People Share Their “I Have a Toxic Friend” Stories

Some of us stumbled upon failed friendships once in our lives. We may be too ashamed to admit it but having a “toxic friend” took a great toll on how we handle relationships with others.

Here are some stories of people who endured a “toxic friend.” I guess some people don’t dare to end these kinds of friendships but from these stories, we will learn what might happen if we let them take over our lives. Check these out!

1. Friendship Over, Family Over

She told me she was cheating on her husband. She was also laughing about how funny it was that her boyfriend would come over to the house. Then they would all hang out with her husband and their newborn.

I told her that wasn't cool. I couldn’t endure that so I also told her we weren't friends anymore. She then proceeded to tell everyone that I was sleeping with her husband and I was an abusive drunk.

It was a happy ending because they got divorced and her husband was granted custody. As for me, I got new friends.

Auntgoat

My friend started copying me, everything about me. It was something straight out of a horror film. She started using my frequent phrases, trying to pick up all my hobbies, and dressing exactly like me.

The final straw was when she started getting really possessive when I would hang out with people without her.   

She even tried to turn me against all my other friends. We aren't friends anymore, but everyone tells me she's still obsessed with me and talks about how I abandoned her to anyone who will listen.

Chlorpicrin

She tricked one of my friends that she was pregnant with their child and used my phone to do it. She stole my phone while I was sleeping and texted my friend (the guy she hooked up with) pretending to be me and saying awful things like “Omg, she is throwing up again this morning.”

She also told him other pregnancy things to convince the guy. She was not pregnant and 100% knew she wasn’t.

Peachbetterthandaisy

She threatened to hurt herself if I didn't do what she wanted.

She asked me if she could sleep over at my house one night so I told her no. I had grandparents visiting the next day. She continued and tried to convince me to let her. She said that if I let her, she would stop cutting herself, but if I didn't, it would be my fault if she died.

I didn't let her, I ditched her the same year. She's still alive to this day (hopefully). She has a girlfriend and is moving out of town soon.

Paranoidlittlekid

There were so many things but the one that triggered me was when she refused to come to my wedding because she hadn't had weight loss surgery yet. She didn't want to look fat and frumpy on my wedding day. That was the culmination that led to me severing ties.

She used to refer to me as her “DUFF” the designated ugly fat friend. Then as we grew up, I slimmed down and grew into my appearance rather nicely and she did the opposite, which infuriated her.

She tried to make up a dozen excuses as to why she couldn't be my maid of honor. She said she couldn't afford to travel to my wedding even though I offered to pay for it all. 

She couldn't afford the dress, which I also paired with my bridesmaid's dresses.

Then she went on a very lavish and expensive trip to a resort and posted photos on her social media account, so I called her out. That's when she said she didn't want to go and be in pictures because she was having gastric surgery and my wedding was too soon for her to be hot in my wedding line.

At that point, our other mutual friend melted down and listed all the ways my best friend was a frenemy and toxic. Feels so bad.

Piggyprue

He kept on trying to jeopardize my sobriety. I would block his number, he would get a new one. I blocked him on all social media but he would create new accounts.

I'm going on a year of being sober and up to this day he stalks me and tries to get me to slip up. It's quite exhausting running from an abusive ex-bf/ex-dealer while trying to maintain my sanity & sobriety.

Oh! And he was trying to hurt me. I wish he would just drop off the face of the earth. That kind of stuff is an awful substance. I never want to touch it or be around people who use it ever again.

Snailcunt

I knew for a long time that I should’ve ended my friendship with him. I was done trying the day he threw a knife at a mutual close friend of ours during an argument. 

That argument started over whether you could correctly call the inside of a strawberry "squishy." That’s it, I kid you not.

That's how I ended a decade-long friendship.

HarshPerspective

He started cheating on his girlfriend indiscriminately and then brag about it.

To make matters worse, my then-girlfriend was friends with his, so he indirectly involved me in his lies when I had to cover for him. We ended up fighting over it and we aren't close anymore.

I_hate_traveling

I realized that while I sometimes enjoyed hanging out with her, I always felt worse when we'd meet up. She was the type of person who needed to be cynical to validate her own opinions, so being around her just started to be taxing.

She also tried to make out with me, despite knowing that I was not interested in her, and in a very serious relationship. That was the death knell.

ConneryFTW

She said that she wanted an apology from two other friends for not including her on a trip. These friends stopped asking her if she wanted to hang out because she was always busy.  Also, they were terrible at planning.

Then, she refused to allow them near her and then she said that the transgender one of those two other friends should drown in the lake after I posted a pic of us at the lake.

Ellecomedian

It occurred to me that I hadn't seen her post anything to her social media account for a while, so I checked and found out that she had blocked me. I emailed her to ask what was wrong. Her response was a rambling, manipulative, domineering list of everything she thought I had done imperfectly for the past two years.

She also attached an ultimatum saying that I accept full responsibilityand believe what I was told to believe.

The most bizarre of them was when she declared that if I truly understood "the basis of friendship" I would be a fan of Kanye West.

Unfortunately, we had a wedding of a mutual friend coming up so as much fun as it would have been to let her know how I felt, I didn't want her making a scene at the wedding. I bit the bullet and told her what she needed to hear and then cut her out of my life entirely.

Oudeis16

She was so busy scrolling on her phone, stopping only to tell me that “she couldn't be my therapist" when I was pouring my heart out about some really difficult stuff. I chalked it up to her mental health and an awful method of delivery and tried to stay her friend, after. Turns out, it's not just my hardships she doesn't care about, she also wasn't excited about any of the great stuff in my life, either.

She also doesn't care about my needs unless they're somehow able to fulfill hers. One example is having concert tickets to her favorite band for my birthday. She will walk 10 feet ahead of me and not notice that my disability is struggling to keep up. 

I was expected to be aware of and in support of every single aspect of her life. I was giving 110% to our friendship but she'll ignore my messages unless she wants something from me. We've been friends for over half my life and I can't even talk to her about feeling awful because of the way she'll turn it all on me. I'm gonna have to just cut my losses. 

I can't keep forcing myself to hang out with her when it makes me feel horrible.

Dr_who_fan94

She slept with a guy I was in love with. We weren't in a relationship but she knew my feelings for him. She slept with him the very night that I confessed that to her.

Later on, she said he took advantage of her, and he did not. I found out later on that she had invited him over and cried and begged to sleep with him. I forgave her and let her stay with me over the summer rent-free because her housing fell through.

Then, she proceeded to sleep with another guy I was hooking up with and then flirt with another guy I was potentially wanting to date by coming out in a flimsy bathrobe when he was hanging out with me. She always played the victim and claimed life had wronged her always. It took me a year, but I completely cut her off.

Rvalerine

He openly berated me in front of my flatmates and tried to play it off as a "joke.” I made it pretty clear that the things he went on about were pretty big insecurities (he kept making snide comments about me being unattractive and making fun of my attempts to lose weight). He then got snappy when I got short with him about it. 

He thought it was fine for him to just be a completely horrible friend just because he was gay. Thankfully he's 100% out of my life now. I don't want anything to do with that guy again.

Maxcalibur

He said I pounded him up.

I was about 8 or 9 years old at the time and had just gotten out of the shower. I saw him from my bedroom window going to my other friend's (next-door neighbor) house. After I got dressed I sat on my DS for about 10 minutes when I and my mom heard someone pounding at the door.

My mom opened his door to see his mom, the queen of the Karens, Susan. She screamed at my mom that I had just hurt her perfect little angel. My mom then shouted her down and told her I was just out of the shower and her child was a lying little brat. Before this, he said I pushed him into a stream when he fell himself like a doofus.

I never got my retribution though.

RussianElonMusk

I was injured and housebound for 4 months when they went radio silent on me, apart from a text message telling me it was my fault. I probably had a brittle bone disease if I broke a bone aged under 30. Then they later told me they didn't contact/check in on me on purpose as they don’t like “needy people.”

6 months later in a twist of karma, they get injured and are housebound. They started phoning me up asking me for favors to run errands for them. As a forgiving person and for some reason wishing to keep the friendship alive, I did.

Then they told me how they had sent “thank you” flowers to a mutual friend who had popped in on them and how touched they were by their thoughtful gesture (not mentioning me who had run myself ragged driving this person around, fetching them stuff, generally trying to keep them happy, and not wanting them to feel abandoned as I had).

 At that point, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I wasn’t a friend anymore I was a groupie, unappreciated and not respected. I cut off all contact and never looked back.

There were lots of other incidents in the two years preceding this, such as them telling me my house was crap, my OH was no good, and they would never degrade themselves marrying someone who did their job. They were also encouraging rifts between myself and my family and the final straw was the above.

Jeremybearimy1

I started to realize that they're toxic after I felt that they were intentionally making me feel out of place because I couldn’t join them when they wanna hang out somewhere or get drunk. I'm not an alcoholic person and they make me feel bad for not joining them to have "fun.” Most of the time, I don't have enough money to go wherever they wanna go, hence, calling me a killjoy. 

Now, they're starting to treat me as if I'm no one, always the last option in the group. No one wants to go with me during lunch. They only notice me when they ask for help on a particular subject. It just makes me sad.

Suzlnn

She pretended to have millions of dollars but lived in a condo. She always told ridiculous lies like “She flew to New York overnight” or “She has 5 pairs of expensive earbuds and 3 smart watches, she just kept them at home.” All lies. She was a pathological, compulsive liar who was manipulating and telling unbelievable and outrageous lies and expected everyone to believe them.

She also was a know-it-all and used fake facts to make it seem like she was right. I was only friends with her because I was the new kid and no one else was nice to me. To make a long story short, I cut her off, made new friends, and now I don’t even talk to her anymore.

Firedoritos4045

She wanted to uproot and move a fourth time in almost two years.

We were best friends/roommates and she was never happy where we were living, and I got tired of her trying to move all over the East Coast. She would get all upset whenever I said that I wanted to at least try and stay where we were. 

It’s not healthy to just leave every time you don’t like the weather here, you hate your job here, you can’t get a boyfriend here, or other petty things.

Also a weird flex but she claimed on a few occasions that she was prettier than every girl with brown eyes (including me) because she has blue eyes. We’re in our 20’s.

MermaiderMissy

He smashed the back of my head with an iceblock putting that part of my brain under some trauma. It has since then made it difficult to remember things in the short term. He did this because I defended my other good friend who he was shouting homophobic remarks towards for no apparent reason other than getting a reaction.

He was always a bit on the violent side, and easy to get ticked off but it was that day when I found out what a psycho he was. It was that day that started off the 6 years of constant bullying that led me to where I am today. This lunatic was my best and only friend and that was the worst part.

I honestly wish any of this was a lie.

Goatqdon

He was telling all of our friends that he “missed me and our friendship” without ever reaching out to me to smooth things over or to make plans.  

There was plenty of stuff before this, but that was the straw for me. He was an expert at fooling people into thinking he was a good person and a lot of people are still falling for it.

Kailalawithani

I had this best friend named “Josh.” He and I grew up together and we’ve been friends since the second grade. He and I went through everything together. 

When I was young, I was very stupid and naïve. I didn’t realize it until he and I started drifting apart. As a child, he would always say things to scare me like creepypastas and such, doing his best to convince me they were real. I ended up having to go to therapy because I was so terrified of the slender man that I was having nightmares and hallucinations because I was so scared and sleep-deprived. It sounds stupid, but I was only 7 or 8 years old at that time. 

Two of the most blatant examples were when I was called to the office, but they didn’t specify why.

Josh turns to me with panic on his face and says “Your dad could have been shot!” My father, who I was close with at the time, was a police officer.

He played with my emotions and let out his sadism on me, this felt normal and I didn’t know any better (I had a rough childhood). I remember about a year and a half ago, the last time we hung out, he was on the phone with his girlfriend. She had cheated on him and he was purposefully humiliating her and berating her. 

I wasn’t in the next room, we were thigh to thigh on my bed playing an online game. I didn’t know how abusive he was until I saw him take it out on other people. Since then we just haven’t talked.

RommelDieTrommel

I have two stories. The first one was when he tried to refund something I sold him after he broke it and blamed it on me. I did not notice it until my mom talked to me about it. My mom told me that he was a toxic friend and I did not believe her until the incident above.

The other one was a guy I knew had anger problems. I wasn't exactly friends with him but I considered him a friend before because he stood up for me and helped me. Soon, he acted like a moron to me but I tolerated him because of his help. 

One day I realized he was a horrible person after I politely asked him to be quiet during a movie the teacher in charge of our study hall showed us. I asked him a couple of times to be less noisy until I had enough. I told him to be quiet and he then replied that I didn't have the right to be angry. 

Throughout the month he sent me threatening messages and bragged that he bested me and that I was a lowly scammer. Some of his friends also complain to me about him to this day.

JohnKirkland423

I live in severe chronic pain every day due to several illnesses and the friends I had would just complain about their own life nonstop to the point I'd be exhausted of conversation. They would also tell me "If I were you I would have offed myself a while ago now."

Maybe it's meant to be endearing, saying I'm strong, but it never comes across that way to me. It also seems like people have had past friends, fake cancer, yup I've had that too!

SirenCoven

She lied about being pregnant and having abusive parents (who by the way are delightful).   

She also lied about being a self-abuser. In addition, I found out she talked horribly about everyone (including me, supposedly her best friend and the only person she could be real with) behind our backs.

ThirtyFiveFrontiers

Well, I should say I had a group of toxic friends. In junior year after having a fallout with my best friend, I was kind of a loner. Then I found a group of common friends and hung out with them.

Everything was fine until they would routinely pick on me. I get friends bust each other from time to time, but I notice that it was me getting picked on, and barely anyone else.

Then, we had a Secret Santa, and I gave my gift to a cool guy in the group who is still a friend. I didn’t get anything from my Secret Santa. They said, “Oh, I’ll get you one” but I never got one.

Another instance is when they had an Oscar viewing party. I asked if I could get a ride and one person said I should stop being needy. The person who said that was someone I gave a ride to, to watch one of our mutual friends, play in his band. There was another party, no one answered my question and I saw them all have a fun time on Snapchat.

They confronted me after I told someone that they were fake. I told them they were. I left them afterward and I’ve never looked back.

The-Devilman

He planned on robbing me on my 16th birthday. We had a small-scale party at my house back then. He stayed over the night but made his way out when I slept. When I woke up the next morning I was in for a surprise having my mother scream at me that most of the jewelry, her laptop, my gaming console, and my watch (which I got for my 16th birthday and was decently expensive) were missing. 

When reported to the police nothing came off of it. The officer became sick right after being given my case and put it on ice when he returned. Surprisingly enough, my gaming console was returned through my friend. Maybe he realized that back then it was my most precious belonging and had second thoughts on it.

Guaaaamole

She came over with her friend and brought a big bottle of rosé. She almost drank it all, got drunk, and started talking horribly about me, her friend, and my housemates.

I didn't even drink anything. We were only hanging out for a couple of hours at that point and I took her friend back to her boyfriend's house. I came back to find that she puked all over my bathroom and had fallen asleep taking a dump.   

She essentially got poop everywhere so I put her in the shower while she was passed out. 

I watched over her for the rest of the night. When she woke up, I had cleaned everything up but she didn't believe me when I told her what happened even though it was obvious. She got angry with me and left as if I had done something wrong.

Genghis-Don

We would do all our projects together and she would never work. Whenever she did something wrong or something that bothered me or my other friends, we would bring it up to her but she would always find a way to twist it. She would even make it look like it was our fault. 

Interesting side note when we all met at the university, she would always tell us she had no friends and that all her friends would ditch her (a red flag I didn't catch on). So it was kind of hard for me to ditch her because she would make me feel like I was an awful person. After all, I was the only friend she had and I would feel bad if I ditched her.

Carolidex

He started hating everything just to look cool. We just watched a movie that everyone loved but he hated it. I also told him to check out a game, he started hating it without even playing it. He even hated the teacher whom everyone loved.

Also, when I invited him to my Brother's birthday, he just stayed in the bedroom playing Mario Kart. Not really toxic I agree, but I found it mean. I'm still friends with him and I told him about that but he just doesn't care.

The-MisterL

I realized that every time we hung out, I left feeling worse about everything. No friend is worth that bad juju.

Also, she always kept on whining that her cat didn't cuddle with her. I ended up staying over at her place one night, and the cat curled up at my feet and stayed there all night, purring and flexing. The cat wasn't aloof. The cat just didn't like her. Smart cat.

BobwasalsoX

His alcoholism started transforming his brain. He'd always been a hard drinker, the kind of guy who has a beer in the morning instead of coffee, but for the longest time, he had the Robert Downey/Keith Richards Gene that made him indestructible. 

He was funny and charming, I met him when he was my snowboard instructor. At the end of our friendship, his brain was so pickled.

His default state was either childlike demands on his wife for things like ice cream when there wasn't any in the house or vicious cruelty that I understand comes from late-stage alcoholism. 

I'm pretty sure he also had diabetes from his terrible diet which no doubt also changed his personality from minute to minute. It wasn't hard to end the friendship because the person I'd been friends with was no longer occupying his brain.

Ovoutland

In college, someone I thought was my friend would tell embarrassing stories of my life in front of groups of peoplewhen he had their attention. The first time he apologized and said it was an accident, so I let it go.  

 At some point, I realized his stories only involved embarrassing stories from the people he knew. 

One by one everyone in our circle of friends got tired of his attitude.

Akoni103

After several events that were happy and positive for me, I realized he had a pattern of tearing it down with his negativity. He was rarely happy for me. 

He accused me of abandonment when I met and started getting close to someone on a romantic level. He trash-talked this person online with no basis. He is not a friend.

5hrs4hrs3hrs2hrs1mor

Over my lifetime I've moved on from 2 toxic friends.

The first one was easy. We had fun together when it was just the two of us but whenever there were more people involved she would always tell them some embarrassing stories about me. New people, old friends, didn't matter, within the first few minutes, she would tell a “funny story” that showed me in a very bad light.

I ditched her and I don't regret it one bit. We all have things we wish we hadn't done but heck, I don't need someone in my life to continually bring it up so I look bad to new people.

My second friend was much harder. I liked her, and still do actually! She was a very kind person, lots of fun, and always up for new stuff. She was a very good friend.

She was married with three children and over the 25 years we were friends yet she continually cheated on her husband. 

With men at work, men she knew from the gym, friends of friends, didn’t matter. I HATED that about her but excused it for the first few years because she had married young and she and her husband were having some problems. I never realized it would be a lifelong pattern.

I moved to a different province and she used to come out and visit me. I was enjoying it and I looked forward to it. Until the day I was standing in the park with her, catching up, while her husband and kids were in my house with my husband. She told me about the latest affair and I was just sick.

We walked back into my house, seeing her husband smiling and chatting with mine, seeing her kids there, happy to be on holiday with their parents. It just made me so mad at her! I felt SO BAD for them all and I just couldn't excuse her behavior anymore.

I ghosted her after that. Not right, I know, but I just didn't have it in me to tell her why. I knew she knew.

Frenchgrrl

Another friend stopped talking to him and in his meltdown, he tried to get me involved to fix the problem for him. When it became clear I wasn't offering any more than situational advice, he started screaming at me in the middle of a party about how horrible of a friend I was. 

He was trying to humiliate me into doing his bidding but it backfired and he just looked like a child because I didn't sink to his level.

The party was for him to earn his PhD. This man was 38 years old. That toxic person is still really bitter and talks awful things about me and the person who cut him off, and the two of us normal folks are still good friends.

Doobledorf

I had a good friend for more than 15 years. My wife and I let him live in our finished basement for months rent-free after he was kicked out of his father's house (as an adult, having moved back in due to lack of funds). He stayed for 90 days longer than we had originally set out in the agreement, and he was messier than we liked. 

The final straw was that he spilled something on the carpet and didn't clean it up. My wife texted him and asked him to clean it up, several times over a week. 

Finally, she gave him a deadline to get it done. He got irate and started calling her names and insulting her.

That was the last straw. I texted him once to let him know everything he owned was now sitting at the curb beside the garbage bin. He could pick it up, or the garbage men, whoever got there first. I didn't care, but neither he nor anything he owned was welcome in my house anymore.

ACBluto

She was down for free dinners, treats, my clothes, and whatever she could get. I planned a nice birthday for her and when it came to my birthday she casually gave me a couple of used ugly expired lipsticks. When she did that, it made me realize that she made no effort for me when it was her turn to show me that she cared. 

When we both got into our relationship at around the same time and hers didn’t work out, she started acting jealous and nasty towards me. This changed the relationship for the worse. I said goodbye and cut her out of my life and we now have no contact. It’s taken me some time to get over it but I’m accepting of it now and my life is better with no drama from her.

Properdabber

I had a friend freshman and sophomore years of college who was fun to hang out and party with, but he liked to party hard. A little too hard occasionally. I still stuck up for him because the only person he was hurting was himself and I was right there having a good time with him.

But then this one night, he took it too far and hurt someone. I cut him out of my life entirely at that point.

Worldly_Walnut

We're 4 in our circle, all 3 of them said they're busy whenever I ask them to go out. Then I saw their story from a photo-sharing app that they went out and went to a cafe. I blocked them immediately. Now I'm seeing how they treat others outside their circle and I have no idea that they're like that.

I found out about their attitude when a friend messaged me asking why is that person being rude to them (they thought I was still in contact with that friend).

Also, we're from different university majors but they still ask for my help with their lessons. Our conversation is just about me helping them. That's not a problem to me at all, the help, but since they're so busy when it comes to me, I stopped helping them.

Happy that I left the toxic circle.

Iuna30

It was more of a friend group. I was always the one trying to make an effort to schedule things, but their responses were lukewarm. There were plenty of one-day cancelations.

I found out by total accident (one of them let it slip without thinking) that the group had a more active group chat without me in it. That was my breaking point. I didn't bother actively calling anyone out about it because they didn't care to begin with. 

I just faded out from talking with them.

I found a new group after that that has been way more welcoming, we see each other more frequently, and I'm not the only one making an effort. The old group still reaches out, rarely, but I have moved on from them. It’s their loss.

PM-boobs-and-I-rate

She showed up late and was already drunk at my wedding. She missed cocktails, appetizers, the ceremony, dinner, and the cake cutting, but managed to make it in time for the open bar and got even more wasted. My now husband had to book transportation for her and make sure she took it rather than trying to drive home.

I waited a month or so thinking I’d get some sort of apology, but that never happened. I don’t talk to or hang out with her anymore.

No-Definition-3202

We've known each other since we were 5. We were childhood besties. Growing up together, she always knew that I wasn't straight, but she didn't give comments about it until we were in our late teens. I did not officially come out to my family either, for the usual reasons any scared gay kid would have. 

This woman is super religious and self-righteous, you know the drill. After graduating from university, I had a girlfriend that I was finally able to tell people about, occasionally posting on a social media application.

One day she messaged me questioning everything and told me the usual things religious people tell gay people.

I got tired of explaining (which I've done my whole life) and finally had enough, so I answered her one last time and unfriended her on social media. All I ever wanted was to be accepted by her, which never happened. This was 6 years ago, never seen her or talked to her since then. 

The feeling of relief is amazing until now.

HeadResponsible4516

He had a temper like he would throw anything or yell at the top of his lungs over video games. When he was convinced he was right he wouldn't budge his opinion or thoughts, he would talk down to you snickering to himself talking sarcastically if you suggested something else. 

He would start fights with strangers or say inappropriate things and it would never be his fault. All of these doubled if he had been drinking (which he most likely would be). It got to a point where it just wasn't fun being around him in any capacity. 

I kept making up excuses and ways to hang out with him without having to deal with it. One day he got pretty drunk early (I haven't even had a drink). 

He was just being stubborn about something absolutely insignificant and I realized I just wasn't having fun anymore.

Things have been fine, I have other friends I see regularly and hobbies that occupy my free time. Sometimes I think it would be cool to reach out and hang out with him, but then I tell myself I'm remembering the good times, not the awful times that would happen at some point that same night. 

They've reached out once a few months later but I just opted not to respond. I'm better off.

Justsound

I had a friend I met through an online game almost a decade ago. We would talk on a messaging app every day, and play new games that would come up.

He became extremely cynical about every little thing about games, anime, etc. He became extremely toxic to talk about anything with. It got much worse as I worked on my career while he bummed off his parents. I would regularly hear his parents complain and argue with him daily.

This started getting to me. So I started ghosting him when I started house hunting. He has occasionally gotten to me through alt accounts or accounts I forgot about and called me names or slurs.

I'm in a much better headspace I think, and feel like I enjoy my hobbies more than I did while talking with him.

Barly_Boy