Friendships are hard to come by as an adult, so many of us hold onto the ones we made in childhood or our young adulthood as sort of a default. Platonic relationships are no different than romantic ones, though, in that sometimes you just know they’ve run their course.
It’s weird to break up with a friend, but as these 27 people realized, sometimes you have to do it, because it’s time to move on.
Here’s the moments they realized it had to be over.
27. So many friendships died this way.
She kept peddling an MLM and I told her multiple times it was a bad idea.
She got her feelings hurt when I told her the bald faced truth about it, and I told her she can talk to me when she runs out of friends and family to sell makeup to.
26. I think that would do it for anyone.
The guitarist for the band I had been in for five years, had befriended a sh%t head. A big time hard core druggie. No biggie. Until after a show one night.
We go out for drinks. My wife, her friend, a couple of us. We all have one or two and get ready to leave. Her friend, the druggie, and a buddy stay for one more.
Wife’s friend doesn’t show up to work the next day. Call around, she’s not home, not at work. Find out she’s in the hospital in a coma.
Druggie put GHB in her drink, drank himself real drunk and tried to drive her to his house while she was OUT in the back seat. He wrapped his car around a electric box. She cracked her skull open. 2 plates put in and she eventually woke up.
Investigation and convicted of drugging her and driving drunk. Dude does 6 months in county. Flash forward a couple years.
Wife’s friend comes to visit for her birthday. Guitarist who was NOT INVITED, brings the druggie to the birthday dinner. I almost laid him out, out front after he yelled “he did 6 months, what else do you want!!!!”
I especially dont want you to bring that a$$hole to her birthday dinner.
F%*k that guy, f%*k the other guy, never spoke to them again. Both those guys can rot in hell.
25. Definitely against girl code.
High school besties boyfriend at the time sexually assaulted me.
She took his side.
24. Misery loves company, I guess.
I’m a happily married woman. A female friend, who’d recently left her husband for another man, invited me to her house for dinner. Cool, sure, sounds great.
She said there would be a surprise waiting for me. Without much prompting, she said she’d arranged for a male friend to join us. ”You know, you really need to loosen up and have an affair.” Yeah, that’s a hard pass for me. We never talked again.
23. Definitely better off.
I didn’t see her that week, and for the first time in months I didn’t have a panic attack that week. So I went another week without seeing her and low and behold, no panic attacks.
It made me really reflect on our friendship and recognize how toxic it was and how much it stressed me out. That was when I finally started to see how manipulative she was and how she was always subtly putting me down.
I cut things off and all of a sudden my mental health improved dramatically and I almost completely stopped having panic attacks.
22. Sometimes it hits you like a ton of bricks.
When I didn’t recognize the person I was talking to anymore.
Just suddenly hit me.
21. Wait, really?
“Friend” who was friendly with me when I ranked first in the tests, and then cut me off when I became second after another guy coming into the class.
20. What a nightmare of a person.
My husband’s best friend‘s wife. I attempted to be friendly with her and welcome her into our group when no one else seemed keen on it. She then proceeded to go around saying how desperate I was to be her friend and that I was a loser.
She then constantly proceeded to taunt and put down every social media post I made, and when I asked her about it, she told me to “stop my yapping”.
Guess who needs a job now and is not getting any help from the yapper.
19. Insecurity ruins everything.
I had a “best” friend from first grade through to the beginning of our senior year. She used to always criticize any ideas I had, what I wore, how I thought (she was super “religious”, I wasn’t). I stupidly put up with it because I thought she might see things differently and know what’s best. She would also get super jealous and knock me down because I ended up being better at certain things.
She always talked s**t about other people she would hang out with (I wasn’t allowed to hang out with anyone else but her and her friend group) to me.
The final straw was when I found out by a different (real) friend, she would talk s**t about me and everything I’d do to everyone else at school/outside of school.
I stopped talking to her midway through senior year and hung out with the other friend and her friend group. I was instantly happier and less stressed.
To this day I found out (small town living, yay) she still talked s**t to others and made up rumors about me when I moved out with my ex after high school (because I wasn’t married and that’s a sin), and she’s currently doing that right now “but it’s ok because since she’s religious god understands”.
Sorry to go on a rant, the older I get the more I realize how toxic she is/was.
18. I think this was an episode of Seinfeld.
This dude was a habitual liar. Lied about everything, even stuff he didn’t need to. Things like what his favorite drink at Starbucks was. Everything. Eventually he lied about having cancer.
I thought he wouldn’t lie about that, I was wrong. I grieved for my friend. Turns out that he was not above lying about cancer. I wasn’t going to let my grieving be for nothing either.
17. That’s not a friend.
I had a friend who would constantly make fun of the town I grew up in, my education, my job, and the way I dressed, among other things.
I always just thought “well friends rib each other” but the last straw was when he made a fake twitter account of me saying I grew up “in da hood” and tweeting how I’ll be a “virgin for life.” It was just in low taste and it helped me realize that true friends draw the line somewhere.
16. Everyone has had a friend like that.
Always had money for weed, but always complaining about not having enough money to pay rent. Also, couldn’t hold down a job for more than 2 weeks.
It’d go from being the best job in the f%*king world to everyone is out to get me, and then “F%*K YOU ALL I QUIT!”
15. This story just hurts my heart.
Growing up out in rural Nebraska and being.. not exactly white.. had its challenges, but I always had a good group of friends. One in particular had been my absolute best friend since 3rd grade. We went to a small country school until 8th grade.
When I say small, my 8th grade class consisted of me and 3 others, one being the aforementioned best friend. Then came high school, and i got my first real taste of how viciously racist my peers could be, especially freshman year.
My best friend basically abandoned me to deal with it on my own, I guess maintaining his own rep was more important, but whatever, still I managed to make a lot of friends and even those who, were in all honesty just being a**hole kids with no real malicious intent became friends after they got to know me. But my “best friend” was a different story.
I actually gained a bit of popularity and was generally well liked by all, even though some would still flip me s**t for having some darkness. He, however, was socially awkward and had few friends. I always tried to include him, but I could tell something was off. One day out of nowhere, while we were all bullsh**ting between classes, he just up and calls me a dumb n****r in front of everyone.
Now, by this point (2 or 3 years into high school) I was used to racist s**t from other people, but f**k it hurt extra coming from him. That was it. I didn’t say another word to him, just walked away while he just kinda quietly laughed to himself. My best friend for almost a decade.
14. You gotta let it go.
Had a college friend, we call “buddy” to each other and literally went through all those college life stuffs together. But in this friendship, I’m usually the one listening and asking questions and she’s the one getting to talk only about herself. It’s my personality to be such so I was okay.
Until a few years later, we went to different countries far apart, and she run into some issues at work, got into depression. Still, I got her back and offered comfort and help as much as I can. Then she stopped reading my messages, for months, so I stopped sending message thinking I might look pushy.
After a week or so, I saw her social media account, with all our mutual friends there, talking how bad of a friend I was for “abandoning” her. A long speech about me. She even mistook that I blocked her (actually i just changed my name so she might have not recognized that). But like wtf. Even if I stopped messaging her (because she wasn’t responding anyway), I would check on her social media updates all the time, I would think of her all the time. If I had a means to I’d hop on the plane and get to her. And yet she talked as if someone I dont know. But that’s not the last straw yet.
I messaged her immediately, apologized for the feelings she had, and asked politely if we can talk. I got ignored again, but at least she took down her post. I messaged her again and made her throwback video posts on her birthday. Nothing but a cold whiff. And then my birthday came around and I didn’t hear from her even a single thing. That’s it. That’s the last, slowly burning straw. I have no regrets.
13. That moment of clarity.
My former best friend had a habit of trying to make me feel like I was lucky to have him as a friend who can actually put up with me because no one else does.
Of course I had other friends but even then he would often try to make me seem horrible to them in an attempt to destroy the friendship
So anyway I became friends with someone and of course he didn’t like that and started being passive aggressive to her, naturally I asked him what was wrong and he went on this long rant about what a horrible person I was and how I probably don’t even like my new friend as a person or something like that so I was like f%ck it, why do I put up with this s**t and blocked him on everything while avoiding talking to him in real life
12. That’s not ok.
They stole £100 out of my wallet.
That money was going to charity.
11. I certainly hope this is true.
They couldn’t be damned to check on me, when I dropped off the face of the planet after reconnecting. (My dad had cancer and I wasn’t going to tell anyone I didn’t trust because there was a bad habit of probing me for “story research” when it came to my tragedies…)
Then one of them started dating the girl who lead a campaign to try to get me to commit suicide.
I’m much happier without ’em.
10. On what planet?
When I realized they did not give a flying Jesus about me or my feelings, they just wanted a “therapist” (which is what they nicknamed me).
After they ditched me at a party and pretended there was nothing wrong with that. *buzzer sound* wrong answer!
9. That’s just silly.
Some of my close friends threw me a surprise party for my 16th birthday and one of my school friends got SUPER pissed that I didn’t invite him.
I was like, dude, I wasn’t invited either. I didn’t know about it til I got there. He gave me the silent treatment for a month and when he came back around, he tried to pretend like nothing happened but I was pretty much just over it.
8. None of those people are friends.
I have got 3 stories to tell.
Would always talk s**t about me behind my back, claimed to be a victim when I reacted accordingly, would always ditch for me for a ‘friend’ he met online then come running back to me when it fell apart and then conveniently would want to come to my house on the same day he was scheduled to go swimming just before the time he started talking s**t about me behind my back.
Started acting prestige after getting a girlfriend after criticizing a former friend for doing the same thing
Would always talk to me about everything going on in their lives and expect me to give full attention to it but when I had things to talk about it was quickly dismissed with ‘I don’t care’ or ‘ok’.
7. No one likes to feel like that.
Just feeling like I’m someone to pass time with when he’s bored enough, or until he finds a girlfriend one day; instead of someone to make memories and enjoy things with.
6. If it wasn’t so sad it would be funny.
I was meeting a group of friends for brunch one morning. It was nice out so I decided to ride my motorcycle.
Pulled up and parked. They were all sitting on the patio so I started saying my hellos. One girl is just dumb struck. “You ride a motorcycle?”
Now if you have ever met me I have probably talked about riding motorcycle. It’s a problem I don’t shut up about it. I own 4 of them. This girl had know me for 3 years. In three years she hadn’t paid enough attention to anything I said to know even the most major things about me.
That was it for me. I’d already had about enough of her because of her desire to create drama over every little thing.
5. It’s his business why?
He threatened to destroy another friendship if I didn’t admit to the other friend I was in love with them.
Called it an “ultimatum for my own good. ” dropped that manipulative bastard on the spot.
He said more sh%tty things in the same convo.
4. Social media can be so bad.
Them going out with some other people, doing the exact thing that I asked them to do with me but they didn’t want to and having to find out on social media.
3. I hope she’s got the help she needs.
i had a friend in elementary that wouldn’t let me play with anyone else but her. like she’d push me into mud, splash herself, then tell the teacher that I pushed her in.
she would also threaten to kill me if I stopped being friends with her. luckily I moved schools and no longer have to put up with her.
2. I feel bad for them now, too.
Accused me of not prioritizing them or being a true friend bc of their constant need for attention. Like, dude, we’re not in high school anymore. We’re adults and I don’t need to have a 30 min phone conversation with you every day or hang out with you weekly to justify a friendship. I don’t even talk to my best friend every week.
I just got sick of the clinginess, neediness, and guilt tripping because their “other” friends somehow manage this. Great, but I’m not them.
Also we tried dating at one point before I said that I only felt platonic chemistry but within our first couple weeks of going out (nothing even official), they were tagging me in Facebook ads of couples shirts and just really over the top stuff. I felt bad for them, honestly.
1. The last straw.
I just got tired of bracing myself for every conversation, not knowing whether she would be nice or lash out. Realized that the thought of being away from her was so much more freeing, relaxing, and happy than the thought of talking to her.
One of the defining moments of our breakup was on a personal weight loss blog she had. I wrote an encouraging comment on there, telling her to not hate herself for falling off the wagon, but rather to look forward to getting back on. She snapped at me, saying she didn’t need sugar-coating from me.
She later apologized and said she realized she was out of line, but I was f**king done.
The last straw is the last straw, and you’ll feel better once you put it all behind you.
That’s what I hear, anyway. I hate confrontation.
Why did you break up with a friend? Tell us the story in the comments!