Nothing is better than having a great friend who you can trust and do everything with. On the flip side, nothing hurts worse than when they turn out to be someone else. These people share outrageous stories about when they found out their friends were fake. This content has been edited for clarity.
“Worst Day of My Life”
“In college, I was in a hit and run car accident and needed surgery on my skull. My parents couldn’t afford to fly out to be with me. When I shared this with my friend/roommate, she insisted she would take care of me that day and I wouldn’t have to worry about anything. I did not ask her, she simply volunteered. When my other friend said he was going to figure out how to get off work that day, I told him not to worry about it because the other friend had me covered.
It was the evening before the surgery and I was incredibly nervous. It was the first time I was having a big medical procedure done without my family present. My friend/roommate wasn’t around so I texted her asking where she was. She said she was going to sleep at her boyfriends house that night. The nature of the surgery meant I wouldn’t know the exact time of the procedure until five a.m. the next morning. I told her it might cut things close if she’s not with me but she said it would be fine and stopped answering my texts the rest of the night. I sat there alone and afraid the night before my surgery.
The next morning at 5 a.m., I got the call that I need to be at the hospital in 45 minutes and in the operating room by 6:30 a.m. I called my friend but she didn’t answer. I texted her that I was taking a cab and we would swing by to pick her up at her boyfriend’s. No answer. I was worried because I needed someone there with me or else I wouldn’t be allowed to leave the hospital. I ran out of time waiting for her reply so I rushed to the hospital and checked in.
The nurse asked where my chaperone was and I lied saying she was in the bathroom, so they let me into the changing room. At that point, I was desperately texting everyone I knew begging them to come to the hospital but nobody replied. Finally, I had to put my phone in the plastic bag and lie on the bed. I got the shot and went under general anesthesia.
About six hours later, I woke up to the same nurse I had lied to earlier. She was angry because there was nobody there to pick me up. I described my friend to her and the nurse went out to look. Then I had to get dressed by myself. After that ordeal, I stayed for another hour, alone, just coming off the anesthesia. Finally, my friend arrived with her boyfriend.
Apparently, they got to the hospital about two hours after I was put to sleep. They got bored and started walking around. I guess they got lost or lost track of time but they found me awake and fully dressed when they got back. We checked out of the hospital and I bought us a cab back to our house. When we got back, they sat with me for about 20 minutes before leaving me alone again and going back to the boyfriend’s house. They didn’t have any plans or anything, just wanted their privacy.
That was the worst day of my life.”
Liar Liar
“We were friends for over a year but it felt like we’d known each other forever. He would always make it a point to let me know I was someone he trusted and was the ‘only’ person he had. He would tell me that ‘everyone leaves’ him, that ‘he always hurts people’ and my response to that was to make sure I never left his texts unanswered and promised to be there for him no matter what.
One day, out of the blue, he told me our friendship was over. I remember feeling like my heart was shattered. I cried for weeks trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. Our mutual friends assured me he had a very good reason for doing this and he’d be back to being my friend soon.
So I began waiting, constantly worried about him. He told all our mutual friends what was wrong, except me, and instructed them not to let me know. Finally, my best friend called me one day and told me he lied to every single person he knew, and nothing we thought we knew about him was true at all.
Turned out, he told everyone he’d been diagnosed with cancer and had to take time away from everyone. During our friendship, he opened up to me about his extremely abusive household and most of our friendship was me letting him know he deserved better and that I’d do anything to help him out of there. None of what he said was true.
The truth came out because one of my friends caved and called his sister to find out how he was doing. She was confused because he was absolutely healthy. When asked about their parents’ separation, she confirmed that their parents were indeed together and were never at risk of divorce.”
Thief Alert
“I had my friend group over a bunch because my family went on vacation without me and I was home alone. I had known every single person who was over since I was in elementary school and treated them all like they were my brothers. I woke up one morning to grab a big gift card I had gotten for my birthday and found out it was gone.
I called up Best Buy to see if someone used the gift card and found out it had indeed been used already to buy a car stereo head unit. I got the specific model. Then I called up my one friend’s girlfriend and asked her if he had bought anything at Best Buy lately. She said he had and I asked if he had used a gift card. She said yes. I asked if he had bought a head unit of that specific model. She said yes again.
My other friends and I then got in our cars and drove over to his house. We looked into his vehicle and saw the brand-new headset installed in his car. Theoretically, in a ‘totally didn’t happen scenario,’ we then proceeded to break off all his mirrors, and windows and slashed his tires. The guy didn’t understand why I didn’t want to talk to him ever again.”
Friendship = Ruined
“I had been seeing a girl for several months. We were an unofficially official sort of thing and introduced each other as boyfriend/girlfriend and all that. When my birthday came around, I had some friends over for drinks. One of those was Aaron. He was the last guy from our school friend group I was still friends with. Pretty sure it was my 22nd, so we’d been friends for a while. My girlfriend was drinking a fair bit and decided I wasn’t giving her enough attention and was flirting with him a bit. I didn’t really mind as she wasn’t sober and I figured it wouldn’t go anywhere since I trusted him.
My girlfriend was absolutely plastered by the time things wound down and everyone started going home. Aaron was also trashed and was going to be sleeping on the couch. The two of them ended up on the couch making out and who knows what else. She started throwing up not long after and that sobered her up enough to realize what she was doing.
The next morning, he acted like we were still friends and I was just quietly waiting for it to be long enough that he could drive home. I blocked him on everything the moment he left and had a talk with my girlfriend. I ended up forgiving her due to how plastered she was and how sorry she was.
I found out a few days later at least two of my other friends had been telling Aaron he needed to stop because she was my girlfriend and he just made excuses and ignored them.
Looking back, it wasn’t really a surprise. He’d started dating my ex a month after she broke up with me, then cheated on her with one of his little brother’s friends and got dumped.”
Free Ride
“I broke my ankle one summer while in college. I stayed in my hometown with my mom to recover. One weekend, my friend asked me for a ride up to our college town. I was mostly recovered, but still needed to use crutches. I said yes because I needed to take care of some things and asked if he’d help me get around while we were there. I told him he’d have to do all the driving because I couldn’t press the clutch with my ankle. He agreed.
As soon as we arrived to my apartment in my college town, he took three shots so he wouldn’t have to drive anymore. Then he wanted to go smoke at his friend’s place. I don’t smoke and wasn’t going to crutch the two mile walk to watch them smoke. I told him to invite his friend to my place. He said no and left.
I didn’t see him again until the next night when he swung by to take me to a party while already super wasted. This party was only a mile walk away and I had been by myself the whole weekend so I agreed to go.
The party was fine and I was actually hitting it off with a girl late into the night. My friend was now completely trashed and told me we needed to leave. I told him I wanted to stay and gestured to the girl. He insulted her, so she walked away. If that wasn’t bad enough, he then refused to walk me back to my apartment because it was ‘too out of his way,’ so I had to crutch a mile back to my apartment alone at one a.m. I have no idea why he wanted to leave with me if he had no intention of helping me.
The next day, we were supposed to drive back to our hometown, but he wasn’t answering his phone. I bit the bullet and drove to his place even though using the clutch hurt my ankle. He had apparently been drinking and smoking all night and into the morning and couldn’t drive. I got his roommate to help him into the car and then drove three and a half hours back to our hometown while he slept and my ankle ached.
Clearly, he had wanted to come up to the town to party, wanted a free ride, and had no interest in helping me.”
Bully Bully
“My friend was the kind of guy to spray paint caterpillars to watch them die, shoot bbs at stray cats, throw rocks inside snowballs and then laugh at someone getting hurt. He didn’t get in trouble because no one else saw what happened and I never said who, even if my mom knew. His mom tried almost everything to make him behave but he was just that bad.
My tenth birthday party was the first time I’d actually tried to have a big group. It was around thirty kids at a park with a t-ball set up, normal picnic stuff, and the like. My best friend at the time said he had a surprise for me in one of the fenced walkways leading to the park where he sucker punched me and his other friend and he took turns jumping on and kicking me. After a few minutes, another kid from the party saw, ran them off, and took me back to my mom away from the other kids so I didn’t have to be too embarrassed.
The boy who stepped in and I didn’t really know each other, he was the guy everyone else was afraid of because he got big, young.
The upside is my friend regretted doing that to me for years afterwards, and when he finally apologized to me, he was a totally different person and has been since. He’s still a little atypical, but not malicious at all. He told me he hit me because the other kid wanted to be his new best friend and he was angry at me for criticizing him about how cruel he could be. The other kid, ‘Steve,’ hated me for being poor and Jewish and pushed my friend to hate me too.
It being my birthday didn’t matter because I really wasn’t friends with anyone, I was really trying to make some for the first time (which might have set Steve off, come to think). There were loads of families in the area so it was really a case of throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.
He went to boarding school the next year and it was somehow really good for him; heck of a man last I knew.
I’m fortunate enough that that became a ‘last straw for what I’d put up with’ type of moment and got through it. I know that doesn’t happen for everybody who has to deal with being bullied quite so hard.”
“Stop Copying Me”
“My friend upsold her city and then when I decided to move here, got cagey. There were lots of inebriated confessions from her about feeling threatened by me, hating how people thought we were sisters sometimes (we had similar laughs and both wore glasses), and how I wasn’t cool enough, but she was also upset about the things I was bold enough to do.
She had all sorts of weird ideas of what were ‘her things’ that I ‘kept stealing from her’ like short hair, knee high boots, and southwestern print items while they were all that was being sold at Target and I constantly jumped between haircuts. At one point, she even tried to tell me I shouldn’t part my hair off center because it was ‘stealing her look.’
Mind you, she was 5’7” and I am 5′. She was lanky and I am stocky, I’m a huge nerd and she was artsy, I was fat and she was skinny. We had different food tastes, hobbies, and social groups, but it ended up being like she was trying to be cool but felt threatened constantly by any similarities we shared.
We also didn’t hang out much even though she lived two blocks away. I made much better and less insecure friends though! And nobody tells me I am copying them for having the same shoes from one of three stores in the area selling clothes.”
“Superiority Complex”
“I got a job offer to teach in a college a few months after graduating university. Some of my old teachers recommended me for the position, it was a pretty big deal, and I was so proud. When I shared the news with my friend, and she said,
‘Oh great, you’ll be impossible to talk to now!’
When I asked her to explain, she said I had a superiority complex and this position of power was not what my bloated ego needed and she was sorry for my future students. She cut all contact with me that same day.
In my defense, eight years later, my grown-up students still texted me for advice sometimes and while I was still in that college, both my students and their parents went out of their way to tell me they appreciate the way I treated them and all the extra effort I put into my teaching. Some of them reconsidered their career paths since they enjoyed studying my subject. I myself am in therapy battling low self-esteem and am terrified of acting entitled or egotistical, which affected both my professional and personal lives.
For some dumb reason, I reconnected with that friend a few years ago but it obviously didn’t last. She said she couldn’t remember why we stopped talking and kept telling me how she admired all my achievements.”
Flaky Friends
“The first New Years Eve my husband and I had our own place big enough to entertain people, we invited all our friends for a party, bought about 500 bucks worth of food and drinks, and spent the two days leading up to the party baking desserts and preparing other foods (including about 10 dozen custom Jell-O shots).
NYE came and everyone was still telling us they were coming so we started decorating and cooking. Between six and eight p.m., 16 of the 18 people who had said they were coming cancelled on us. At about nine p.m., one of the guests who cancelled posted a photo to Facebook that showed several of the people who had cancelled together at a different party. The two people who didn’t text us to cancel just never showed up and later posted pictures from a different party as well.
It was the last time we hosted anything for quite a while.
It still happens fairly often that our friends are fine to come to our house for an event but we seldom get invited to anything they hold at their own homes. I get it, sometimes certain groups of friends don’t mix well, but I think there are other reasons behind our exclusion that I don’t quite understand.”
Party Gone Wrong
“My first roommate was one of my best friends from high school. Aside from being a poor communicator who would sometimes leave her phone at home and then disappear with her boyfriend and scare everyone, she was actually a great roommate considering how a couple of messy, working 19 year old girls can be.
She went through a rough patch at work where she was basically working 60+ hour weeks in escalated customer service issues for a store credit card. She was miserable. When she got a week off after working, she wanted to throw a party in our house and promised to host, clean, and handle it all. I was 19, not being expected to do anything, and wanted to go to a party, so I was all for it!
Everything with the party was a blast until towards the end when people started asking me for things. I wasn’t sober so I said,
‘Why are you askin’ me?! Ask [my roommate]!’
That was when I found out that my friend had been getting hot and heavy with her boyfriend, but had let two of our mutual friends sleep in her bed already. The two lovebirds directed partygoers to me for anything and left to go to her boyfriend’s place for the night, DURING HER PARTY. She left her phone, of course, and he didn’t answer his.
The following night when she didn’t come back, I cleaned with a few members of our friend group who also couldn’t believe she’d done this. She wasn’t drinking or on anything and had specifically encouraged me to drink and have fun, saying she wanted to enjoy the hosting experience. She said it relaxed her more than drinking would to see me and our other friends having fun, but then she bailed and left me with a ton of food and dirty dishes in the sink and the mess you’d expect from 30 young inebriated idiots. It took five hours for five people to clean, and we were actually good cleaners!
She didn’t come back for three days except once, two days after the party, when I was at work to get some things. I knew because I had missed a stack of pizza boxes she had put in the oven so they started a small fire and my dad went to check things for me.
The day after I finally managed to confront her about it, which was maybe five days after the party itself, she was so ‘upset’ she packed everything and moved out. Just like that. She ended up cutting all of our friends off and we realized she had some other things going on in the background that were extra shady.”
True Colors
“The first time they showed their true colors was on my 16th birthday. My sister was throwing me a surprise birthday party and had invited my two friends a month before the party to ensure they’d attend. They both RSVP and offered to help. On the day of my party, they didn’t show up. They didn’t send a text explaining or apologizing. Nothing. I was so sad and embarrassed. It still hurts till this day.
On the day of my birthday, they both came over ten minutes before I left for work to hang out knowing I had work all day. They dropped off an ugly wallet and left. They spent the whole day together watching movies and having fun. For their birthdays, I always went all out. I even once decorated their rooms and bought them an entire outfit with accessories and everything for their dinner party. I filled the room with balloons and their favorite candy. I was kind of a poor teenager and working at a restaurant, so their present cost me a whole two weeks of work.
Another time was when I opened up about a traumatic experience I went through and instead of sympathizing, she smiled. She literally smiled and then quickly hid the smile when she realized what she was doing. My heart dropped to my stomach.
This past quarantine, we graduated. She graduated a semester before me, so for her birthday present I took her graduation photos. I’m not a professional but I am good at photography. I spent the whole day driving from location to location. We spent the whole day together from about 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. taking photos. I made sure they were perfect.
On my birthday, all I received was a simple happy birthday text. I decided it was over that day. I was always the person who reached out to her. I was always the one who made plans. I now hate her so much. I tried so hard and even spoke to her about everything I was experiencing in our friendship. I wanted us to last so badly.”
