People come and go in our lives, but the few who have stuck around and been a constant presence in your life are the ones you will treasure the most.
But friendships evolve as our situations change.
Some bonds end because your party-going besties are no longer compatible with your slowed-down lifestyle.
And in many common cases, some amities slow to a halt when friends get married and start a family while you remain single.
Curious to hear about people's friendships, Redditor CaligulaBlushed asked:
When was the moment you realised you didn't really fit in with your friend group anymore?
Isolation
"When they tend to leave you out when they are going out or talking and chatting."
– Thin-Future-7979
"Walking down a pavement and somehow you always end up being the one standing behind because you can't fit all in a row."
Missing The Memo
"I was the only girl in a big guy group for ages in high school. One time we'd all organised to go to the movies and were to meet at the train station. I got there a couple minutes early. I waited for 20 minutes, sent a message to my friends. After no reply and waiting for an hour I finally got a hold of one who said they'd cancelled late last night but forgot I was going so they hadn't told me. We'd made the plans a week in advance and I had to call my dad in tears to explain and get him to come pick me up after he dropped me off."
"Big wake up call, it was time to move on."
– DragonscaleTea
Never Invited
"Same here. Friends would go have lunch or get a cup of coffee and I was never invited. That hurt me so bad I got depressed. Luckily, I left those people behind me and doing fine now."
– Snaggy4
Movie Plans
"Spent all day trying to get any of them to go see a movie with me that evening. Called people, texted people, no one was available. I decided 'screw it, I'll go alone' and went early to get a ticket and caught a good number of the people I invited coming out of the movie together. They dodged me."
"I sat in my car and wept until the movie started then wept the whole way home."
The Third Wheel
"When I quit putting in the effort to make the plans. I realized I was a 3rd wheel in the group that wasn't invited unless I did the actual work. I was basically ghosted."
It's Conditional
The second they began demanding nice little extra things I'd do for the friendship. The second it became expected rather than appreciated was when I was done with it."
– DeadlyEnzyme
Undesirable Lifestyle
"Literally all they did for fun anymore was get trashed and party, that was not a life I wanted."
– amalgamas
Having Kids
"When they started getting married one by one and having kids. After that, everything they did revolved around couples activities or kids activities. Those of us left in the group who are single were sort of shut out."
– Linux4ever_Leo
Cattiness
"When I realised they always talked very poorly about a girl who was in the same class as us in junior year. The girl came from a middle/rich family so she had some manners we didn't (we were from the hoods) so they were always talking dirty about her and critizing her. That girl was never mean to any of us and was the kindest person I have met until then. I never said defended her when my friends talked but it was seriously growing on me and I just left that group, I slowly stopped talking to them. And I became real good friends with her and she is today one of the person I trust a lot."
– Myloh_
Caring For A Former Friend
"When I was drunk at a party, and 911 needed to be called for a former friend that I frankly hated."
"Everyone disappeared when the ambulance and police were heading over. I was stuck drunkenly telling her mom over the phone that her daughter had a severe panic attack and possible alcohol poisoning, and that I was sitting with her while waiting for emergency responders."
"Her mom kept saying I must be her one genuine friend, and I hated that girl for being a petty backstabber. Even if I hate someone, I wouldn't leave them drunk and alone in the middle of a panic attack."
"I cut those friends off after that. It had been a long time coming. The rest of my time at college was very lonely."
– TheBostonCorgi
In Time Of Need
"I found myself homeless and they all disappeared. Came back around again when I got an apartment but I just didn't want to rekindle the friendships."
The Survivor
"When it went from smoking a little weed, drinking a few beers, and taking the occasional dose, to opiate abuse and full blown alcoholism. In other words when it went from just having some fun to serious addictions. It was time to go. For the record most of them are dead now. Despite my user name I'd prefer they still be alive."
– Dead_Is_Better
Irritating Friend Group
"I just noticed that anytime I hung out with them I was irritated. We had all been a great friend group from middle school through high school but as we progress through our twenties priorities and things that we all found fun changed drastically."
"I could not stand the people that they became friends with outside of her friend group and those people couldn't stand me. One of the incidents that stands out most in my mind is that while spending the evening with this friend group I put lipstick on and then proceeded to be judged by all of the other girls in the room with them all saying 'I hate makeup! I think anyone who wears makeup is superficial!'"
"I was also irritated at the way that they conducted themselves in terms of making plans. I'm a very impatient and spontaneous person but I am at least aware that a little bit of planning is required when deciding to go on camping trips or travel to another state or country. These folks were kind that just go by the seat of their pants. It would wind up being one of the more stressful times because no arrangements had been made in advance and no research had been done."
"They also would never give me solid answers if I invited them to things like concerts. I would wind up missing out on things because I didn't want to go to them by myself but my friends would never say yes or no until it was too late."
– Urdazzle
Wanna jump off the bandwagon? Then keep reading!
U/lit3rallyuseless asked: What doesn't deserve the hate it gets?
​Film and media are probably the biggest contender for being hated on randomly. It may seem harmless, but not always deserved.
Actors are people too!
Actors who played characters that people didn't like.
Really if you hated the character then the actor did a good job (assuming that was the role).
The best cartoons.
nice day summer GIF by PBS KIDSGiphyChild cartoons. Some are actually really good, even as an adult.
I feel like watching cartoons aimed at generally a younger audience allows for you to be reminded of some life lessons, I know I forget some things, or didn't realise others, or it at least partially renews my awareness of something I should still like or appreciate
This doesn't deserve awards, it's just my opinion that is apparently shared by many.
This man did nothing wrong.
Guy Fieri, he literally is the nicest person in the world but since he looks like he was electrocuted by mountain dew people want to saw his head off.
Even before that, I was witness to his other charitable work. A few years back, Santa Rosa was hit by some terrible fires and he showed up at a few shelters and personally cooked up and served some killer buffet food. No cameras, no massive team of PR, just a dude with an assistant to keep him on schedule to hit up other shelters in the area. Guy Fieri legit earned a lot of respect in my book for that.
You know who DEFINITELY doesn’t deserve hate? Animals. They’re just living their best lives, and need to be left alone.​
The best cats.
Black cats.
We got a black cat for the first time last year. I've since formulated the theory that black cats might get some of their reputation from the fact that people can't see them well in the dark and so they seemingly appear out of nowhere and they might be instinctually cautious because they know people have a tendency to kick them while walking in the dark. Our black cat is the sweetest cat I've ever known.
They get a bad rep.
Discovery Sharks GIF by Shark WeekGiphySharks. They are beautiful, complex creatures, deserving of respect and, like any wild animal should be left alone in their natural habitat, but they get this reputation as vicious bloodthirsty monsters. This is only because every shark attack is news, and only then because they are so rare. More people are killed EVERY DAY by mosquitoes than sharks kill in a year.
Any apex predator that has remained evolutionarily unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, whose existance predates TREES, is deserving or our respect and admiration. Shine on, you crazy cartlaginous fish, shine on.
So cute too!
Opossums. They're neat little critters. They eat tons of ticks that carry Lyme disease, (mostly) don't carry rabies because their body temp is too low, and they're the only marsupial native to North America! They get a bad rap because their first defense is to hiss and bare teeth, but failing that, they just play dead.
If you don't have the predisposition to hate them, you'll find they're pretty cute too.
E: this is about /opossums/, the north American species.
Kiwis, I feel for you, but this comment isn't about your possums.
​Hating on other people for just living their lives also seems to be a big contender for things that don’t deserve to be hated on.
This is so true.
Unemployed people. A lot of people genuinely are looking for work and did not want to lose their last job/it was beyond their control (like a layoff) but they get so much hate and called lazy by most people. I know too many unemployed people that are actually really trying hard. They definitely aren't lazy. (Not saying lazy unemployed people don't exist, but to be fair, so do lazy employed people too lol)
Leave the weather man alone!
Fox Raining GIF by Family GuyGiphyMeteorologists. They try their best to predict the weather based on patterns, models, and data. They're not perfect because predicting the weather is insanely difficult. When they get it wrong, I think we should go easy on them. It was probably an outlier result almost no one could have foreseen.
I've seen people get angry over the meteorologists for getting it right. Like they control the weather - it is their fault we are having rain, that kind of BS. Never made sense to me, but hey, I have plenty of relatives I clashed with growing up.
Please stop being d*cks to these people.
Customer service associates.
I hate when customers think that I, the minimum wage person forced to sit there and listen to them yell, am personally responsible for every policy they disagree with. Like, ma'am, if I had that much power and influence, I wouldn't be sitting here on a Saturday evening serving you.
Wholesome and necessary.
People don't deserve hate they give themselves when they are not doing too good at the moment.
I'm in a weird place and I didn't know I needed to read this. Thanks buddy.
If you haven't heard it from anyone else today, I'm proud of you.
It seems like people hate on things simply because they think they're meant to hate them. But you can always be the change and make an effort to stop being an a**hole about certain things.
No matter what though, sometimes haters gonna hate