Tell me your horror stories about so called "friends"

[leftout1]

I seem to have real bad luck when it comes to female friends. I had 3 close friends of 20+ years, who didn't so much as phone me when my first marriage broke down. I lived a long way from them at this point, so didn't expect a visit, but to not even phone me really shocked me, and I have found it hard to feel as close to them ever since. The same 3 ladies all knew that my H was cheating on me, and no one told me.

When I moved areas, I made friends with 3 new ladies, mainly through school.

One of them turned out to be a raging alcoholic, and I ended up having to rescue her from so many precarious situations, often caring for her child.

One of them had an affair with my husband, whilst still being friendly with me . He is now obviously an ExH.

One of them attacked me on a night out, because a man she fancied chatted me up, and not her.

I left all those friendships behind when I moved to another area. In new area, I have made some friends. One of them can be a bit moody, and one day a few months ago she was quite rude to me and we haven't spoken since. Then, I see from FB that they've all been out last night and left me out. Also, they will have known I will see the photo's, so that's a bit shit, isn't it?

I'm starting to think that female friendships are a bit shit!

Anyone else got any similar stories, to make me feel that I'm not the only one?

@Stockholmvillage ugh. I feel like hen dos really bring out the worst in people!

I have some good friends of long standing, but struggle to make friends locally. I thought I had good friends here but when my mother got ill and then died, they all disappeared, couldnt be bothered to see how I was, changed to subject if I was having a hard day. The real shame is that there was one person I was closer to than the others - as I have distanced from them after their behaviour, we have also got more distant. Female friendships hard.

I’m remembering what happened with my ex best friend. She was always selfish, it was always me supporting her through some difficult experience or other. I remember one occasion when I needed support from her and she asked me to change the subject because she found the subject upsetting.

It all finally imploded when she persuaded me to lend her a substantial sum of money because without it one of her two properties would be repossessed. She said that she was selling up so would soon be able to reimburse me.

It turned out that her debts exceeded the value of her two properties, as she was a total shopaholic. She was also bipolar, which was why I made excuses for her for so long. But that episode saw the scales fall from my eyes, especially as it impacted on my DH as well as on me.

She never did pay the money back. She sent a couple of Christmas cards with newsletters detailing her overseas holidays. My DH used to say sarcastically, ‘I wonder whether she’s enclosed a cheque this time?’

I’ve had to write off the money and the friendship. I learned a very expensive and personally painful lesson. It’s a mistake I wouldn’t make now.

My best school friend at start of secondary. I had a really torrid time aged about 13. She was bitching behind my back and happily took up a dare to slap me on the bus. I distanced myself a bit. I'd supported her through her parents divorce but I was fair game.

The when we were older we were friendly again but then she got more and more derogatory.... and last straw was when was vile to me. She asked me to make something (I had a small business) but I ended up ill and couldn't do it. I did tell her, and didn't charge her but she was vile.

Realised I'd been far too nice for too long. Cut her off. Don't regret it.

Having your trust so undermined is very damaging though.

This thread is making me feel a lot better about being so cautious with female friends. I've just never been very good at making and keeping them, but at least I haven't put up with borderline abuse.
I suppose the worst was a school friend who started bullying me when my father was dying from cancer. I don't know why she turned like that, but I expect she isn't happy now either.

A friend of mine asked me to go to her work Christmas party with her and got me a ticket which I had to pay for. This was in the October. At the end of November she met her boyfriend and asked me for the ticket back. I thought it was terrible behaviour but all our other friends backed her up. I was gobsmacked. They eventually married but are now split up.

I hated it when girls would prioritise blokes over their female friends when previous arrangements have been made. I once booked a holiday with my best mate - first two weeks in September. She met a guy on the 4th July and a few weeks later he was sulking and moaning about the holiday and tried to stop her going. She ignored him, and dumped him 18 months later after he hit her. #

If I have made plans with a friend, I wouldn't change them unless absolutely essential. Not even for Chris Hemsworth.

I had a friend, K throughout primary and secondary school, we were really close and she was great fun but every now and again she would turn on me and be vile, slagging me off and ignoring me.

This usually coincided with her becoming close with another person, she would also get jealous if I spent time with others, it’s like she couldn’t accept that it was possible to be friends with more than one person at a time.

She would also do what is known on here as ‘wendying’. She would also do weird stuff like make up stories and lies to impress people and include me in them which was really awkward but I didn’t want to embarrass her by saying that never happened.
She was adopted and her parents were lovely but I think I gave her a quite a bit of leeway because of this.

A new girl, L joined our (secondary) school and I became friends with her. K and L met and then something kind of weird happened, basically they pretended they hated each other and would really try and get me to indulge in bitching about the other one to each other, like L would call me and say ‘don’t you think K’s a massive skank, don’t you think K’s house is really dirty’ etc. I never did go along with it all but tried to be as diplomatic as a 13 year old can be, I was quite upset and worried about it though.

It came to a head at school one day, when they pretended to meet at lunch to have it out/fight but actually started laughing and hugging and told everyone (I wasn’t there) that they were best friends all along. They’d basically concocted the whole thing to get me to bitch about them so they could have a go at me/ditch me, and even though I hadn’t they ditched me anyway. It was horrible at the time but seems completely batshit now!

Anyway, rather predictably they’d fallen out for real within weeks and K came crawling back and I let her, but never really forgave. About 5 years later I got wind that she was bitching about me again, and that was it for me, I dropped her there and then.

It actually turned out not to be true that time but the ship had sailed by then.

I spent a lot of years just hanging out with boys, but now have about 7/8 amazing girlfriends that I love so much. I feel sorry for men sometimes that they don’t get to experience friendships in the way we do.

If I have made plans with a friend, I wouldn't change them unless absolutely essential. Not even for Chris Hemsworth.

Oh but even I would accept him as an excuse, unless it was a sad reason I'd asked my friend to meet me or vice versa. Its Chris Hemsworth, can't say no to that gorgeous man. Mind you don't think I'd be very coherent anyway if he spoke to me.

Ooh, I have thought of a specific one:
Became friends with a group. Was warned this particular woman was a "shit stirrer". She seemed lovely to me, but the woman who warned me seemed bitchy and spiteful so I chose not to believe her.

She was fine for a while, but would moan to me about her boyfriend, personal stuff about sex and hygiene (e.g. he didn't wash his clothes enough).
I would support her by nodding and agreeing with her, but some time later the bf would confront me about things I had been saying about him behind his back. I'd been saying he didn't wash his clothes enough!
The bf ended up hating me!
Also invited the couple for a meal, spent ages cooking and they didn't turn up. Had to phone them to see where they were.
Bf answered and was telling me they were just about to set off but I heard her in the background saying she "couldn't be doing" with me! Bf turned up alone, she never came.
It was the last time I cooked for them.

I got added to a big girls group chat a while ago which i thought was great. Mainly work girls all with much better positions than me in the company (i'm very happy with my position though i'll add) anyway they would often meet up spontaneously which was hard for me as i've a son but if there were get togethers a few days away or on a weekend i'd arrange for him to be looked after txt the group and find plans had changed or get no response or see they'd rescheduled and had dinner together instead. I made attempts to arrange drinks, coffees through the group chat but no one ever replied. They'd cross messages and reply to each other though. And i found out there were more 'inner-cricle' groups too so people could be sneakily excluded. Like in Mean Girls! After a few more half hearted attempts to make some friendships i left the group and no one even asked after me. Funny though when i see these girls in person back when we were in the office or at a company function they couldn't be friendlier, so i realised they are NOT my cup of tea! It sounds to me like girls you were friends with before got quite jealous of you and weren't able to celebrate your happiness. My two best friends are gay guys and amaaazing and me and my best female friend could not be more opposite from me but somehow the friendship just works. Im sure i'd be your friend (hope that isn't creepy) you sound nice and 'normal' and seem to have met some seriously mental people.

Yep. I have just cut loose a very controlling territorial bullying friend.
Thrives on drama and all things bad, never celebrates anything in your life that she wants from her own yet does nothing to achieve what she wants.
Recently fell pregnant and pussyfooted around her so I didn't trigger her as she had a termination 5 years ago ( wanted and choice but I think she felt regret) and since can't bare to be around her pregnant friends. I 'warned' her as soon as I knew so she wasn't shocked and triggered when she saw/heard. I've since miscarried and informed her again and I've heard nothing from her since. I've now realised - when I've got nothing worse to lose- that she isn't a friend at all. So I'm happy to finally let her go.

Sorry to be about your miscarriage @doodledeedum hope you are ok
Yip - cut them loose - I don't regret it one bit

@jannyapple thank you :( it's sad it takes something like this to see things clearly isn't it x

@Doodledeedum apologies .. auto correct is a cow sometimes
I meant sorry to hear .. obviously

Witnessed too many disastrous friendships but will mention a few:

• I have just cut off my friend of 10 years due to her constant lies, her jealousy about everything I have in my life ( not much by the way but I'm content) and the fact that she's just not trustworthy.

• My neighbour slept with her best friend's husband after the birth of their 1st child. Such shocking morals!

• My sister's so-called best friend stole her husband and is now married to the guy. This came without any warning by the way and this woman was supported by my sister for years, would loom after her kids and even clean her house. She absolutely adored her.

@LizzieW1969 I feel your pain. A friend of mine was persuaded to invest in a shady business by her best friend of 30 years. She lost over £90k and recently found out this evil, toxic friend planned to defraud her all along. How much did you lend your friend?

I personally struggle to have female friendships and try to keep things as low key as possible.

@Hugbear

That’s really horrible, I’m sorry your friend went through that. Thankfully I didn’t lend my friend nearly as much, it was £6k. The awful thing was that the money was part of my DH’s inheritance from his Grandad and she knew that. She promised him personally that she took that very seriously.

I talked him into doing it, because she had recently lost her dad and appeared to be in a very bad way. (She was, but I realise that I always made too many allowances for her behaviour.)

I had a great bunch of mates recently, we were always meeting up for coffee etc. Then covid hit and I hardly heard from them again. One of them I was quite close to and I haven’t spoken to her in about nine months. She dropped me from a mutual childcare arrangement we had without even telling me, I had to find out from the kids talking about it at school. Been utterly blanked ever since. Really hurtful. Keep wondering what the fuck I’m supposed to have done. Dh bless him keeps telling me she’s clearly not worth the effort but I’m just so sad about it, I thought we were great mates.

Thank god I’ve got some really close girl friends who are brilliant and agree with him that she’s batshit.

It's gone quiet with my friends. I've decided not to instigate contact with them again to see who bothers to get in touch.

A work colleague seemed keen to keep in touch and meet up but she's gone quiet as well.

Luckily I have a few family members I am in contact with otherwise I'd be really isolated although I do like my own company at times.

I'm planning to shake up my life after covid.

@almostweekend

It's gone quiet with my friends. I've decided not to instigate contact with them again to see who bothers to get in touch.

A work colleague seemed keen to keep in touch and meet up but she's gone quiet as well.

Luckily I have a few family members I am in contact with otherwise I'd be really isolated although I do like my own company at times.

I'm planning to shake up my life after covid.

@MsAdoraBelleDearheartVonLipwig and @almostweekend

I wonder though if person your other friends are thinking the same of you, did you attempt to reach out to your friend @MsAdoraBelleDearheartVonLipwig ? Maybe you friend is waiting for you to contact her?

And @almostweekend perhaps all of your friends are all individually sitting back and waiting for someone else to contact first? Someone needs to make the first move.

That should say *perhaps your other friends

@CokeDrinker - I have made contact with 3 friends and they know I am interested in meeting or a call or Zooming so I will now leave it up to them.

@CokeDrinker not really, to be honest. I used to wave when I saw her but she seemed to ignore me so I stopped. And now I notice that she’s unfriended me on Facebook. So childish. I can’t be bothered with it anymore.