Friend and family are supposed to look out for another. These friends share what happened when they realized their friend's significant others were acting weird. Content has been edited for clarity.
Uh-oh! Content has been edited for clarity.
Manic Man-Child
“My friend’s boyfriend had a full-on, toddler-level temper tantrum twice at a group game night. Once because during a trivia question he couldn’t remember the planets in the solar system. Then, in the same night, he got mad playing Uno, threw his cards down, and stormed out.
We all kind of looked at each other and at our friend. That was when we knew he was…off. My friends and I were all in our mid-20’s and he was over 30, so it was definitely not acceptable behavior.
A couple of weeks later was my friend’s birthday, so we all went out for the night and ended up at our neighborhood bar. He threw another temper tantrum (I think it was over scoring for darts or something equally ridiculous), stormed out, and peeled away in his car, leaving us with no ride home. This was pre-Uber/Lyft and none of us wanted to spend the money on a taxi, so we sobered up on the two mile walk back to my friend’s house.
Thankfully, she broke up with him not long after. She is now with a wonderful guy who not only knows the planets of the solar system but also treats her a lot better.”
He Wanted Total Control
“My best friend’s ex-boyfriend walked like he was trying to intimidate people. And every time he asked someone a question about their opinion (‘hey what do you think of that statue, do you like sauerkraut,etc’), he’d respond to their answer with, ‘I had a feeling you were going to say that.’
It seems harmless but it was every single time, and if you called him out on it (‘You couldn’t possibly have known I was allergic to x!’), he’d lash out in anger. Every time she tried to break up with him, he cornered her and wouldn’t let her leave the room until she relented, and even their couple’s therapist thought she should leave him for her own safety after two or three sessions.
He would wait for her shift to end, just sitting in his car in the parking lot, and if she didn’t come out fast enough, he’d storm into the building in a fury, but if she came out on time, he’d just leave. He wasn’t there to pick her up, just to monitor her…which he also did through a GPS tracker he put in her car.
She now has a restraining order and has moved twice. He broke into her apartment with a weapon while she was deep asleep and just snuggled up behind her with it between them as if it was his dong, and that was how she woke up.”
She Crossed A Major Boundary
“My friend randomly made an Instagram and only followed his girlfriend, her mother, sister, and some of her friends. Naturally, I was confused why he didn’t follow his best buddy, me, so I followed him and he followed back.
I asked him if he saw a picture I uploaded, and he said, ‘Oh yeah I didn’t make that, my girlfriend was looking at my new phone and it had Instagram pre-downloaded, she accidentally clicked it and it automatically made an account for me.’
I replied, ‘Oh, so it automatically knew to make an account with your name, a username with your name, a profile picture of you and her, posted a picture of you and her, made a cheesy bio about your girlfriend, and followed her family and best friends? Oh, and it followed me back weeks later, so it must be acting on its own well after she accidentally pushed it once.’
The only thing he could say is that the Internet is crazy and you never know what type of AI technology they have out these days. No mate, your girlfriend is crazy.”
She Seemed Sweet At First…Til She Got His Wife Alone
“A bit of background, this was a good friend of my wife and me, and my previous roommate. At this point, he’d moved out about a year and a half prior, and we’d only had internet contact with him since. It was a meetup of old friends when we went to visit home.
This was the first time we (wife and I) met his newest girlfriend after his previous long-term relationship ended. She wasn’t so bad, kind of giggling and goofy for him since he’s a bit more serious, but fine, they seemed happy.
We were out for dinner and she and my wife go off to the bathroom. I thought this was odd, since my wife is kind of a tomboy and doesn’t do the whole ‘girls go to the bathroom to do their makeup and gossip’ thing, but I found out later that my friend’s girlfriend invited her to ask her a few questions about him.
Well, after 20 minutes went by, I realized they weren’t back yet. We were both tipsy and engaged in conversation and time got away. This was a small gathering of a few couples, and one of the other girls went to check on them.
Come to find out, my friend’s girlfriend basically had my wife cornered in the bathroom, crying in her face and demanding to know why our friend had a secret crush her, and why he wouldn’t admit it. After getting the recap from my wife, she said she had no clue if the girl was going to attack her or touch her since a few times she was apparently completely against the wall.
Apparently, it was a mixture of my wife wanting to calm her down and being a little afraid since she was half this girl’s size and legitimately couldn’t get past her. Luckily the person going to check on them snapped the girl out of it and diffused the situation.
Very bizarre, we’ve seen her one time since (not exactly on purpose) and she acts like the whole thing didn’t happen. She apparently has no history of mental illness, but I have no clue beyond that.”
Exceptionally Selfish
“One year, my girlfriend and I traveled from South Carolina to Orlando to stay with my best friend Tom (of about 22 years now) and his girlfriend, Lauren, for Thanksgiving. We decided it was too expensive to fly up to New York to see our families, so we drove down a few hours to have a ‘Friendsgiving.’ We used to be roommates and he is a dope cook, so we figured it was a solid plan.
So he and I spent all day shopping, cooking, etc, and dinner rolls around. We had the usual spread: turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls, and it’s all sitting on the counter. We went in the living room to get the girls. Lauren came in first, went into the cabinet, pulled out 3-4 large Tupperware containers, and said, ‘Hang on. Nobody take anything yet, I need to make sure that I have leftovers for work this week.’
She proceeded to take about 60% of each dish, leaving it so everyone had extremely small portions, with no options for seconds. She also took about 85% of the white meat, because reasons. Then she put all her Tupperware in the fridge and then grabbed a plate.
From the already small amount remaining, she took about half of each dish, slopped it on her plate, and walked into the dining room. My girlfriend and I looked at each other, took small plates, and sat down. My best friend was visibly upset, but didn’t know what to say. She ate about half her food, then threw out everything left on her plate.
Now to clarify, Tom has the biggest heart of anyone I know. He’s a 6’5″ guy who has a heart of gold and would give you the XL shirt off his back. Why he was with her, I don’t know. He had a good job, making $50k+. She was not a large girl, with an average build, worked at an architectural firm doing 3D renderings, and was a fairly book smart girl. She was not starved for money.
Fast forward to the next morning, Tom decided he was going to make some turkey soup with the leftover carcass and meat. Big giant pot, lots of goodies inside. Now at the same time he’s watching the soup, he was also browsing Craigslist for an Xbox 360 and came across someone who was willing to meet that day.
He puts the soup on super low, and we all decided to go out and get his Xbox. Lauren said, ‘Oh, I’ll get it for you as an early bday present.’
I thought, ‘Wow, maybe she’s not so bad!’ So we went out, bought the 360, and were on our way home.
Literally the second we walked in, we’d be able to dig into the turkey soup. But, as we are about 4 minutes from home, Lauren was hungry. She said she wants a double cheeseburger from McDonald’s so she can dunk it in her Turkey soup.
Tom argued that the food was ready and we could see the driveway, but she made him go to McDonald’s so she could get a double cheeseburger…ok. She’s the only one who gets anything and we went home.
She rushed to the kitchen, got a HUGE bowl, and proceeded to take the large ladle and scoop right from the bottom, filling her bowl with most of the goodies and little soup, leaving mostly broth for everyone else. She went into the living room to sit down and eat, while we stood there, dumbfounded.
We made our soup, sat down, eat, and Tom wanted to set up his new Xbox. Lauren doesn’t really respond, as she’s dunking her burger in soup, stuffing her face. He got it set up and fires up Dragon Age, just playing around with it. Lauren has now had enough soup (which, by the way is her burger and about three spoonfuls of soup). She got up and threw out about 75% of her meal.
She then walked over to the TV, turned off the Xbox, and said, ‘Ok you’ve played enough. I want to watch TV now,’ and ended with ‘Well since I bought it for you, I can decide when you can use it and when I want to watch TV.’ My mind was blown at this girl, the next day couldn’t come any faster.
About a year later, he went to work, waited until she was gone, came home, packed up his stuff, and left, never speaking another word to her again. Being the nice guy he is, he even left her money for his portion of the rent for the remaining months on the lease.”
Joke’s On Him
“He started attending my college at 26, which isn’t strange at all, but he INSISTED on living in the dorms for three years. It’s not like we’re a college town with expensive/far away/stupid off-campus housing, he just liked the ego boost of being around kids 8+ years younger than him. My friend was 19 when they started dating.
Another thing was that he was a ‘full time’ stand up comedian with his own YouTube channel. He mostly did open mic events at bars, but couldn’t stand watching other people on stage perform if it wasn’t him. He would sit and seethe when my friend told him she didn’t want to leave when watching other people perform.
The creepiest moment was undoubtedly when my friend asked me if my boyfriend ever watched dirty animal videos. Taken aback, I said heck no and told her that’d be a major deal breaker for me if he did. She said, ‘Oh. My boyfriend told me that every guy watches it.’ Thankfully they broke up recently and I couldn’t be more proud or happy for her.”
His Charming Facade Hid Cruel Depths
“I met them as an already married couple and everything seemed fine until she went into labor at my house. It was her second child, so she knew it was early labor and decided to rest on our couch while we hung out.
We were going to watch her older child when she went to the hospital, and since our house is 30 minutes closer to the hospital, it made sense for the three of them to hang around our house until ‘go time.’ That’s when my husband and I started noticing her husband’s strange behavior.
He was a very charming guy and a very good father to his son, but he started making fun of his wife during contractions. He would roll his eyes and tell her to shut up if she even made the slightest groan. He joked that she was a wuss and was overreacting. The whole situation got so awkward that my husband insisted he go home to get their hospital bags, just to give the poor woman a break from her stupid husband.
A few months after the birth of her second child, he hit his wife with his car while she physically tried to block him from leaving during an argument. He disappeared for days and didn’t come home until she proved to him that she hadn’t gone to the hospital or contacted the police.
Thus began systematic abuse that continued for two more years, which she hid from me like an expert. He would hurt her and then threaten to withhold money for groceries if she said anything to anyone.
I knew he was a prick and I knew she often needed me to pick her up to get food from food pantries because ‘he was bad with money,’ but I had no idea he was hurting her. She finally left him after he threw her through a window while she was eight months pregnant with their third child.
The story doesn’t end there. After the divorce, he and his friend started making inappropriate material with children. It started by giving crank to teens and then filming them having relations. Eventually, they were touching his daughters, ages 18 months and 3, while taking video. When the older daughter turned 4, she told her mom what was happening and the bull hit the fan. Now he’s in jail for a looooong time.”
“I Instantly Was Not A Fan”
“A few years ago, my boyfriend’s best friend got a girlfriend. I instantly was not a fan of her, but since it was my boyfriend’s best friend, I was expected to buddy up to her and go on double dates and stuff.
My boyfriend and I got in some huge fights because I’m ‘overly judgmental of other girls’ and ‘she hasn’t done anything wrong’ (boyfriend’s words). I’m usually right about people, but eventually, I decided I was just being territorial and mean and started willingly hanging out with the other couple. This was years ago and this girl has done SO many sheisty things since then, but this one was the worst.
One of my first times hanging out with her after deciding I was just being a witch and should give her a chance, the four of us were chilling at my boyfriend’s house. She said she wanted to get some food and asked if I would take her.
Once we were in the car, it became clear she didn’t actually want food, and she told me to pull over as we were passing a gas station. For about THREE HOURS, she told me her life story, all her past hookups, and whatever else she could think of to fill the time, while continuously saying we shouldn’t go back yet.
I thought it was super weird, but maybe it was her way of bonding or she really needed some girl talk. When we finally went back, she stepped out of the car and immediately starts acting tipsy (we weren’t drinking), telling our boyfriends that we met some ‘frat guys’ at a restaurant who took us back to their frat house and we drank with them and then left when they ‘tried to get in our pants.’
She told them that I told the guys I hadn’t had relations with a man (???) among other things. I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there dumbfounded. Her boyfriend was obviously ticked and they left. My boyfriend was mad for a second, but pretty quickly realized it was all bullcrap. That was the day he finally realized my instincts were correct, and this girl was a psycho. He apologized.”
She Put Him In A Prison Of Her Own Creation
“She was super friendly, but I’d catch her looking at me out of the corner of my eye with…not a nasty expression exactly, but not a friendly one either, sort of wary (I’m also a girl).
She’d also casually say odd little details when talking about her life that made it seem like she had a pretty skewed idea of relationships and gender roles (she went to an all-girls boarding school, and even though she was 24, she was the first of all of her friends to ever have a boyfriend).
She would say things like, ‘It’s ridiculous to expect a woman to change a lightbulb on her own, haha!’ or make out that some things were a big deal in relationships when they’re really not. It was as if she’d gotten all her knowledge from romcoms. Just really tiny things that wouldn’t be significant on their own, but added all together it really set me on edge.
She ended up going full-on psycho and not letting him see any of his friends or do any of the things he enjoyed for two whole years because she was basically jealous of every single other woman in the world, even his male friends’ girlfriends.
It took his brother to come round and having a good, long chat with him for him to realize she was a control freak who was ruining his life. It was a timely escape, too, since she was starting to talk about babies.”
A Familiar Slippery Slope
“She was 19 and he was a 34 year old bartender/bouncer that had literally no possessions except a week’s worth of clothes when he moved into her apartment. How are you 34 with two jobs and don’t have anything?
I called it right there. My dad was a coke addict for most of his life, worked his butt off everyday, and had nothing to show for it.
More similarities started to show, like how he was a smooth talker. Fun to hang out with and most people liked him. He was like a total snake charmer. Dad was too.
He was always late, and unreliable, but it became obvious when he started disappearing for 8-12 hours at a time. Turns out he was spending all his money on oxys. Still she stayed.
She later ended it when one of her other friends called her saying dude was at the bar groping on a mutual friend of theirs, while he was supposedly at his brother’s watching the game.”
Rob’s Got A Terrible Secret
“I never got on with the guy (wife’s best friend’s husband) while everyone else did. I found him to be very ‘know it all,’ and if you did something, he had done it 10 times better. I’m sure my wife had a thing for him; it was always, ‘Rob has done this and Rob has done that, ain’t Rob a great guy, Tracy is so lucky to have Rob, why don’t you and Rob go fishing? Why don’t you and Rob go for a drink?’
To keep the peace I would, and after each occasion with the bloke, I disliked him more and more. Something just didn’t feel right about him.
I ended up telling my wife that I couldn’t handle him anymore and that I wouldn’t have him around our home again. She was super mad and called me an unsociable prick, a jealous knob, etc.
Two weeks later, it came out that Rob had been beating Tracy, was a raging boozebag, mentally abused his kids, and was banging a tramp junkie from down the road. Now everyone thinks Rob is an absolute tool.”
He Went Off The Deep End
“Everyone loved him straight off the bat and he got along really well with everyone. But I noticed that he was mimicking the behaviour of whoever he was with. Despite being so well liked in our group, he somehow had no friends of his own to speak of. When we’d all go out, he was always alone. Which was off; he was very outspoken, flamboyant, and friendly. Not a loner. Lots of free time. Liked to go out. Where were his buddies?
He said, ‘I love you’ to my friend three weeks in, whilst pretending to be asleep, in case it was poorly received and he could go back on it. Around the same time, he stopped turning up to his job and stopped leaving my friend’s house when he slept over.
As in, my friend would go out in the morning, and the new boyfriend would still be there three days later. He started wearing my friend’s clothes. They’re both men, but it’s still weird for such a new relationship. Then he stopped showering and would bug our group for money.
Despite all this weirdness, he had integrated himself into our large yet tightly knit group so well, everyone felt like they were best buds with him and had been forever. He gave me the creeps. I noticed a lot of his stories didn’t line up.
He started muttering things under his breath. Violent things. He’d get confused, laugh, and smile when asked what he just said. More stories didn’t match, big things about his life, family and history, and the little things about what he had studied or where he went last week.
The filth he lived in grew. Mounds of moldy plates. Filthy, stinking clothes. Still no work. He was fired because he just stopped going and hung around in my friend’s house all day, stinking up his dressing gown. By this point, my friend had decided he wanted him gone.
It turned out that he had no friends from before he met our group because he had swindled his (ex?) friend out of her insurance money from her dead father. There were a litany of other things. Rent unpaid. Drama caused. Words said. The usual.
The friends of my own group who lent money never saw a penny back. The newly-ex-boyfriend went AWOL and disappeared for three days, leaving his passport, phone, coat, and keys behind. Post break up, there was also some drama about him sleeping with my friend’s FWB. Not because he liked him, but because he wanted to cause jealousy, and we know because he told everyone.
He changed from a well dressed, friendly, clean, funny guy to a filthy, crazed, borderline sociopathic and pathological liar. At first, I thought I was being overly sensitive because he was displaying a lot of behaviors I saw in my dad. I thought, ‘Hey, give the guy a break, I’m being the crazy one.’ Nope. Lots of little weird things added up to one big problem. Listen to your gut.”
He Cared About The Internet More Than Reality
“My friend’s boyfriend was straight up obsessed with social media. He had to have the best tweets and thought he was Mr. Awesome. He only cared about followers and had this sort of alter ego on Instagram.
Then he had some sort of mental breakdown and didn’t talk to her for like two weeks, and when she asked him if they were okay, he told her he wanted to break up. When they did break up, I recommended she unfollow him and she said she was going to, but then he said, ‘Don’t be immature and unfollow me.’
She’s clearly not over him. I unfollowed him, but when I went to go see if she did the same, I saw she has liked his pictures since they broke up.”
