I had one, who wasn't really down to me, she was part of a group I became part of. She did all the usual, les, manipulating people to turn against each other etc. Now only one person from that group still speaks to her. Funny that...
There is someone in my life though and I occasionally wonder if she's toxic or just extremely needy.
We met at uni and were relatively close. When I dropped out I started to lose touch with people and couldn't afford to go out as much as I wasn't working, when I did get a job I worked Friday and Saturday nights. Eventually people stopped inviting me. Fine, I had other friends who weren't as superficial.
This girl got upset that I didn't throw myself on her doorstep in tears demanding to know why she didn't want to play with me anymore. I was slowly ingratiated back into the group and as my DH and her now fiance get on well we all just plodded along.
When we bought our first house it was outside the city centre. Meanwhile this little group had all slowly moved further and further over to the opposite side of the city (job proximity etc, our house was chosen for easy links to the uni I was now attending) We were regularly invited over to their flat, and we returned the invitations often, only to be told that it was too far for them to come to us, so we should go to them because we had a car (apparently the drink/drive laws passed her by)
She began to develop ways of making us pander to her, if she was hungry then she'd complain like a toddler, get snappy and irritable and on one occasion ate before we went out for a group meal as we would be eating too late for her. She she ordered a glass of wine and spent the entire meal on her Blackberry.
We moved 150 miles away, again for work, and they've been up to visit us once. Every month there is a complaint that we never go and see them, despite the fact we're down at least once every two months.
Every gig, concert and restaurant she has ever been to she describes as "The worst experience." When I called her on this she burst into tears and accused me of being too hard on her. The fact she said the exact thing ten minutes later escaped her irony sensors.
She is known for bitching and backstabbing amongst the group and nearly led to a friend from uni and I coming to blows when I warned him what she could be like and he told me she was one of his best friends and would never be like that. Needless to say a few months later she moved on from her little dalliance with being nice and made comments about his sexuality (which he has a complex about) and how the relationship he was trying to get over was never going anywhere anyway.
I haven't heard from her for two months, and don't expect to until I give birth in a few weeks, when I'll be flavour of the week again. The last time I spoke to her she was moaning about being unemployed, something which she could have an effect on but chooses not to, when I had just been made redundant at seven months pregnant.
The only way I can describe her is an emotional vampire, if everyone isn't focussed on her then they're wrong. If we're all out in a pub and she's trying to say something and people are distracted or interrupt or have food brought and try to talk to the staff then she gets upset (and often cries about it) If we want to go to a different pub/restaurant/cinema/car park to her then we're ganging up on her. She once even refused to speak to me all evening because I took my friend who has mild agoraphobia to a quieter bar for a drink when we got to the original suggested meeting place to find it jam packed and everyone else was still at a gig. We text them and said where we were going and why and she told me the place we were going was too expensive so we'd have to go back to the original place when they deigned to arrive. I didn't then jump up and run down the road so was clearly wrong. When my other friend went home and I wandered down I ordered a drink and sat down and when I still had half a pint left she decided it was time to leave and told me to down my drink or be left behind. Then walked out.
Her fiance was made redundant about two years ago and suddenly everything became about how she had no money, they had to postpone their wedding, she couldn't afford to go out for dinner or get takeaway more than once a week (!) and generally how awful it is being skint. This despite the fact her parents are paying for her wedding and the rest of us had to work through uni so were regularly skint for the first four-five years we knew each other.
Now I'm having DC1 I get the feeling we'll drift apart and possibly lose touch for good, when talking about her upcoming wedding she made several rather hurtful comments about people daring to bringing their spawn children to her wedding, seemingly forgetting that I was pregnant while she was doing so (note, the wedding isn't child free, has never been advertised as such and her fiance wants all his nieces and nephews there so will never be) she constantly makes comments about how she doesn't understand why I'd want to have a baby, how I can't be ready, how weird it is (I'm 26 and have been married five years, I don't think it's that unusual to want to have a baby at this stage)
The sad thing is I think all I'd feel if we did drift apart is relief.