s birthday is tomorrow but don’t bother coming because there won’t be anything for you to eat.’ The last straw: During my oldest sister’s visit, the one time I was ‘allowed’ to share a meal with them, I asked them to wait for me to get to the house so that I could join them on their geo-caching. I arrived, and no one was there. My mother had told them not to wait.”
“For reference, there were always ingredients on hand for me to make something for myself at family events, like an omelet; My mom just didn’t want me as part of her family. None of my siblings had ever stood up for me either, not even when they were asked to bring me leftovers from a meal that I was told that I couldn’t come to.
After I arrived at that empty house, I left. I don’t have anything to do with my siblings, and the only reason that I have contact with my mother now is because it’s the only way that I know if my dad is still alive.” —Anonymous, 60, Florida
15. Really crappy friend
“I was always told by my mother that my best friend, who I’d known since we were 13, wasn’t really my best friend. Over the years, I enjoyed the times that we spent together so much that I didn’t put much weight on how rude and mean she often was. When we became much older (in our late 20’s), I introduced her to my boyfriend. At the restaurant, she began heavily flirting with him by taking food from his plate, eating from his fork, and trying to command his attention. When I brought it up to her, she tried to fight me. I realized that day I didn’t want someone like that in my life.”
“It took a few more years to cut her off, but one day she just made a remark while we were catching up on a call, ‘Something always goes wrong when you’re around,’ and I just hung up the phone and blocked her. I should have done that a long time ago.” —Anonymous, 44, Florida
16. Sex on my dead brother’s quilt
“My college roommate, who I had grown up with, took a ‘memorial’ quilt made of my deceased brother’s shirts and had sex on it with her boyfriend while I was out. She then shoved the quilt into the dirt and garbage under her bed. Then, after I accidentally walked in on them while they were still going at it in our room and stepped back out so that they could get dressed, she (without cleaning her boyfriend’s cum off herself) cut the tags off some of my brand new clothes, put them on, and then left.”
“I not only found my special quilt all nasty and dirty when I came back in, but I also accidentally stepped barefoot on their sheets which had cum all over them. When I told her later that this was the last straw and that she needed to move out, she tried to convince me that the cum was just sweat and it was no big deal, I needed to calm down, etc. She then promptly told a mutual friend, ‘Yeah she totally stepped in our cum, but I told her that it was just sweat. She believes whatever I tell her, so it’s no big deal.'”
—Anonymous, 38, Alabama
17. New will
“After my father lived with me for 12 years, he developed congestive heart failure, kidney disease, and dementia. Six months prior to my father’s death, my younger brother went behind my back and had him sign a new will leaving his entire estate to him and my brother’s daughter, something that I KNOW I could never have done to him. He is an evil snake.” —Anonymous, 62, Georgia
18. Not one word.
“My best friend of 20+ years and maid of honor at my wedding didn’t even acknowledge the birth of my son (and still hasn’t). I went through years of infertility treatments and after trying for six years, we finally got pregnant. That’s about when things started to go downhill, but the fact that she has never said one word to me since his birth is when I was done with that relationship entirely.” —Anonymous, 36, Texas
19. Raped a girl
“During the course of getting a divorce, my (now) ex-husband got arrested for raping a drunk girl that he met at a club. In an attempt to guilt-trip me into calling off the divorce, he told me that it was my fault that he did it. He said that I made him do it because he wasn’t in the right state of mind because I had left him. That was the final nail in the coffin for me. I’m not staying in contact with someone who doesn’t take any responsibility for their actions and uses manipulation to control their relationships.” —Anonymous, 36, Texas
20. Shady job
“I didn’t like where I lived and the people that I lived around anymore. I was thinking about moving, and my friend said that he would give me a job at his small company if I moved there and even offered me a great salary, so I agreed. From day one, there were problems. The hours were endless, and his man in charge didn’t know how to schedule jobs so we were always late. Because of that, we couldn’t do the work properly so we’d have to go back and redo it, in addition to whatever else we had to do. I had grounds to quit because of the violations and because they were trying to push me out since I ‘complained’ too much. When I did quit, he told his shady manager, ‘Don’t let him get any unemployment.'”
“Mind you, I didn’t even get the salary that I was previously promised while I was working there, and when I brought it up to him, he said that he didn’t remember offering me that, even though it was only like two weeks prior. Meanwhile, he just sat at home; he wanted to be one of those guys who just collects money and does nothing all day.
There were plenty of shady practices at that job, but even the manager wasn’t bad enough to not offer me unemployment when I quit. But, when my friend found out the manager wouldn’t lie, he lied about the circumstances so they stopped paying me while we would have to slowly fight this out by letter. I had no money, my roommate and I were destitute and didn’t have food, and my car got towed so I had to walk to job interviews. My roommate and I eventually moved back where we were previously. I did thank the guy for helping us when we got there and left it at that. His life isn’t going super great right now, I wonder why.” —Anonymous, 32, Virginia
