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People Share The Quotes That Permanently Changed Their Outlook

People Share The Quotes That Permanently Changed Their Outlook
Image by ShonEjai from Pixabay

Sometimes, we all could use a little push--even if that comes from the notes of wise person who died years ago.


It's important for us to remember that we are not even close to the first generation of human beings. There are so many people who've come and gone before us.

And no matter how ancient or historic their lifestyle seems compared to our own, they still inhabited a body filled with worries, a sense of time passing, and the need to interact with others.

So it's no surprise that quotes from the near and distant past all still feel so appropriate to our own experience. And thanks to the internet, we can share so many of them with others who may need that clarity.

Apparently in the market for a little inspiration, Redditor internallyskating asked:

"What's a quote that permanently changed the way you look at things?"

Anxiety affects countless people all over the. Of course, many people shared the quotes that have helped them put their worries aside and live life with a bit more presence.

You Have a Choice

" 'Let go or be dragged' and old zen proverb I heard at a meditation class. Really changed the way I let myself worry about things"

-- Reagan99

Can't Please 'Em All

" 'You might be the sweetest peach on the tree, but some people just don't like peaches.' "

"This helped me get over my lifelong desire to be liked by everyone, and allowed me to focus on becoming someone I actually liked."

-- sansaspark

The Humor Inside Anxiety

" 'I've had a lot of worries in my life. Most of which never happened.' "- Mark Twain.

"Found it on a workbook for anxiety disorders."

-- Metoposaurus

Others have used quotes to help themselves persevere through both specific challenges as well as the long, winding experience of life as a whole.

Either way, some quotes to refresh perspective can provide the perfect push.

A New Kind of Courage

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes it is a quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.' '-Maryann Radmacher"

"I came across this a long time ago, at a point in life that I really needed this lesson. It's okay if I feel sad and resigned, if my depression beat me for today and I wasn't able to function. I didn't fail, I'm not weak, I will try again tomorrow."

-- IAmTheAsteroid

Just Go For It

"Dear Abby's response to a writer thinking of going back to school but worried that she will be 40 by the time she got her degree -"

" How old will you be in four years if you don't get your degree? You are going to be 40 anyway with or without your degree.'"

"It reminded me that letting age stop me from my plans was just silly. Also, working at a community college and seeing so many people going back to school in their 30s, 40s, 50s and thriving, the quote really spoke to me."

-- Coconut-bird

First Things First

" 'The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.' - Terry Pratchett"

"I'm not sure why this quote struck me so hard, but it completely changed the way I approach writing. Just get your ideas down in run-on sentences and asides to yourself and loads of [???] at parts you haven't figured out yet. It took me more than 30 years to realize that a first draft isn't just a rough version of the final draft. It's a map for yourself, and no one else."

-- lavendercapybara

Finally, so many people are out here walking around carrying extra weight. It's just too hard to live a long life without picking things up along the way and clinging to them, as toxic as they are.

But some folks offered advice on letting it all go.

Self-Destruction

"Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die" -- ocbbelife

" 'When seeking revenge dig two graves.' - Confucius" -- Cain_Soren

"All the negative emotions, regardless of whether or not they're meant for someone else, sit inside us. Let them go, not because the others deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace." -- TheLordOfFriendZone

You Don't Have to Hold It All

" 'That mountain you've been carrying, you were only suppose to climb' "

"Really helped me overcome a lot of traumatic experiences and difficult chapters in my life. I hope it helps someone else out there."

-- youssless

Prioritizing

" 'When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.' - C. S. Lewis" -- nolo_me

"Goddamn this resonates. Take being serious a little less seriously and you'll find life is a lot more interesting." -- Crackgnome

Paradoxical Barriers

" 'And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.' --John Steinbeck, East of Eden" -- Zuikis9

"The first time I read these words, I wept. Most of my life I'd enjoyed praise from my family, friends, and colleagues for being 'outstanding' even as many of them relished in reminding me what a perfectionist I was. Not only did Steinbeck give me permission to seek something other than perfection, he gave my a nobler aim to center my efforts around."

"Around the same time I encountered a Latin phrase that means 'To be rather than to seem to be.' Turns out it's a whole lot harder to pretend to be good (while not actually being the thing) than it is to pretend to be perfect. And, thankfully, it's a lot more difficult to convince yourself into believing an untruth about yourself when you can't even convince other people of it."

"I'm neither perfect nor good, but I know which one I'd rather be." -- Lex_Orandi

Here's hoping at least one--and ideally, more--of these quotes offered you some new perspective to get throughout whatever challenges you're facing these days.

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These Bridezillas Horrified Shop Owners
Photo by Valerie Elash on Unsplash

A bride has a lot to do before her big day, from planning the dinners, to getting her dress, to deciding on the decorating details. This quest for the perfect wedding can sometimes be even more stressful than finding a lifelong partner—but that doesn’t mean these women had any excuse for going full Bridezilla in front of their staff.

1. Her Own Worst Enemy

I work as a wedding server. As soon as someone says “Bridezilla". I think of this one story where the manager of our hotel had to shut down the wedding halfway through. This was the Bridezilla of all the Bridezillas I've ever seen. There were a lot of little things leading up that were casual Bridezilla—until the wedding took a dark turn.

At one point, she accused the wedding server staff of taking her veil...then the manager found it in her room and also showed her the card swipes to her room proving only she had been in the room that day. About 20 minutes later, she was screaming at some poor front desk employee accusing her of taking her wedding boots.

The manager intervened again, and after a long talk the photographer told them he had a photo of the boots on the staircase of the church, and asked if she had worn them since...When she said no, she told our place it was our job to have picked them up and made sure she had them, even though the church was not related to our place at all.

THEN shortly after she started opening the wedding gifts frantically inside the ballroom and screaming at anyone and everyone, guests included, saying someone took her wedding certificate. After that, our manager gathered the wedding staff and told us to take off our uniform jackets, empty them in front of him, then to clock out and go home.

Which we all did. None of us took anything. We heard next day that the maid of honor had the certificate and after we left the wedding was shut down completely.

CaptainMyCaptain

2. Mother Knows Best

I worked at David’s Bridal and I have to say that as far as Bridezillas, it was always the moms, grandmas, sisters, and friends that were terrible. Either they hated what the bride would pick out for them to wear or they would hate what she was picking out for herself to wear. At David’s Bridal, we have kind of strict appointment guidelines when it comes to time.

A lot of brides who would bring entourages wouldn’t find a dress because everyone would bombard her with their opinions and overwhelm them. The worst thing I’ve ever witnessed was when one bride who always struggled with her weight came in. She was overweight and had been working extremely hard on it over the last year.

It was a slower day and we all loved her story and wanted to make that day special so we all decided to help. She finally found a dress that she loved and she started crying along with most of us. Then she looked at her mom and asked for her opinion. Her mom’s response was brutal. She looked at her and said, “You look fat in it".

We all stood there in silence and the bride lost her happiness. She asked to be assisted in taking it off and they left. It was one of the saddest days that I had experienced there.

Adnarim_Rekanoh

3. Maid Of Dishonor

man and woman in wedding dress standing beside white floral curtainPhoto by Ben Wicks on Unsplash

Management here at a bridal shop. You have no idea the sense of entitlement that walks into my store. I would consider us the Wal-Mart of weddings: We cater to everyone from poorer people to rich nobodies who think they’re somebody. I’ve seen it all. “These dresses are cheap,” to “These dresses are too expensive". I’m a rational person and being part of management means I’m trusted to make important decisions and enforce policy.

All sales are final, depending of course, but you have to have one great excuse to get a penny out of me. The best (by best I mean craziest) excuse yet was a spouse who had her wedding coordinator go in to refund the items because she was in a psych ward. Why? Because she tried to hurt her sister…after the sister announced she was pregnant with the groom’s baby…at the bridal shower.

We refunded everyone but the sister, who was ironically the maid of honor.

SmokWin

4. Right In The Face

I was a bridesmaid for a family member’s wedding. We hired a super talented makeup artist to come in and make her look really good for her big day. This makeup artist, who was the quietest, shortest lady I’ve ever met in my whole life, starts doing her makeup. Once she finished it looked REALLY GOOD. I was just like “diddly dang, she’ll love this". BOY was I wrong.

The bridezilla looked in the mirror and went absolutely BONKERS. She screeched, “It looks awful! YOU KNOW WHAT I WANTED!” She was crying, and her eye makeup was streaming down her face. We all rushed to calm her down. This poor makeup artist looks like she’s about to pee. So the makeup artist fixes her up despite her outburst and does basically the same thing but adds a little more eyeliner.

Suddenly the bridezilla LOVES IT.

camrynsi

5. Frame It Up

While the photographer was waiting for the extended family to gather for formal photos, he photographed couples and families already present. The bride bristled that he wasn't taking photos of her and that these were not the photos the bride had requested. This was after the photographer had already finished photos of the bride and groom in several locations.

Because the bride was upset, she didn't ask the photographer to take photos of her and her special friends during the following reception. So, when she finally saw the photos a few weeks later, she regretted that she had taken out her (unwarranted) anger, and she was missing dozens of photos she would have wanted. Karma’s a witch.

Dancer1977

6. Shut It All Down

a white and black dressPhoto by Rosemary Williams on Unsplash

A local wedding shop that had been in operation for years in my area had to close down. This place was very well known and a lot of people I knew went there for wedding dresses, prom dresses, etc. In 2014, however, there were a few US cases of Ebola, if you remember. One of the ladies who came down with it was a nurse and caught it from a patient who had Ebola.

She, for some reason, got the OK to travel, then came to the area where I live and went to this particular bridal shop. When it was confirmed she had Ebola, the shop closed down for three weeks to be professionally cleaned and de-toxed. After the shop opened back up from the three-week shutdown, they were never able to recover.

Months later, they announced that they couldn't afford to stay open and were struggling. The stigma of the lady with Ebola being in the shop drove people away. Oh, and the lady with Ebola tried suing the bridal shop when they wouldn't refund her and her bridal party’s deposits when she canceled her orders. Just a total mess.

Karkee8807

7. Money Can’t Buy Class

Strap in, folks. This is going to be a bumpy ride. I work in a relatively high-end country club in the American South. We had a doozy last season. It was not only the bride who was crazy, but the whole wedding party. The "Happy Couple" were not members of the club, but had convinced our coordinator to sign off on it.

However, this coordinator quit shortly after booking, and a new girl had to deal with the fallout. First off, they had been extremely rude to our new coordinator and managers through the whole planning process. They had a private coordinator as well, but she was pretty well useless. Ours didn't even know she existed until the rehearsal.

The bride had demanded all kinds of free stuff during the planning. Now, I have no problem doing a wine tasting to go with the food tasting. However, if you come back three times to try the same free samples, I'm not playing ball anymore. You're paying for it at that point. You and the five people with you. Fast forward to the rehearsal.

We have regular dinner service going on in our dining room for our (rather exclusive) members. Renting the ballroom for a day does not entitle you to take over the entire clubhouse. The bridal party are drinking, yelling, cursing, and being generally ugly all over the grounds. Nothing was right, according to the private coordinator who had never seen the space before this.

Everything had to be moved. "What do you mean your covered terrace can't accommodate 250 people for the ceremony without an extra tent?" "I was told the dance floor would be by THOSE windows, not these". "We absolutely cannot let anyone into the ballroom until after the ceremony, so I don't care that the terrace is only accessible through it, make them all walk around the building through the wet grass".

This whole time, the bridal party is getting louder and drinking more. The little old ladies trying to eat poached salmon in peace are obviously annoyed. Father of the bride has set up a provisional account to pay for the wedding, since we don't accept cash or cards, only accounts. The bridal party knows the account number, and we've been told to put everything on it by our managers, as long as the person ordering knows the number.

You can see where this is going. He didn't see it that night, but he argued every single drink when the bill came. Even the 18-year-old scotch that he alone was drinking. Okay, enough of the day before. On to the main event. Most of this day I was on the periphery, since I was working on the other end of the building. This is the end they weren't supposed to be on, except the bride and bridesmaids, since their dressing room was on that side.

I could still hear pretty much everything that was happening, and saw way more than I should have. As guests arrived, they were directed around the outside, as per the request. The mother of the bride freaks out because OF COURSE they didn't want HER side of the family to have to go that way. They need to be allowed to walk through the active dining room and around the other side where the golf course is.

At this point, the groom and groomsmen are getting positively sloshed in the men's locker room, which our members are still using as well. Bridesmaids have moved out of the ladies' locker room and are rampaging through the members' bar. And by that I mean that we caught them multiple times pouring drinks behind the bar while the bartenders were getting their bar ready in the ballroom.

They had the same move every time of, "Oh, gosh, how did this bottle get in my hand and why is it suddenly half empty? Haha, silly me!" The ceremony goes well enough, considering basically everyone standing up front could barely stand. You may be asking how we let it get to that point. Well, they had snuck in a lot of drinks. I mean, a lot...

Highlights of the reception: The bride is cursing. A lot. I don't think one sentence came out of her mouth without a variant of a swear word. During hors d'oeuvres, the maid of honor comes out of the locker room and informs me that it "needs attention". You know, the room where only they had been for the last three hours because they had scared off all the members already.

It shouldn't have been my job, but the attendant had gone home early due to an emergency, so I figured I would take a look. I was horrified at what I saw. I came right back out to get every manager I could find. I even cleared the coast so our chef could come look after he saw my reaction. It was, quite simply, disgusting.

The small wastebasket was overflowing because they had put a bunch of stuff on top of the nice big covered one and then forgot about it. Part of the overflow was a used tampon. There are separate baskets in the stalls for those. Dirty panties, about 10 empty champagne bottles, everything a normal person would put aside or throw away just sat wherever it had fallen.

I removed the trash (with gloves on) and didn't touch one thing that was personal. I should have thrown out a lot more. About 1.5 hours in, the bride asks the bartender what Black people drink, so she can get something to give to the band. When she is told we don't serve the band drinks due to liability, she flips out. More cursing.

How dare we not do exactly what she wants? Do we know how much she is paying for this? Not nearly as much as a lot of our members pay for theirs, I can tell you. Her new husband manages to somewhat calm her down eventually. By this point, all of the guests are so loud and obnoxious and not staying on their end of things that we call in extra security just to stand at all access points and wrangle them.

Remember all those "hidden” drinks? About two hours into the reception, the security guard nearest to the men's restroom hears an awful noise from inside. Goes to investigate and finds a broken urinal and an empty handle of Jack Daniels. Time for cake! This can't go wrong can it? Oh, it does go wrong. Wifey smears cake on the lower half of Hubby's face.

Haha! So cute! Hubby puts tiny dollop of icing on end of Wifey's nose. "OH MY GAWD!! HOW DARE YOU DO THAT?! YOU'RE RUINING EVERYTHING!!" (Paraphrased. It went on waaay longer than that). She proceeds to go literally running through the entire clubhouse and most of the surrounding grounds screaming at the top of her lungs.

As it was a nice night, many of our members were enjoying the patio off the dining room. One member in particular had been listening to the hubbub, and asked me the names of the couple. I had to laugh when I remembered that he's a prominent divorce lawyer. I, jokingly, asked if he wanted me to pass out his card. He, very seriously, said yes.

The party was shut down two hours early. Officers were informed of potential drivers (who shouldn't be driving) leaving the property. The bridal party were staying in rental houses on club grounds, so our security escorted them back. You'd think that would be the end. But, alas, no. I did not witness the next day's meeting, but I gather it involved a lot of apologies from the groom, and a lot more angry words for everyone from the bride.

Plus debates about the bar bill from dear old dad, because they could not possibly have had three kegs in that short of a time. He was right, sorry for the mistake, we should have charged for the fourth tapped keg. About a week later, we were informed of an investigation claiming that one of our staff had taken the bride's laptop.

For maybe two weeks, we were randomly called by the local authorities with updates on the case. Then she found it in the trunk of her car, where it had been the entire time, because they used a club-owned laptop to play their slideshow. Which she had tried to walk out with. I think that's the whole story. I probably blocked some stuff out. Except there’s one last twist.

We think the original coordinator did this to us on purpose. She didn't leave under the best terms, and confirming the booking was one of the last things she did. She must have known it would go like this.

EdsteveTheGreater

8. Be Careful What You Wish For

Retired Master Seamstress checking in. This wasn’t a Bridezilla but a Momzilla. I was making her daughter a custom bias-cut gown and had limited fitting time because the bride lived one state over. Now, bias-cut gowns are the devil to begin with. We (mom and I) would work on details between fittings. I would say our working relationship got very frosty.

Each time the bride came for a fitting, she lost weight. Tape measures don't lie. And she was not a big girl to begin with. Mom would scream that her daughter did not lose any weight. After the third fitting, third fight, and the third rebuild of a very complicated gown, I finished it and told them to take the gown and do what they wanted with it.

It was gorgeous but hung loose. The girl lost over 3" over the course of 7-8 weeks. I lost hours of my life, and the $ for the work.

Spydrchick

9. Music To My Ears

File:Frank Sinatra (1957 studio portrait photograph).jpg ...commons.wikimedia.org

I was at the wedding of an ex-boyfriend several years ago and he had planned and practiced singing a Frank Sinatra song to his new wife. He went up and took the mic and, with the band backing him up, began singing the song. His new wife suddenly stomped across the dance floor and up on the stage, grabbed the mic from him, and said, "I HATE that song and I don't want to hear it". They were divorced about a year later.

AverageJoe5555

10. Every Rose Has Its Thorn

I’m a florist. We had this psycho bridezilla and her mother show up at 9 am. They wanted to order a bridal bouquet, a mother of the bride orchid corsage, a boutonniere for the groom, and six smaller ones for the groomsmen. But there was just one thing. The wedding was scheduled for noon. Yep, three hours from then, and they wanted them ready by the time they were done with their makeup appointment at the beauty parlor a few doors down.

The bride was flipping through the sample book and pointing out the style and flowers she wanted. Think garden roses with long sweeping trails of stephanotis and variegated ivy, all three of which would require at least a week's advanced order with our suppliers. She was absolutely gobsmacked that we didn't carry extremely expensive and highly perishable flowers at all times.

Same with the orchid for the mom's corsage. My boss told them that since they didn't place an order beforehand they would be limited to what we had in stock, and simple styles that could be assembled quickly. The bride and her mom kept pointing at the book and arguing that we should have those specific flowers in stock.

My boss eventually took the book off the desk and tossed it behind the counter. The bride vacillated between tears and petulant whining that we were going to ruin her big day. My boss, who had a bone-deep loathing for brides in general, told her she had ruined her own day by not ordering her flowers before her actual wedding day.

The mom tried chewing out my boss for her lack of customer service skills. My boss told her that she was welcome to go down the street to Vons and ask their flower department to make their order with whatever they had in stock. The mom said she'd do just that, and reassured the bride that she'd have her flowers done by the time her appointment was over.

Both women stormed out. I figured that was that, but I was so wrong. My boss told me and the other girl to start on six simple corsages. Meanwhile, she threw together a ribbon-wrapped bridal bouquet with some white roses that were nearly past their prime and some. Sure enough, 20 minutes later the mother slunk back in and meekly asked if we were still able to assemble what they needed.

We did. We also charged her a very large rush fee.

Haceldama

11. All For Naught

I worked for a wedding photographer. This one wedding had this wonderful couple, and they seemed made in heaven. Their wedding album WITHOUT pictures cost two thousand dollars. This thing was made from mirrored glass, and weighed a ton. It was my job to order a bunch of 8x10s that the bride wanted to use in the album. This was actually a nightmare.

This album had no protective sleeves, so every single picture had to be sprayed with a chemical coating and left to dry, in a dust-free area. If it did not dry with a smooth, dust-free finish, I had to remove the chemical coating and try again. I spent most of that week in a tiny closet-sized room, in full respirator mask and protective gloves, spraying those pictures.

But my God, I have to say, it was the best job I’ve ever done. When done, this couple spent over $5,000 on that one album. It was GORGEOUS!....and they divorced before the year was up.

Permalink

12. Ring Her Up

silver and gold analog watchPhoto by Zetong Li on Unsplash

I used to be a "Bridal Consultant" at a retail store, which basically means I helped couples scan things onto their registry, although the training for it just meant I knew how to use the scanner and the computer, and my actual job had nothing to do with bridal shopping. This one couple came in to start a new registry, which quickly turned into only things the bride wanted.

Anything the groom wanted to put down on the registry was deemed as "childish, stupid, ugly, unpractical, never-going-to-be-used". I was cringing during the entire appointment. She also kept asking for my input or opinion on everything, and I felt so bad for this guy. His bride-to-be seemed so selfish and entitled, and I couldn't believe the fact that he was soon to be married to this woman.

The poor man just wanted a waffle maker, who doesn't want waffles?!

_marjaz_

13. Not My First Rodeo

I used to work at a jewelry store. This young guy, about college age, came in one day to look at engagement rings. He was very polite and asking good questions. You could tell he’d been considering this for some time. As I’m helping him and showing him some rings in his budget, she walks in. She’s wearing a t-shirt from the high school senior class from the previous year, and she comes over by him.

“Oh my God, were you seriously considering that ring??? Ugh. It’s so ugly. Besides, it looks just like my LAST engagement ring". How I wish I could have told him to dump her, run for the hills, and don’t look back.

rubywolf27

14. Don’t Judge A Cake By Its Cover

I’m a baker here. I wasn't present for the freakout, but it was my fault so...A few months back, I had a bride who wanted a navy to white ombre cake made with white sponge. Now, dark, rich colors like that in white cake SUCK. They always taste terrible because they have so much gel coloring in them to get them just the right color.

However, you can do it OK if they're willing to have the dark layers be chocolate. Navy is especially easy, thanks to blue velvet. I tell her this when we're planning. "But I want white cake!" She says. I tell her I'll do all but the last few in white sponge. She agrees, and I make the darn thing and drop it off. I come back to pick up the staging stuff the next day, and make an awful discovery.

I find my whole freaking cake sitting there. Apparently, when they cut into the thing and fed it to each other, she freaked out over it being chocolate, and refused to let any of the cake be served. Apparently, she forgot that she had agreed to have the bottom tier have two layers of blue velvet, so she threw a massive temper tantrum over “the cake being wrong".

Apparently, she kept talking about how I ruined her wedding, then locked herself in the bridal suite. If she wouldn't have been a little psychopath and let the staff cut the cake like they should have, she would've seen that 90% of the cake was white sponge like she wanted.

notasugarbabybutok

15. Sibling Rivalry

baby crawling on bedPhoto by Picsea on Unsplash

I worked at a high-end bridal shop in my early 20s. One day, I had a bride-to-be shopping for a gown. She had brought her mom, aunt, and sister (who had just become a new mom) with her to her appointment. The sister was obviously a little jealous that attention was no longer being lavished on her and her new baby, and instead the bride was the new the center of attention.

As I was fitting the bride in a $2,000 gown, the sister decided to change her newborn’s diaper in the dressing room and proceeded to hold the poop-filled diaper up to the gold-hued gown and exclaim, “Look, the colors almost match!” I excused myself from the room for fresh air and to regain my composure. In my experience, the brides were rarely the problem—the family was!

jackerick84

16. The Polish Princess

I worked at a mom and pop bridal shop. We had a bride who was Polish, leading my boss to call her “the Polish princess". She wasn't my bride, but they picked a very bad consultant for her. This was made worse by the fact that this girl wanted stuff added to her dress that wasn’t done by the manufacturer, so we had to do it all in-house.

To give you an example, she wanted lights all around the bottom half of a dress that we had already spliced with two different dresses. Side note: my boss loved anything that meant money. Anyway, we spent months fixing and refitting this dress because she not only lost 45 pounds from her first time being measured, she also got plastic surgery on her chest.

Well, after finally fitting her into her gown, on the last week she decided the lights that took our poor 70-year-old seamstress two months to sew in looked tacky. She was crying and throwing herself at her mother in a tantrum, screaming in Polish. She then ripped the bottom of the dress and ultimately had to buy a dress from David's Bridal because my boss finally got smart and kicked her out.

Just a mess. She made our seamstress cry!!!!! The witch.

Doves_inthe_wind

17. It’s Not What It Looks Like

Not 30 minutes ago, I had someone accuse our deaf tailor of recording her on his phone as she tried on dresses and walked around in them...Uh, no. He was Facetiming his wife as he walked through the store. When she found out the truth, she was very embarrassed, but not enough to apologize to any of us for screaming through the store.

AllTheExsInTexas

18. A Modern Romeo And Juliet

black and yellow no smoking signPhoto by Noah Holm on Unsplash

I work at a hotel that does a huge amount of wedding business, and we had an engagement shower, with the plan being that the couple would be having the wedding with us as well. This involved the bride-to-be and, to an extent, her mother. We knew there were going to be issues because neither the bride or groom ever smiled.

The bride was always complaining about how the groom was "wishy-washy" with picking a date, while he was always silent. The mother of the bride was your stereotypical Brooklyn Jewish Mother and had her hand in EVERYTHING to make sure things were perfect for her little princess. Well, the engagement party starts, and everyone except for the couple seem to be having a great time.

Then, halfway through the party, we suddenly heard the girl scream at her fiancé "WE WILL NEVER HAVE A CHRISTMAS TREE IN MY HOUSE, SO YOU CAN GET OVER IT!!!!" And from there it devolved into a shouting match between the couple, who moved from the banquet room to the lobby so their "guests" couldn't hear the argument. (Didn't work. They heard everything).

Apparently, she was Jewish and he was Protestant and not once in their relationship had they discussed religion. They went at it on and off for two hours. She was screaming at the top of her lungs about how their (non-existent) children would be raised Jewish, and how his traditions didn't matter. Her mother was standing at her side, nodding in agreement, and interjecting occasionally with a "that's right" or "you tell him".

The groom was pleading for her to at least compromise to let him at least invite his pastor from his hometown for the wedding, and said that their (non-existent) children could possibly do things with his parents for Christmas, even if they didn't celebrate. The guests just kept partying, pretending nothing was happening, but you could see on all of their faces that they wanted to leave.

Only, well, they couldn't since they would have to pass by the couple to get to the only exit. Only after two hours and the argument eventually devolving into her INSISTING her children would never see a Christmas tree in their whole lives, the groom finally dejectedly said, "Well then maybe this isn't going to work".

She threw her ring at him and said, I swear to god, "THEN WHY DID YOU LET ME MAKE YOU PROPOSE?!?!?!?!?!?!" She then changed her mind, picked up the ring, and said, "Whatever. I'm keeping this". Then she stormed off. Her mother looked at her ex-potential-son-in-law, told him he was an idiot for letting her baby go, and went after her.

I've NEVER seen a banquet room clear out so fast. Within 15 minutes, everyone was gone and it was a ghost town. From the looks of it, everyone took their "gifts" with them, too. Worse still, it was the former bride's family who had hosted and were staying at the hotel, so we spent the next two days "commiserating" with them about how awful the groom was as they moved their daughter out of his apartment.

Dude dodged a bullet.

sig863

19. The Mask Comes Off

Not a wedding shop worker, but I was at the wedding when it happened. As the bride was walking up the aisle in her dress, she tripped over her gown. And instead of just getting up and moving on, she let loose an absolute huge tantrum and started screaming at everyone. And then it got worse. When her dad tried to console her, she just slugged her dad in the face.

Then she started just throwing stuff everywhere, screaming about this wreck of a day and screaming about hurting the tailor for making the dress too long. She just lost it and proceeded to rip up her own dress and run out of the church half-dressed into the rain. I mean, I know the stress is high but oh my god, she lost her freaking mind.

elipsionnation

20. Too Much Of A Good Thing

Bridal consultant here! My most memorable appointment was a party that showed up completely sheets-to-the-wind. It wasn't unusual for bridal parties to have a little "tailgate" style party in our parking lot before coming into our store. Often they'd have mimosas or a shot or two to loosen up before the scary gown search.

This party, however, must have finished a full bottle between the five of them. They didn't appear too sloppy when we first got started, but about half an hour into the appointment it was pretty obvious that they were way too gone to be in the setting they were in. I had to prop the bride up with her nose in the corner of her fitting room to lace her corsets because she couldn't stand.

Each time we stepped out onto the stage, the bridesmaids would scream, Beatlemania style, until they were red in the face. Eventually, my manager came to me and said, very sternly, "Sell to this girl and get. them. out of here". The appointment ended when she fell for a gown $700 over budget, her most tipsy bridesmaid swiped her own credit card to cover it, and then one of them sprayed a brown bodily fluid of some kind over our ENTIRE toilet.

kimmycat88

21. My Plate’s Full

person holding clear wine glassPhoto by Davey Gravy on Unsplash

I’m a restaurant manager. The wedding dinner was on a Sunday, so instead of the usual one manager on, we had the banquet coordinator come on for a few hours to make sure everyone was happy. They were a rich couple and we wanted more of their business. Their menu was $119 a person and they had $80 bottles of red on the table.

So guests start to arrive and obviously start ordering drinks. At this point, the bride and mother see this and approach the head server. They tell her that everyone except the head table are to get separate bills, and that they are not planning on paying for anything but what's at the head table. Server finds us, tells us what's happening, and the banquet manager heads over to figure out what's going on.

It seems that the bride and her mother decided that their guests should have to pay, but they didn't want to be the bad guys so they expected us to have to tell the guests. We tell the people who have already arrived. Half of them laugh, thinking it's a joke. Once we told them it really was the truth, they laughed and left. My job became to stay at the front and tell all the people arriving for the dinner that they are going to be responsible for their whole bill, and what the costs were.

The final guest count was 20 people, and we ended up threatening court action against the family since they signed the banquet sheet stating that they agreed on 60 dinners. So the best part of this all was that they paid for the full 60 dinners, plus gratuity, and only had 20 people actually there, all because they wanted to save some money.

disgruntledrep

22. If The Shoe Fits

My experience with a Bridezilla happened at my great aunt's house. She has a private lake and a lovely setup for a small, country-style outdoor wedding. The mother of the groom was a close friend of hers, so my aunt was happy to open up her home for the event. I got the feeling leading up to the wedding that the groom's family didn't care much for the bride, and after witnessing her throwing a temper tantrum over the placement of the food table because it started to rain, I kind of started to see why.

Listening to the way she talked to everyone around her appalled me. She was a complete spoiled brat, and really was lucky that everyone didn't just leave the wedding completely...I wouldn't have blamed them a bit. However, the worst was the fact that she decided that she wanted her bridesmaids to walk barefoot...in the muddy, wet grass.

See, she had them buy new boots to wear specifically with their dresses. Anyone who has ever bought cowboy boots knows that they are upwards of $100, and she picked out pink ones to match their pink dresses. All five of the bridesmaids had to buy these boots on top of whatever they had to pay for the dress. But she decides 10 minutes before the wedding starts that she doesn't want them to wear them.

Of course, everyone complies with her and pacifies her and the wedding goes well. Although it got pretty tense during the "speak now or forever hold your peace" part. Not surprised to hear that the marriage didn't make it to six months. She was the most selfish person I've ever met, and I'm convinced that she didn't want to get married at all, she just wanted all the attention on her.

Permalink

23. Daddy’s Little Girl

I worked as a banquet server at a ritzy, riverfront hotel. People come from all over to have expensive overpriced weddings. So needless to say, many of our brides were Bridezillas to some extreme. Our summer season is very expensive. Usually, our local brides only get married there in the off-season to save some of their cash.

One local bride that I will forever remember, however, went absolutely crazy. Before the wedding even started, one groomsman left because he couldn’t stand her demands. We were all in the ballroom setting up as we normally do. At this particular wedding, the bride had a wedding planner who set the centerpieces, which were a pretty general country theme.

The bride storms in, literally has a temper tantrum that they are not right because the candle was supposed to be on the left and not the right. We fix it no problem even though it was not us but her wedding planner who set them. Now, you’d think that would be all…but no. One of her bridesmaids lost her bouquet right before the ceremony.

Instead of troubleshooting, she completely berates and humiliates her bridesmaid. Then starts stomping her feet and saying, “Dadddddyyyyy” like a two-year-old. This was over and over again. To her, every little detail was wrong in some way, shape, or form. Needless to say, I was so glad I wasn’t responsible for the bride and groom’s table that day.

RedWomanRamblings

24. Picture Imperfect

man in black suit holding black nikon dslr cameraPhoto by Natilyn Photography on Unsplash

As someone who has done a fair amount of wedding photography, one particular Bridezilla stands out for me. She abhorred the engagement photos and insisted that I must have used a warped lens or something that made her look fat. She readily admitted that her fiancé, who was standing right next to her in the photos, looked fine and normal, but there absolutely had to be lens distortion or something else that made her look significantly heavier than she really was.

That was awesome. I waived the fee for the engagement shoot and scheduled another at no cost to see if I could placate her. I recommended colors for her to wear that would “compliment her skin tone” and scheduled the second shoot for the golden hour where the light would be most complimentary, since she had insisted on the first shoot being at noon.

Two days after the second shoot, I delivered the photos and she was content enough to agree that I could be honored enough to be their wedding photographer. We (my assistant and I) get to the wedding location an hour early. We took literally hundreds of shots of pre-wedding preparations, all of the family shots that could be done with the family who actually showed up on time, and everything else that was agreed upon.

We shot the wedding as discussed. After the formal ceremony, we continued to shoot more casual shots, cake cutting, first dance, the reception, and everything else that was agreed upon. At that point, the dinner was being served. Again, as previously agreed upon, I wasn't going to shoot a bunch of people jamming food into their faces and it was time for a break anyway.

Her mother, who was actually the one paying me, invited myself and my assistant to discreetly grab a plate of food and sit at the back of the reception area and relax for a few minutes. The bridezilla came completely unglued at that point. She stood up and literally shrieked that “the photographer isn't here to eat, he's here to take photos and make me look good!"

The entire clubhouse went silent and all eyes turned to me. I set my fork down, glanced at the Bridezilla's mother, and then back at the entire ballroom and mumbled through an apology that wasn't warranted but somehow seemed necessary. Then I got my revenge. I proceeded to aim my camera directly at the fat witch while she chewed every last bite of her meal and jammed seemingly endless desserts into her maw.

Shortly thereafter, her mother and brand new regretful husband approached me and suggested that despite our contract to shoot through the duration of the reception, it might be better if I go ahead and call it a night. So I left. Very happily, I might add. The next day, as I was starting to do post-production edits on the photos, the psycho called me.

She screamed about how there was no way they were paying for the photos (that she hadn't even seen yet) and that she was going to call the local TV station to make sure I never got work again. "Ok," I said, "I understand you're upset. Please enjoy your honeymoon and we can discuss this later". And I guess I kind of hung up on her.

Half an hour later, her mother called me. She assured me that the bill would be paid in full and apologized profusely for how her daughter acted. I got paid in full. EVERYONE in the family was perfectly happy with the wedding photos except the Bridezilla. Her mother thanked me for my patience. Her husband thanked me for my tolerance.

And I thanked the powers-that-be that I'd never have to see or deal with the atrocious with again.

m-e-g-a-i-n

25. Dance Like Everyone’s Watching

I was the DJ for a wedding where the bride, who was from a very wealthy family, was not expected to live past childhood. Imagine, if you will, a girl who was raised having never heard the word "no". Her entire childhood was one big Make-a-Wish. She had a zest for life. She loved to dance, so much so that her parents were building her a giant lake house with a disco club; like a room just for dancing.

She was marrying a man several years her senior who she met at a dance class. He was just like a character out of a movie who charms older women and then takes their fortunes, except this was a much younger woman. The request list for the wedding reception was a lot of early 90s high-energy dance music. After dinner, and I've done this hundreds of times, dancing starts.

I decided to kick off dancing with the bride's favorite song, which was Technotronic’s “Pump up the Jam". Until this moment, I had nothing but pleasant interactions with this woman, who genuinely seemed to appreciate life for how precious it truly is. Before the beat could even drop, however, she was running over to me screaming, tearing into me for ruining her wedding.

It was a spectacle and the guests watched in horror as she berated me. Apparently, she wasn't ready to dance yet, and I was playing the song that she was most looking forward to dancing to on her wedding day. I was forced to stop the song cold and the only sound was her screaming as I fumbled to find some cocktail music to throw on until she was ready to dance.

At the end of the night, most brides come up and hug me and thank me for a wonderful night. I didn't get so much as an icy stare; it was as if I didn't even exist to her anymore. Her father came up and gave me a $400 gratuity. His words offered a simple apology, but you could tell they carried the weight of the monster he'd created.

JesusSavesAtWalmart

26. A Match Made In Heaven

I use to be a photographer’s assistant back in high school. I remember this one bride before the wedding kept yelling at my boss about me helping with photos as she didn’t want some “stupid kid” to ruin her wedding photos. She also kept calling her soon-to-be husband, berating him. I ended up getting sent to do the groom’s photos while my boss handled the bridezilla.

As soon as I walked into the room where the groom and his friends were getting ready, I almost puked because it smelled like a distillery. The guy was on the phone with the bridezilla on speaker while drinking and shaking his head. I could barely walk through the room with all the bottles on the floor and suitcases everywhere. Yeah, I don’t think they’re gonna make it.

AllThatSpaz

27. When It Rains, It Pours

photo of body of water and dropletsPhoto by Alex Dukhanov on Unsplash

Photographer here. The couple opted for an outdoor wedding with no weather backup option and, lo and behold, it started pouring literally five minutes before the ceremony. The guests and groom ran for cover under the reception tent. After it didn't let up, the groom made a mad dash to the door of the RV the bride was getting ready in, because she nor any of the bridesmaids were answering their phones.

She made the poor guy stand outside in the pouring rain while she screamed and cussed that she was NOT getting married under the tent and everyone would just have to wait until it stopped raining. This was the middle of July, so even the rain was hot and sticky, and there were a lot of elderly family members with health issues in attendance sitting in 80-degree heat for over an hour.

The cake had also started melting. I honestly wasn't sure if the wedding was going to happen at one point, but it eventually stopped raining and the bride married her soaked groom and ate wedding cake soup.

distractivated

28. Tailor-Made For Each Other

I work at David's Bridal. Most of the times...it's not the bride. It's a mother of the bride or maid of honor. I work in alterations, and believe me, it takes more than one appointment to get things perfect. So one day, this bride comes in for her second appointment for us to do any adjustments. Predictably, she needed a couple of things adjusted.

Her mother told me I ruined her daughter's marriage. Not wedding...but marriage. All I could think was that if needing to adjust something on your dress and having to come back for one more appointment makes you think someone ruined your perfect life with someone...well...good luck to her groom. I don’t want to be near those two.

Jadenlost

29. Hey Mr. DJ

I’m a photographer. During more than a dozen years in this business, I've had almost nothing but fantastic clients, real sweethearts, and consider myself lucky. Almost. The exception was a New York bride who was so angry because it rained cats and dogs on her wedding day. I’m not sure if she understood I wasn't in charge of making the weather.

She had wanted to take golf carts to the beach with the wedding party to do fun photos there, but that clearly didn't happen. Her foul mood spoiled a bit of the wedding. Good thing everyone else still appeared to be having a good time regardless. She managed to stay (barely) polite to her vendors, but weeks later she unleashed on me.

I had delivered, among I don't know how many hundreds of photos, two shots of the DJ. She calculated that those photos, based on my fee, had cost her $14, and was almost comically displeased about that. She also flipped her wig because, she told me angrily, she'd observed me eating a few canapés during the reception—and at three dollars apiece, how did I not understand those were not intended for the hired help!

I offered to refund her $23 and inquired where she wanted me to send the check. At that point, she calmed down a bit, possibly realizing how ridiculous she was being, and then volunteered that maybe she was being a bit irrational at the moment...because she was pregnant. Of course, I offered my congratulations. She grudgingly told me to keep the check.

I did put a baby gift (a silver rattle) in the mail to her a few weeks later. I hope she and her husband and the baby lived happily ever after!

DaytonaDemon

30. If The Shoe Fits

pair of men's brown leather loafersPhoto by Jia Ye on Unsplash

I’m not a bridal worker, but I stood up in a friend's wedding. Less than 48 hours before the wedding, the bride suddenly decided that the shoes that came with our tuxes weren't to her liking. She wanted me and the groom to go to various stores and get some “better” shoes for the big day. My friend, the groom-to-be, was totally stressed out with all the various loose ends he had to tie up before the wedding.

Including, apparently, trying to find different shoes. Fortunately, I was able to talk some sense into him. I told him first that there just wasn't enough time to go shoe shopping and second, there are only four basic types of dress shoes for guys: shiny or not shiny, with laces or without. Finally, I said that no one cares what kind of shoes the groom and groomsmen wear.

He came to his senses and was able to persuade his now-wife that new shoes were unnecessary.

LurkerKurt

31. It’s A Doggone Shame

I work for a wedding venue, and the couple wanted to bring their dogs for the ceremony. The day of the wedding, everyone working has a list of jobs to do to get ready for the big day. All of my fellow employees are setting up everything, so the couple's families can get ready and relax. We set out the chairs, decorations, flowers, tables, silverware, the dining room, the Arbor, EVERYTHING!!

The only thing they had to do was hold onto the dogs. Spoiler: They didn't. We finished everything on the inside in the morning, and we were almost done finishing everything outside, when we all hear a massive crash on the inside of our massive event room. It was the dogs. One had started with the wedding cake and accompanying artsy cupcakes.

The other moved into (on top of) the beverages tables where they broke around 80 flutes, 60 stemless glasses, and around 120ish glasses, along with four crystal punch bowls and all the accompanying liquids. And they did it all within a few seconds. Needless to say, the bride and groom’s "handler" was their 15-year-old nephew.

This boy, in his eternal wisdom, thought that he would let them run around a bit before the wedding. When the bride walked out of the changing rooms and down the hall to see the noise, she was not happy at the sight of the horrors that took place. She lost her mind, blaming us for everything, screaming, “Why did you let the dogs into the room?” etc etc.

She said she didn't care how, but to get this all ready before the reception or she would sue us for all we were worth. We took the "I don't care how" to heart. We called every business within a 10-mile radius and bought, borrowed, bartered, and did everything we could. All the glasses, all the wine, the drinks. I was in charge of driving the boss’s car to the nearest bakery and forcing the bakery to make a serviceable wedding cake with everything they had.

I was a little late on bringing the cake back, but everything else had been cleaned, reset, and back to its former glory before the wedding ceremony was over. After the night was over and the bride and groom left, we gave everything back we borrowed, boxed up what we bought, and started shelling out the favors. We tallied up all the damages the dogs had caused and what the wedding cost.

It was in the five-digit range. The couple was understandably angry at the bill, so they did indeed sue…they lost. And to my knowledge, they are still leaving 1-star reviews on every rating website out there for us.

Puffin_slayer

32. Get A Room

I worked management at a resort in a popular tourist town. When weddings are booked at our venue with the event coordinator, we can hold a certain number of rooms for guests attending. A manager was always required to check in the bridal couple, and I had been given a heads up by the coordinator that this particular bride was a Bridezilla.

First, they wanted a room on the highest floor and closer to the beach. Thing is, they were already booked into the Honeymoon Suite, which was on the third floor with ocean views. Nope, she wanted higher and closer. Had an absolute meltdown at the front desk when I explained there was nothing higher...or closer. I mean, really.

A colleague of mine ran for the event coordinator when the bride started screaming at me and her husband-to-be. The husband was very apologetic and trying to calm her down. Eventually, she was placated and sent off with keys, but fewer than 30 minutes later she was back and demanding we empty the rooms next to and below her.

Honey, those rooms cost $640 a night and we are fully booked! I was lucky enough to not be working the night of the wedding, but I heard all about her screaming at the wait staff, kicking the band out for playing a song she didn’t like, and the screaming match she got into with her mother-in-law. What a peach! All counted up, the wedding was about $40,000 and she made everyone miserable.

The groom left our front desk staff a big tip to apologize for her behavior.

MissyMack

33. The Water Works

assorted flower bouquet near flower shopPhoto by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

I own a gift shop and I also sell flowers. It's in a small hospital so we don't do too many flowers. Usually, it’s just small arrangements because our customers generally don't want to spend over 20 bucks. One day, one of the women who works at the hospital asked us if we would make a bridal bouquet for her future daughter-in-law.

We decided we would do it just for her. We made this beautiful bouquet exactly how she wanted it, and even added some extra embellishments. She picked it up the day before the wedding and I told her to just gently spray water from a spray bottle on it to keep it hydrated. I even demonstrated how to do it. The mother-in-law came in the next Monday and told me something awful.

Apparently, the night before the wedding the bride had literally sat the bouquet in the sink and drenched it with water which obviously ruined it. The bride wanted to demand a refund but the mother-in-law told her no because it was her own fault. So yeah, after that one I probably won't work with brides again. Too high strung.

makeasmore

34. The Mother Of All Insults

Not a wedding shop, but we sold kitchenware. Think china, cookware, etc. It was like a Williams Sonoma store. The bride, mother of the bride, and mother of the groom were all shopping and filling out the wedding registry list. The groom’s mom was pointing to an item and said something to the bride. The mother of the bride turned to the other mother and snapped, “Your job is to shut up and wear blue".

We placed bets on if that marriage would last.

ShamusNC

35. A Wandering Eye

I worked at a church that had weddings in the DC area. The worst bride I dealt with was part of an insanely rich couple. They showed up in a Lamborghini, I think, and the groom kept asking if it was safe to park the car out front. I think he was just trying to show off the car, and he also wondered if his father's Bentley would be safe in the alley behind the church.

We were in DC, so he was lucky we had any parking at all. Then the bride was walking around talking about all the extravagant things she was wanting for the wedding, and pointing to things saying, "This will never do". The worst thing was that every time the bride turned her back, the groom kept on staring at my chest.

It was strange. His bride looked like a supermodel, and he was very good-looking himself; I don't know why he had to sleaze on church workers. After that and other demanding people, I told the church I don't want to do weddings, so now volunteers for the church do it.

ghoulishgirl

36. A Bull In A China Shop

woman standing inside clothing areaPhoto by Korie Cull on Unsplash

Do Groomzillas count? I used to work as a bridal registry consultant for a big department store. I had several nightmare couples and family members, but I always think of this one guy. The bride was pleasant enough and very polite. She expressed great excitement when discussing the plans for the wedding, while the groom just seemed bored.

She was very excited to pick out fine china—and that’s when the groom snapped. He yelled at her and called her an idiot, then told her that there was no need for expensive things like that. He said they would never use them, while she insisted that she would find reasons to use them so they wouldn’t go to waste. She also said that her family insisted on her picking a pattern and they would all chip in to get the set.

She was nice enough and patient enough with this jerk that she even kept asking him what he liked. Well, the groom didn't like anything and kept yelling at her, telling her that she was "wasting his time" and that she was stupid. It was getting really uncomfortable at that point. I tried to intervene as much as I could, but this groom was complete scum.

Eventually, he stormed off and I tried to keep everything light-hearted and happy for the bride. I hope she didn't go through with that wedding.

Hamdurrgur

37. Horsing Around

I worked for a small regional newspaper. It must have been a quiet week for stories, so my editor sends me off to cover the wedding of the son of one of our biggest advertisers. I make contact with the family to get details, and get told to meet them at a carpark behind the community hall, as the bride would be riding a horse up the main street to the quaint little stone Anglican church (how romantic! swoon).

So I get there and here's the bride in a massive, poofy, white fairy princess dress. The bride had to hoist the dress up to her armpits to get on the horse and ride with it bunched around her hips with her legs from the knee down poking out beneath. Apparently the decision to ride was a rather last-minute one. But what's this? There are two horses!

It seems the mother-of-the-bride wanted some of the attention cough I mean, she wanted to be part of her daughter's special day. So the mother is in a lovely lilac jacket, white blouse...and a very tight knee-length skirt. The sort of skirt that makes walking hard, let alone stepping up to a stirrup or swinging your leg over a saddle.

Oh, and huge stiletto heels that she refused to take off, even to get on the horse. The mother ended up having to roll her skirt up to her belt and get two hefty blokes to hoist her onto the horse. Then roll her skirt back down enough so she could tuck it under her butt and not be flashing her knickers up the main street. And away they went.

It was early afternoon in a pretty touristy town, so the echo of clip-clopping hooves brought everyone out of cafes and shops for a look. Took some very creative photography to cover that disaster discretely!

the_frog_queen

38. Don’t Bug Me

My brother and sister-in-law used to own a bakery, and wedding cakes were their primary moneymaker. If a couple had an outdoor wedding, we would always warn them that the cake needed a net around it to protect it from bugs. Most couples understood it and usually had a net around it, or else didn’t care. So anyway, this one bride wanted an extravagant wedding cake.

The middle section was a four-tier cake—two tiers on the bottom pillars with columns and two tiers on the top. Then she wanted four other sets of a four-tier cake that had stairs connecting the middle section. On the stairs were small dolls that were supposed to resemble the bridesmaids and groomsmen. Each cake was also a different flavor as well.

Oh but we’re not done yet. Then on the bottom, a waterfall. In short, this cake was ugly. The reception was also close to a creek, so that means lots of bugs. We strongly urged her to use a net around it. She declined. We also made her sign a waiver excluding us from any liability after the cake was dropped off. We have this wedding as our last drop-off as it was hot and we didn’t want the frosting to melt by sitting in the hot sun all day.

We also freeze the cakes a day or two before so by the time it’s ready to cut, the cake is de-thawed but the frosting is still intact. This is how it went downhill. We arrive to start assembling the cake and I noticed little tiny gnats already in the cake. We did a quick fix to eliminate the problem but alert the people there (again) that they needed something to protect the cake.

Again, by time it’s ready to serve, it will be covered in bugs. We show them the problem, but they didn’t seem to care. So whatever, she signed the waiver, we finished and left. Well, my sister-in-law gets a phone call around 8 pm that night with an angry bride. She wanted us to make and redecorate the exact cake and bring it to her within an hour.

There is no way in heck we would or could do that. Since I am better at customer service than my brother and his wife, she handed me the phone and I explained to the bride, “I feel your frustration in the matter, however, you were informed of the dangers of setting up a cake outside, in the country, with no protection".

I asked her if she had any more questions. She threw a big humph and hung up on me.

ginniejo

39. Won’t Somebody Think Of The Children?

a couple of people that are standing in the grassPhoto by Anthea Lawrence on Unsplash

I worked at a wedding venue in college. This isn't so much a Bridezilla story as it is just a bizarre...bizarre wedding. It was a 70-top, pretty small for our venue and banquet style, but this was actually less pressure on the servers. We basically just had to keep things running smoothly from ceremony to reception to send-off. It was an easy night for us…not for them.

First, they got married in our vineyard. One of the little kids was the ring-bearer and he dropped the ring. A few staff members were out for two hours searching through the brush for it, to no avail. We think one of the geese ate it. Next, the reception. It was closer to a daycare because more than half of that 70 headcount was children under 10.

The groom was super great with them, like maybe he was a teacher or something. The bride didn't interact with them at all, and overall seemed to have a lot of disdain for them. At one point, the groom even procured a guitar from somewhere and was having a sing-along on the floor with the kids. Meanwhile, the bride was just off eating her dinner alone at the little sweethearts' table.

Last, the cake. How it works: The bride and groom cut the cake out on the floor so everyone can get pictures and people cheer, then two servers bring the rest of the cake back to my station where we cut and dish out the rest of the slices for the guests. We separate the top of the cake and pack it for the bride and groom to take with them.

The intent is they share it on their first anniversary, as you guys probably know. Well, this cake went fast, because kids probably. So as we were finishing up the station and packing the top, groom comes back and tells us to cut the top. We double-check that is ok…turns out he went behind the bride's back because the kids wanted more cake.

She didn't look all too thrilled with her wedding day, or with the groom. I didn't see them interact all night, and sometimes I wonder if they are still together.

CodeShrike

40. Family Feud

Wedding Officiant here. The bride was a wonderful young woman, albeit short, chubby, and slightly “frumpy". But a sweet girl and very happy, and very in love. The mom was just the opposite: tall, willowy, blonde, and overly made up. After the wedding, the mom showed up at the reception. Everyone looked at her and gasped all together.

She came in an extra-tight off-white dress. It was backless and with a thigh slit up to her waistline. She had stiletto heels that would have been more at home on the pole, not at a wedding. Once the wedding itself was over, the mom made it all about her. She was the first person on the dance floor, worked the room at the reception, and did table-to-table flirting with every man in the room (including me).

It was sad watching the bride slowly slip back into her shell, eclipsed by her mother. On her wedding day.

Outlander56

41. A Little To The Left

I used to cater wedding receptions in college. This momzilla shows up to the reception hall about 30 minutes before everyone is due to arrive. She thinks that one of the tables is too close to another table, and asks that we move it about five inches. Okay. But then of course all the OTHER tables are now too close, and she insists that we move every single table in the venue over five inches.

All 16 of them. We manage to scurry and move them, but you know what happens when you move 16 tables? Every single chair doesn't match the place setting now. We manage to move every single chair (over 160) right before the first guests arrive, never mind that it's taken up time we should have been prepping for guests by filling water pitchers, etc. and we're now behind.

Crazy mom THEN insists that every fork is slightly too close to every plate. We now politely tell her we won't be moving 160 forks—and she has a fit. Luckily, we stood our ground, and that mother did not get what she wanted that day.

Sapphire1166

42. The Writing’s On The Wall

people hands with tattoesPhoto by Vitaliy Lyubezhanin on Unsplash

So, I do Henna tattoos. Usually, I work a booth at either a theme park or fair, and occasionally I work at this little shop in the downtown area of where I live. I’m finishing up my shift at a local theme park when the lady at the shop calls me in a complete panic. A bridal party has come in with no warning, and not only does the bride want the full traditional wedding henna done, but she wants henna on her bridesmaids as well.

A total of 20 people who need hands and feet done, and the bride who wants hands, feet, and her back done in henna. I get to the shop and there are now two of us who can do the designs the bride has asked for. The bride takes one look at me and says she won’t let me do the henna for her or any of her party. I’m white. I currently have rainbow hair done up in a pixie cut. I also tend to give people the impression that I am gay.

So, after hearing this witch of a bride spout off about how a white girl can’t possibly do henna right, I point to the pictures in the example book—because they were all done by me. Then I took my happy butt home, turned my phone off, and had a nice nap before going to my other job. I later found out that the bride ended up storming out of the shop when she found out there simply was no way to do it.

I still wonder if she found someone to do it. The best part was, a lot of her wedding party were white girls as well, so I guess it’s okay for them to wear it but not for a white girl to know how to apply it.

Storytellingchick

43. Runaway Bride

I’m not a wedding shop worker, but I do have a pretty incredible Bridezilla story. My sister and I were asked to be bridesmaids by a mutual acquaintance. We both thought it was odd that she asked both of us and not someone closer to her, but either way, we planned a wonderful weekend in a resort town three hours away for her bachelorette party with the other two bridesmaids, who were her friends.

She started the weekend pouty and on her phone for most of the time. All in all, she seemed totally ungrateful for the good time we were trying to give her. Things got better when we broke out the hard stuff in our hotel room later. Then we saw a band at a bar, and there were other bridal parties there. She was fine for a while, dancing and having fun, until one of the other bridal parties sat down near us and started getting more attention.

They were all young cute girls and the band was flirting with them, guys were asking the bride to dance...and all of a sudden my bride sat down and began furiously texting on her phone. We asked what was wrong, and she would only say that she wasn’t having fun anymore and wanted to go home. We were all like, “Okay, let’s call a cab and go back to the hotel".

And she was like, “No, I want to go HOME". Which was three hours away. We were all drinking, so no one could drive her home. She storms out of the bar and begins calling people who none of us know to come and pick up her in the middle of the night because her fiancé isn’t answering his phone. She steadfastly refuses to get a cab; she says she’s going to stand in the parking lot for hours until someone picks her up.

She even made us miss a bus that could have driven us to the hotel for free because she simply refused to move. That was what made me snap. I screamed at her. I’ve never in my adult life screamed at another adult like that. I told her that she was going to get in a car and go back to the hotel, because we weren’t going to leave her out here all alone and we certainly weren’t going to stand in a bar parking lot for hours while she waited for someone to pick her up.

And she finally relented. We got into a cab and got back to the hotel. Bride is still texting, not speaking to any of us now because I yelled at her. When we got to the hotel, she refused to come inside. She stood in that awkward space between the two double doors and refused to move again. Myself and one of her friends went up to the room to pack her stuff, while my sister and the other friend stayed downstairs to make sure she didn’t bolt on us or something.

She finally got a hold of her fiancé, who agreed to drive down and fetch her. My sister said that when Bridezilla finally decided to talk, she witched about how she was mad at US because “we hadn’t helped her enough". I was livid. We’d gone to wedding expos with her, helped her pick out her dress, picked out our dresses, and we’d planned an entire weekend for her bachelorette party.

We spent hundreds of dollars to make her happy, but that wasn’t good enough for her. And while I was up in the hotel room gathering her stuff with her other friend, I learned the whole truth. She’s been previously married, had multiple foreclosures and court dates because of unpaid debts, and had two children she no longer had custody of—all things I had no idea about even though I’d known her for years.

I’m not sure if her fiancé knew it either! When her fiancé did arrive, she didn’t even greet or thank him. She just blew right past him and sat in his car. Her behavior was like a petulant teenager, and this woman was in her late 30s. It was unbelievable. But in the end, my sister and I bonded with the other two bridesmaids over the tumultuous situation, and now we’re friends. And the wedding was astoundingly uneventful. So I guess I’m happy with that!

thefangirlfiles

44. Straight And Narrow

I’ve been DJing weddings for about 10 years. Most brides relax by the time I really get to work, and most of the time the groom is in charge of the music. So I don’t have too many stories—however, one bride was really, really into her wedding being symmetrical. She measured the entire room and wanted everything placed at the exact places she requested.

I had to measure the distance my table was from the wall and the other tables, I had to measure the distance my speakers were from each other and the dance floor. On the day, she was upset at me because I failed to inform her that I had lighting for the dance floor and she wished that she had time to determine where to place them.

djfivenine11

45. Doomed From The Start

person holding orange fruit near green leavesPhoto by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash

I am a florist, and I serviced a Bridezilla and groom without a hitch on my end. On their end? They had to go out of state to get married because they had protective orders against each other!

trishamingotrish

46. A Cake Walk

I once worked in a bakery, and we had this bride freak out that her cake wasn't right, and she proceeded to smash it to bits with her fist. Well, she smashed the wrong cake. Like what the heck. Anyways, the authorities allowed her to wash her hands before placing her in handcuffs. I felt bad for the future husband and the couple that ordered said cake. People are cray cray.

foxlust

47. Photo Finish

Wedding band member here. I had a bride flip out at me and my bandmates because our instruments weren't white or salmon-colored to fit in with the decorations. She was saying we would ruin the photographs…even though I was playing during the reception and all the photos were already taken. A sunburst jazz bass, blue Stratocaster and a red drum set aren't going to ruin your pictures, darling.

orbital_cheese

48. This One Takes The Cake

person holding ballpoint pen writing on white paperPhoto by Marissa Grootes on Unsplash

I worked as a wedding planner and coordinator, and one bride stands out to me because she was so inconsistent with all the vendors. She was a complete sweetheart to me during the planning phase and I never saw any of the crazy until the day of the wedding. It was honestly like a Jekyll/Hyde moment. She wanted a big wedding, around 300 people, and spent a lot of money on the venue and food and wanted the best for everything.

No complaints about paying for it either, never asked for discounts or anything like that. And since she wanted the best and seemed to have a really large budget, I referred her to a popular baker for the cake. I let her handle the logistics for the cake since I've worked with this baker before and never had any problems. I figured they would do the standard cake tasting, pick a design with the baker, and I would see a gorgeous masterpiece on the day of the wedding.

Well, that didn't really work out. For some reason, she didn't want to tell the baker that it was for a wedding. I'm guessing she read that you can save money by ordering a regular cake because some vendors will automatically add an extra charge if it's for a wedding. By the way, this is true to some extent, but the extra charge truly is there for a reason.

Whenever something is for a wedding, the vendor puts in much more care, stresses about the timing, execution, etc. way more than usual, and often times will go all out and use premium materials or add upgrades. Not all of us are just adding extra charges for no reason. Anyways, she decided she didn't want to pay for a wedding cake so she told the baker it was for a birthday party.

The baker asked how many people the cake would need to serve and she said "around 50". She also didn't want to pay the delivery fee, so she had her sister pick up the cake on the morning of the wedding and bring it to the event. At this point, it's important to mention one huge thing. We live in Texas and this is a summer wedding.

So by the time the cake got to the venue—about six hours after it was picked up from the bakery—it didn't look all that great anymore. Some of the decorations had melted, the cake got a little banged up in the car ride, there was icing on the inside of the box, and the entire cake was sagging on one side. It was also way too small for a wedding of her size.

I saw it and it looked like a complete disaster. But at this point, we're about an hour away from the start of the wedding and there's no possible way to fix this. The bride comes into the reception room with her makeup all done When she sees it, she unravels. Screaming, crying, throwing things, collapsing on the floor. Complete meltdown.

She threatens to cancel the whole wedding if we can't fix it. We try to calm her down as much as we can and grab the makeup artist before she leaves and ask if she can help fix the bride's makeup, which is a mess now. The bride sees herself in the mirror and has another meltdown because she ruined her hair and makeup and now wants to have the whole thing re-done.

After she gets everything done to perfection again, we're about an hour behind schedule. I let the guests come inside the reception room to wait because it seemed cruel to force everyone to sit outside in 100-degree heat, but when the bride saw that everyone was inside she had another meltdown. She spent the entire wedding sulking with a scowl on her face, and refused to take any pictures with people.

Her new husband kept coming over to hug her and try to cheer her up, and she would either yell at him or give him the silent treatment. Most of the guests left very early because the atmosphere felt so uncomfortable. So, pretty much a waste of the $200,000 budget for a lavish wedding, all because she wanted to save a couple hundred bucks on the cake.

girlwithdog

49. Thirsting For More

Wedding coordinator here! I've found the moms are usually worse than the brides. I worked a wedding this past summer with a ridiculous Momzilla. During the rehearsal, she handed me the box of decorations and said, "Don't you dare make this look tacky". On the day of the wedding, she arrived and came up to ask me where the wedding programs were.

I told her there weren't any programs in any of the boxes and she proceeded scream at me for losing them and then decided that I took them. She also asked that we build a water station for the guests, but instructed us that she didn't want the guests to have access to it until after the ceremony. It was 90 degrees that day and the ceremony was outside, so that did not go over well.

And when the guests complained that they were thirsty and we weren't letting them go to the water station, she told them how horrible we were and made a big deal of opening the water station early, like she was the hero. Thank God they only booked the venue for the ceremony, so she was only my problem for about an hour. But that wasn’t the end of the story.

The next day, my boss handed me an email the Momzilla sent her. She wrote about how I lost the programs, but then in the same sentence said she found the programs in her hotel room later that night and made a comment about how I should've gone to her hotel and gotten them. She also complained about how I wouldn't give her guests water and how the photographer was the worst person she's ever worked with.

She actually wrote, "Don't bother remembering her name, she'll never work in his town again" about the photographer, like she was a Hollywood producer. Her letter ended with her complimenting the venue space—and then came the line I’ll never forget. "I think I would be a great addition to your team of event coordinators! Let me know when I can start!"

Yep, this witch was blatantly trying to take my job. The worst part, though, is that my boss actually hired her. Needless to say, I quit working at that venue.

QueenoftheBunnies

50. Comeuppance Bought And Paid For

My mom and I saw a great Bridezilla freak out while shopping for my wedding dress a few years back. We were in a small, local shop when another mother-daughter duo came in. The attendant who had been helping us went up to greet them. The mother said they were here to pick up her daughter's dress, so the attendant looks her name up in the computer, frowns, and says, "Ma'am, you never bought the dress".

"What are you talking about?" The attendant shows the lady the notes on her computer screen. "You said you wanted to think about it, and asked if we could hold the dress. We held it for two weeks, but when we didn't hear back from you, we assumed you didn't want it". "Well, we want it now". "It's been over eight months", the attendant explained, "We sold the dress a long time ago. But I can order you another one, and have it expedited here in a few weeks".

And like a Mt. St. Helens of entitlement, the eruption began. "This is unacceptable!" The mother shrieked. "We have her alterations scheduled in two hours! The wedding is a week away! I can't believe you sold her dress!" The bride, meanwhile, is slumped against the desk and sobbing like someone kicked her dog. My mom and I are just open-mouthed staring at this point.

The attendant was trying to be diplomatic, but is clearly as baffled as we are. "Ma'am, we had no way to know you wanted it. You never called. You never put down a deposit. The dress isn't yours until you pay for it". After some more screaming from the mother and wailing from the bride, they left. The shop attendant came back over to us and I asked her, "Does that kind of thing happen a lot?"

The poor lady just deflated. "All the time". It baffles me to this day. How do you schedule alterations on a dress that you never purchased? Why would you wait until a week before the wedding to pick up your dress? How do you make it to adulthood without knowing how basic buying and selling transactions work?

atomic_tango

When I was in college, a cousin of mine who lived in London all her life came to visit me. We went out to my favorite restaurant on her first day and I warned her right of the bat not to order too much. She'd never been to New York, but I had been to London, and I knew there was a difference in portion sizes.

Portion sizes in England are usually just enough to satisfy you while potion sizes in America are usually too much to finish in one sitting. I explained this to her, but she waved me off. It was a point of pride for her that in any given group of people, she was always the one who ate the most, and the one who never slipped into a food coma.

Big mistake.

She was surprised to find that the chicken finger appetizer she ordered, which she refused to split when I suggested it, came on top of a mountain of loaded fries. She was struggling to finish it when the entree she ordered came out. She paled when she remembered it came with four sides.

In the end, she had to pack up a lot of the food, which was a totally new concept to her.

Ordering too much thinking you are going to finish it all is just one of the things foreigners should avoid doing when visiting America. There are plenty of other things to avoid or places not to go, and Redditors are eager to share what those things are.

It all started when Redditor AlainasBoyfriend asked:

"What should a foreigner avoid while visiting the United States?"

Rain, Rain

"Don’t be bullheaded when it comes to the weather. If the locals are worried, you should be worried."

– TakeThisification

"Friend was gored to death by a mountain goat. Right through the femoral artery."

– Sharp-Procedure5237

Say Cheese

"If you go to the national parks, don’t attempt to take selfies with the wildlife. A full grown bison will throw you through the air like a crumpled piece of paper."

– Juergen2993

"In Washington DC, avoid taking pictures in front of DC District court thinking it is the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is 6 blocks away."

"Also, the White House is MUCH smaller than you think it is."

– SafetyMan35

"And eat and eat..."

"Ordering a large at a restaurant, or especially a movie theater. I don't care how hungry you think you are, you will not eat/drink it all in one sitting."

– Amazing_Excuse_3860

"Especially stupid if there are free refills on drinks lol."

– sigaven

City Folk, Beware

"If you are visiting a more rural area, like Montana where I live, don't underestimate the rural-ness. You might not be able to get a hotel in a small town and there are plenty ty of places where there aren't any hotels or accommodations. You can take highway and run out of gas because there aren't any gas stations for 70 miles."

"Also, if it is a dirt road, and there are a lot of them in the rural U.S., don't ever assume that you will have cell/GPS reception or that the dirt road goes anywhere besides 50 miles into the mountains where you can get stuck or break down. It's hard to conceptualize for people who live in more populated areas."

"Your best bet is to plan ahead and read reviews. It is absolutely worth it to visit areas where there is wilderness. That is why I live here. That being said, it's dangerous in a different way than visiting a city."

– Violet624

"Damn, as an American city dweller, you made me scared of Montana."

– DasBeatles

Road Trip

"Driving from New York to LA."

– No_Finish_2144

"Unless you're planning to spend 2 weeks visiting places in between. The drive will not take just a few days!"

– VG88

"We had an exchange student from France staying with us (NY). one day, we saw her with a map of the US, said she was going to take a bus to California because she had heard so much about it on television."

"We had to sit down and explain it was going to take a week, each way."

– medicinaltequilla

"Yep. I lived in France for a longtime and took the bus everywhere. on a 10 hr ride there you could easily cross three countries..."

– No_Finish_2144

Six Feet Apart

"I find a lot of foreigners have about 2 1/2 inches of a personal space bubble, while us Americans value our space. Keep at least a 2-3 feet distance when conversing with strangers. I've had an Italian guy come so close I thought he was going to kiss me. Very uncomfortable for someone who isn't used to a lack of personal space."

– MasterPip

Keep Your Mind Wide Open

"Leave all your stereotypes about America home, it's a hugely diverse country and your experience in one part of the US will be very different to your experience in another. Keep an open mind and have fun."

– zerbey

"Well said. I don’t think most first time visitors to the US get just how different one state can be from the next."

– TacohTuesday

Smokey Home

"Don't smoke in public buildings, this is illegal."

"Don't smoke in someone's house, apartment, or condo without asking for permission. This isn't illegal, but it's still extremely rude."

– Max10imus

"This feels like common courtesy anywhere in general. Even in houses where people smoke, I still go outside to smoke. I'm really uncomfortable smoking in other people's houses."

– Conditions21

Don't Forget To Tip You Waiter

"Remember that our service staff do not get paid a living wage. They rely on tips to survive. If you can’t afford to tip, don’t eat out."

– kindest_asshole

"Tipping is compulsory here. It's super fucky, and really shouldn't be. But it is. Especially if you plan on sticking to one area and eating in a place more than once, you'd best tip. Don't toy with the people who handle your food out of eye-shot..."

– MothraWillSaveUs

Where To Eat

"Don't go to the big chain type places. Go to the mom and pop little restaurants and coffee shops and specialty shops. You will usually find new cool things you enjoy."

– ElectionProper8172

"Agree but check reviews. Not all small businesses are created equal. Chains are good if you don’t have time to do research. You know what you’re getting (probably)."

– UnihornWhale

American Health Care

"Avoid a hospital visit. Whatever you think it costs, it’s more."

– pug_fugly_moe

"Whatever a European thinks is a cartoonish amount, and then triple it, and that'll cover the ambulance ride there."

– liketreesintheforest

"Right? I remember listening to a Dutch person complain that their Healthcare wasn't actually free despite what Americans said. He went on to explain that he has to pay something like a $20 copay to go to the dentist and some vague circumstance where you might theoretically have to pay close to a hundred dollars at some point. It was cute."

– UnspecificGravity

Get Me A Map!

"Avoid looking lost and unorganized in areas of big cities with high crime rates. Dress functionally, always keep the illusion of knowing where you are and where you're going, pay attention to your surroundings. Bad people will target folks who look lost and unorganized more often than people who appear oriented."

– xtrasmolpp

"That kind of applies to any big city in the world."

– the13bangbang

"If I am legitimately lost, I will walk with purpose until I find somewhere to sit. Once seated, the phone comes out and I try to make it look like I am texting someone and not studying a map. Nothing stands out like a group of people, standing in the middle of the sidewalk, all staring at one person's phone."

– Lothar_Ecklord

I'm not even a foreigner and I follow this rule all the time. Extremely important!

woman lying on bed
Yuris Alhumaydy on Unsplash

Ideally life is a rollercoaster of highs and lows.

Constant highs set up an unrealistic expectation of the world that can come crashing down hard over the smallest setbacks.

Constant lows are just plain cruel.

A mix helps develop coping skills and problem solving while not crushing the spirit.

Keep reading...Show less

BFFs don’t always last forever, and even the best of friendships can end in the worst ways. From unpaid debts to spreading gossip, these people took to Reddit to share the most memorable and infuriating reasons why they broke off a friendship.

1. Wild Support Payments

I lost close to $5,000 to a friend. He was going through a bad breakup and needed to pay child support. He told me that the first child support payment had gone out of his account without him expecting it and he had nothing to cover his expenses and rent for the month. I loaned him a total of $5,000 over about three weeks, and this was also when my wife and I were planning our wedding so we had a heap of expenses, but a bro needs help and that was a priority. Later, I found out the dark truth about him.

Some mutual friends confessed to me that he’d used the money on living large and a few big weekends out with girls. I confronted him, he told me he couldn’t pay, then started ducking me. I moved away after I got married and he ended up no longer speaking to our group of friends once they all found out about it. Ten years of friendship, gone.

zhwak

2. Son Of A…

I went on a mini-vacation, which was supposed to be four days, with my best friend in 2021 to New Jersey. She brought her then-eight-year-old son, and I brought my then-four-year-old daughter. Her son was so disrespectful, dropped curse words, had a nasty attitude, and was so mean to my daughter the entire trip.

The last straw was on the morning of the third day when he ripped a box of cereal out of my daughter's hand. She started crying and he slapped her across her head. I tried disciplining him and my friend blew up at me and proceeded to DEFEND her son, as she called my daughter a "whiny baby".

We started arguing, I packed our bags and said we were leaving. I drove 4 hours home without saying a single word to her or her son. Got to her house, threw her bags on her front lawn, and peeled out of her driveway.

permalink

3. Jurassic Snark

Jurassic World | A New Vision on Vimeovimeo.com

I cut ties with my friend due to lots of little things that eventually became too much. For example, 7-8 years ago, he bought 15 tickets for a midnight premiere of Jurassic World for our entire friends group to attend.

The day of the show, he texted me to tell me that he forgot to buy "my" ticket, so I couldn't go. Of the 15 he bought, how did he decide it was "my" ticket that he didn't buy? Well, it turns out, he gave my ticket to a girl he met the week prior so he could take her instead.

That was just one of many things.

It's all truly minor stuff like that, but when you have 100 minor things, it becomes clear that they aren't actually your friend anymore.

Alwaysmyfault

4. Two In One

My mom’s friend had a son that was 3-4 years younger than me so we became friends by default. Honestly, I just tolerated him because was a foul-mouthed little instigator whose mom let him get away with everything and never disciplined him—but then he went too far.

One summer day we had all just gotten back from going somewhere, I had gotten myself in trouble with Mom and was given a time out on the front porch while our moms went inside.

He proceeded to get my toy cars out, and while I’m sitting there he starts throwing them at me and calling me names with every throw. I’d had enough of being pelted and threw one back. And he screamed his head off and started bawling. But I wasn’t the only one who lost a friend that day.

His mom came out of the house, scooped him up, yelled at me, and took off in her car. My mom asked me what happened and I told her. She didn’t blame me for not taking it, and called up his mom to explain everything. She wouldn’t hear it, hung up on my mom and that was it.

Storyteller678

5. A Friendly B&E

It was my last year in a country I previously lived in and at the time it was during summer vacation which we normally spend in our home country. We had to cut our vacation short because we got a phone call telling us that our house had gotten broken into and robbed. We came back on that day and my friend was talking to me, telling me he saw the authorities by our house and he hopes everything is OK.

It was horrible. There was stuff stolen, furniture destroyed, closets torn down, and fully emptied. My family decided to accelerate the move from that country and that was that. A year later, he sent me a long email explaining how sorry he was and that he was responsible for it, that his friends were the perpetrators, and that he knew who did it but didn’t want to expose them.

When we showed the email to the authorities and they questioned him, it turned out he was part of that group as well.

JustSayGGBro

6. DU Why?

man holding steering wheelPhoto by Luke Ellis-Craven on Unsplash

My friend got a D.U.I. while driving my car and then lied about it and lied about why my car was towed—but he didn’t stop there. He lied about losing his license. Suddenly, he just wanted to walk everywhere for the exercise. He lied to my friends and told them it was my fault because my registration had lapsed. And when I finally confronted him about it…he kept lying.

Automatic-Pick-2481

7. Neutralize The Threat

My friend’s girlfriend got mad at him for being at my birthday party. He was my best buddy ever since second grade, my parents and even my grandparents adored him. The day after my birthday, I got a call from him. I could hear her voice in the background, he was so loud telling me to delete all the photos we took on my birthday and cut ties with him.

She made him block me everywhere and I was sad for some weeks. I'm still tearing up typing this. I was the first one he opened up about his relationship with. I used to ask how she is every time I saw or called him. I tried to be friends with her but she didn't care. The thing is that he has other female best friends too—but she has a problem with me. And we don't even see each other often after graduating because of the distance, and don't text or call often because of our studies. It was after months I got to see him on my birthday. I miss him but I have to respect their relationship.

Careless-Shallot-416

8. Ultimate Betrayal

My friend was telling my girlfriend at the time she should break up with me—but that’s not the most twisted part. This was happening a few weeks after my mother’s death and I was still dealing with the trauma. He successfully managed to talk her into dumping me, only for me to find out they'd been sleeping with each other a week beforehand. To add to this, he didn't even have the balls to tell me to my face, I had to find out from a mutual friend. I'm glad I haven't seen that jerk again.

Digitbh

9. She Wanted A Maid, Not A Bridesmaid

woman in white dress holding bouquet of flowersPhoto by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

My friend told me I was her best friend, but didn’t put me in her wedding party. But then she continued to ask me for wedding styling advice for her bridesmaids. It all stung but I got over it. She then told me she needed me at her bachelorette and I was helping her brainstorm ideas.

We talked daily. One morning we talked like normal and that evening I saw posts of her on her bachelorette. We’d been best friends since high school, but she had a girl she’d only known for six months on the trip with her. Her response when I asked about it? “Oh someone surprised me with it, sorry you’re upset”.

I blocked her and haven’t looked back—and I’ve been a bridesmaid for better friends multiple times since.

AnxiousBlob8

10. Escaping The Friendzone

This one friend I had in particular seemed to be giving me real signals. She was being really flirty, saying things verbally that were almost flat-out saying she wanted it, and touching me on more than one occasion. But then later, she would go on about how we are just friends.

All this happens, then I hear her talking about one of her other friends one night—a guy I also know. What she said made my blood run cold. She told the other girl: "Yeah he would love to get a piece of me but I'll never let him, I always make him think he has a chance though. When we go out to a club I will grind up against him and turn him on", and she was also encouraging the other girl to try and turn this dude on/tease him too.

Forget that. That guy isn't your toy, and neither am I. Being flirty is one thing, but purposely turning guys on just for your own ego trip is another. I haven't been friends with her since, and I don't regret it one bit.

SomeguyUK

11. Office Space

My best friend since high school chose her Microsoft coworkers from five years ago to be her bridesmaids over her actual best friends. We had always talked about how I would be in her wedding party, and of course, she had been in mine. I was hurt and confused. I messaged her on Insta asking what I did wrong a few months before the wedding, and then promptly unsent it. The aftermath was brutal.

She saw the message pre-delete and then proceeded to ignore me and be totally rude to me at the wedding. She pretended I didn’t exist. She didn’t invite me to the pre-wedding hike. Her other best friends didn’t know who the heck her bridesmaids were either & came up to me & said they were shocked I wasn’t in the wedding party.

She came up to me crying at the after-party, buried her head in my shoulders, and told me how sorry she was and that she loves me. She thought I didn't like her fiancée. I never expressed such a thing. Apparently, that’s why none of her best friends were included. And these random Microsoft people? She thought they “worked well as a team”.

Somebody who can be that cold to their closest friends is not somebody worth keeping around. I still talk to her a ton because we have a lot in common and there’s obviously a lot that I like about her. But I’ll never come to her with real things again, and our actual deep friendship is over.

Kalepopsicle

12. Best Man To Worst Man

selective focus photography of Pinocchio puppetPhoto by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash

My friend was seeing a woman and moved in with her. We'd hang out when we went there to visit and everything was fine, but he would come to our city and visit and would cheat on her. He kept claiming everything was on the up and the girl he was in a relationship with was fine with that.

Well, at some point my wife friended her on Facebook and my friend lost his mind over it. He was saying my wife was meddling in their relationship, etc. But here's the thing, if everything was on the up, why would that have bothered him? Clearly, he had been lying to us. And a shame because the girl he was seeing was so sweet.

We had to cut ties because it was just so hard to watch him mistreat someone. We were the best men in each other's weddings and all, but he changed after his divorce. He treated people around him terribly. Our friendship of about 20 years ended just like that.

Mulletpullet

13. Just Own Up

I loaned my friend $250,000 to pursue his real estate dream and six months later he ghosted me. He ignored about 50 emails/texts/calls/postcards and two certified letters. Infuriating!! He also stopped paying real estate taxes on it without telling me. I lived across the country so it was extremely hard to manage the resolution. I eventually got all the money back but no help from him.

I think we could have still been fine if he had kept communicating, and acknowledged the errors. We finally talked—but what he said on the call broke my heart.

We were trying to patch things up, but he admitted only to the taxes part, not to all the other stuff. I had known him since college, like 30 years. Sheesh

RevolutionaryMood471

14. Friendus Disappearus

My 16-year-old sister got me tickets to the Harry Potter exhibit in New York City when I was 13. She spent her own money on it for two tickets. Me and her. My best friend found out and threw a fit at her mother that “She should be going because she is a bigger fan” and the mother massaged my sister to tell her to give her ticket to her daughter because “It’s the right thing to do”.

My sister told her to get lost.

IEatBobbyFlays

15. Not-So-Sober Companions

people gathering on street during daytimePhoto by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

I cut off my friends when I realized that all we had in common was binge drinking. They offered no support when it came to my attempts to cut back. Instead, they got irritated when I didn’t want to go to the bars. I kept saying no and explaining I wanted to avoid situations with drinking—but one guy was so much worse than the others.

He told me that I couldn’t be part of “our” friend group if you don’t like going out drinking as some sort of intimidation tactic.

Minimum_Asparagus_60

16. No More Free Therapy

I didn't realize that slowly, over 20 years, my friend had basically turned me into her own personal therapist. Every single day, almost 24/7, she'd be calling and texting, expecting me to sort out every single one of her problems, and validate her hurtful behavior.

Then one day at the end of last year, I got into an accident that left me hospitalized. Whilst I was mostly fine functionally, I had a lot of scarring and was told that I might need skin graft surgery later down the line, depending on how it healed.

My best friend since we were 11 didn't even ask how I was. Not once, not for two whole months. The only time she acknowledged that I was even injured was when she said, "That's a bad way to start the morning" when I told her that I was in emergency.

She just...didn't care.

And once I realized that, walking away was easy. I haven't missed her at all, the best decision I ever made.

CrazySnekGirl

17. Dear John…

I had a friend that was with me since we were three years old. Let’s call him “John”. About ten years after we met, we were going to this youth camp together. I’m so excited that John’s coming with me. But he seems…different. There’s another friend coming along with him, and now John is constantly avoiding me. This went on for about a day at the camp…before the avoidance turned into being nasty. He was constantly insulting me.

At some point, I had a panic attack at the camp—not related to John being a jerk and all—and here’s how our conversation went, with a few other friends watching:

John: “So where even were you last night?? You weren’t at the dorm”.

Me: “I had a panic attack, so I was told to sleep somewhere else. I dunno why”..

John: “Oh, so you have mental issues. Haha”.

Later, as I was playing with another friend that I had met at the camp, John came over to me with his other friend. The new friend that I was playing with said: “Oh, are you one of his friends too, John”? John’s answer was devastating.

He said: “Nah, he thinks we’re friends but I’m just forced to watch him all the time”.

That was the last straw. I was done talking to him from that point on.

But then, weeks later, I received a call from John. I picked up, and he was just talking to me as if he had never been mean to me. Ever. He was just talking about some random stuff about Minecraft. I just mumbled some “okay”s and went on with my day, confused.

I decided to call him later, and I confronted him about what happened at the camp. He said he never said any of those things. I said I’m pretty sure he did. He said: “I was just kidding about the mental issues thing”. He denied that he ever said the stuff about not being my friend though.

Throughout the entire call, he never apologized. And the worst part is, I almost believed him. I almost thought that I was just imagining it, and that maybe John was a good friend after all. Keep in mind I wasn’t very mature yet, despite my age. So I just…sort of…continued thinking of him as a friend. But as I did mature, I just started cutting contact with him, and we never spoke again.

Human_Possibility117

18. Kissing Cousins

silhouette of man and woman about to kiss on beach during sunsetPhoto by Annette Sousa on Unsplash

My BFF’s cousin made a pass at me while I was visiting her. The cousin was in a long-term, committed relationship at the time. I never saw or spoke to the cousin before or after the pass he made at me. He kissed me out of nowhere that one night.

My BFF called me a week later because the cousin dumped his girlfriend and asked my BFF if she could call me and connect us. She blamed me for ruining her cousin’s relationship and life. She was angry at me. We never spoke again.

Mean-Yak2616

19. Brunch Is On You

There was a lot that led up to it, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was a trip where I went out and visited her after a year of her guilting me for not coming. I was a classroom teacher, so paid time off during the school year was hard. I was also working on my MA thesis.

When I arrived, she left me at the airport for five hours because she decided it was a good time to break up with her boyfriend. Nothing big had happened, she just wasn’t feeling it and wanted to do it when I would be there for support. That was the first red flag—but there were more.

The next morning she took me out for an EXPENSIVE brunch where she drank a whole bunch. When it came time to pay she’d forgotten her wallet.

The next day was a Monday. She was also a classroom teacher and wanted me to visit her school. I told her I could, but asked if she could take me to a coffee shop on my lunch break because I needed to work on my thesis. She did but told me not to go anywhere cause it wasn’t a good area. She said she’d pick me up at 3:00. At 3:30 I tried calling and she didn’t answer. She ended up finally coming at 5:00, saying she’d had a phone interview for a new job.

She asked me to take a cab (this was before Uber) that evening to get to the airport because my flight (which left at 9:00) was too late and she’d be tired for work. I also had to work the next day.

I didn’t hear from her for six months until she came back to town and texted “Hey! This is your estranged best friend. Maybe we could reunite and you could pick me up from the airport and we could get lunch”? This airport was an hour away, in the middle of the school day. I told her no.

pillowfortsnacks

20. Wake Up, Sheeple

My friend went DEEP down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole. I’m talking flat earth, Columbine false flags, Lizard People, and 2012. Obviously today, he’s on the “the jab is going to kill us all”.

If it was just an interest of his he liked to talk about, I’d be fine with it. But it was a thing where he couldn’t stop talking about it and berated anyone who disagreed with him. He turned into a complete weirdo.

Longhorn2118

21. Food Fight

person in white shirt standing in front of foodPhoto by CDC on Unsplash

My best friend in high school started hanging out with the wrong crowd. I distanced myself from her and she started trying to spread false rumors about me because she was mad.

One day at lunch in the cafeteria, she came up behind me, picked up my tray—that had fries, nuggets, and two big puddles of ketchup and BBQ sauce—and smacked me across the face with it. Well, I wasn’t about to let her get away with it.

I immediately got up and set up in a fighting stance. She tried to lunge at me, so I did what any normal petite girl would have done…I side-kicked her so hard in her abdomen that she fell back and got laid out on a lunch table.

Thank goodness I had endured years of fighting my older brother and male cousins. Anyway, years later I ran into her. She had taken up boxing.

AcornTopHat

22. Time To Socially Distance

The pandemic ruined my friendship. I have been friends with her since I was in diapers but I am also disabled and highly at risk of dying. She drank the Kool-Aid. The last straw was when she kept saying only people with pre-existing conditions would die so the rest of society should continue on as usual. Except I’m one of those people that would die…

Teapotscandal

23. Bye, Soul Sister

My former best friend and I were together 24/7 for like 7 years. He was my soulmate but not in an intimate way, like a “soul sister”. He’s gay, so we would call each other sisters. We moved to a different city together and everything was great for a few months then he started asking for help for his portion of the rent—which I was okay with AT FIRST—but he would take longer and longer to get it back to me and eventually, I wouldn't receive it for months.

It was his first apartment but I had been living on my own for a while already, so I was used to the rent payments and utilities, but I guess he wasn’t. But he would still buy weed and go out for drinks with friends. I finally confronted him about it and said that he can’t be spending money on these “luxuries” whenever he has debt to pay me. His reaction was insane. He completely blew up on me.

One month after renewing our lease—I know, stupid of me—he told me that he wanted to live alone. Little did I know he was actually going to move in with another friend of his. He left very suddenly and when I tried contacting him about his part of the rent and utilities for the last month, he blocked me.

So I called up the friend he was now living with and he refused to speak with me. His new roommate said sorry, hung up, and blocked me too. I was stuck paying almost $3,000 by myself—thankfully I was good at saving money—and he still hasn’t paid me back any of it four years later. I’ve given up on getting my money—but I didn’t expect him to act the way he did when I saw him again.

About a year ago, I was hanging out with friends from our hometown—they were mutual friends because we were always together—and he showed up randomly. It was a good evening but I knew in my head that I wasn't doing this again. He said it was just like “old times” and he missed me but I wasn't going to get caught up in that again.

To this day, he sends me memories on Snapchat and says “We were so cute” and I just reply with a heart emoji and that’s it. I would delete him off Snapchat but I don't want there to be any drama between my friends and him because he's definitely one to cause drama if something like that happens… and he likes to make people choose sides. I really don’t know how I didn’t see any of this when we were besties but I’m glad it’s over,

Neenerfae

24. Time To Cut Ties

men standing while salutePhoto by Luemen Rutkowski on Unsplash

My old Navy buddy got into some trouble involving a girl. He got detained and falsely charged. The girl lied to the authorities about the whole thing. He was so depressed about it that he tried to hang himself with the bedsheets in cell after his initial arrest. Then he spent years trying to clear his name.

During that time the girl was in and out of rehab and had been caught lying multiple times. Nothing went his way and I was nothing but supportive toward him. Then he started lashing out at me regularly. I would try to joke around with him like we used to and he would accuse me of talking down to him or trying to mess his life up when all I would ever do is be an ear for him to vent to.

I would listen to all of his problems and frustrations, and basically, whenever I would have any type of input he would immediately take it the wrong way and lash out. I finally had enough and snapped on him one day and called him an unbelievable jerk.

He immediately shut me out of his life and probably to this day still thinks I was the bad guy. I still never understood what I did, I think he was just using me as an emotional punching bag. He was my best friend for 10 years and seeing him so broken was incredibly heartbreaking.

Luckily he’s a lot better now and we talk from time to time but not in any way like before. We might as well just be casual acquaintances who barely know each other now. Maybe it’s for the best because I couldn't imagine ever treating a close friend the way he treated me. A good life lesson I guess, sometimes you just need to cut nasty people out of your life.

Emansamples92

25. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

There was one guy I was good friends with back in middle school. Everyone in the school hated him and I was scared for his mental health back then, so I decided to become friends with him, not wanting to see him take his own life. He eventually moved away but we were still on good terms—but then he took a dark turn.

Cut to a few years later and he’s now big into politics, claiming things about Latinos and religion—both groups of which I am a part of—that are hateful and just flat-out untrue. Needless to say, I cut all ties with him, I can’t believe this is what I get for sacrificing my social life for him.

Punny-Aggron

26. Just Married

My friend no-showed to my wedding. We had been drifting apart already for a few years due to work and other life things getting in the way. But I made an effort to still invite him because he had been an important part of my life and helped me through some hard times. He never responded to the RSVP. I called him up to see if he had lost it, gave him the date, and told him I was excited to see him there and celebrate.

He didn’t show up, didn’t even send a text or call with a reason, and never even offered a single congratulations.

He instead messaged me a few weeks after with the audacity to ask if I wanted to take some photos of his dad’s car that he was trying to sell. When I confronted him and told him how disappointed I was, he gave some nonsense about how we’ll always be friends no matter what. No bro. Not cool. Actions speak louder than words.

Jarabara

27. Stuck In The Past

woman in orange blazer standingPhoto by Etty Fidele on Unsplash

My friend’s now-boyfriend and I hooked up once in 2018. I talked with him and told him I wasn't interested in that happening again. He starts dating my friend in 2020 and it's a volatile relationship. I guess my name gets brought up when they are fighting and he bragged to her about hooking up with me. Her reaction was devastating.

She blocked me off everything and I was left wondering what had happened until someone else told me. Oh well. She really could have talked with me about it and I would have been happy to set her mind at ease.

Spatter_cone

28. False Positive

My friend always talked about herself, never asked about me. She didn’t see any problem with hitting on/pursuing men in relationships but would lose her mind if a girl even looked at the guy she was with. She faked a pregnancy to get a guy to commit to her. And last but not least, chewed me out for being nice to her new boyfriend—the first decent person she had ever dated—because she thought I was interested in him.

edjennersmilkmaid

29. Sleep On It

I was really good friends with a coworker of mine. That's how I met my significant other. We went on vacation together with one other couple at one point. For context, we went on vacation and my spouse and I had to sleep in a room with twin bunk beds while the other two couples got queen/king-sized rooms.

We ended up resorting to sleeping on the pull out couch simply because there was more space. Before said vacation, me and her had spoken of this already, my spouse mainly being the unhappy one regarding the sleeping arrangements. We giggled about it mostly because I hardly cared and my spouse chilled out about it. It wasn’t an issue.

Maybe four years ago now, a few months after the vacation, I spent the 4th of July with my alleged "best friend" and everything went completely normal. We had fun, and things were great. I tried texting her a few days later and no response. Weird...I didn't work with her anymore because I had gotten a new job in the city I live in. I thought maybe she was just busy as she wasn't that great of a texter. Tried her again a day or two after that, but again, no response. Now I knew something was up. I reached out to her a half dozen more times after that and continuously asked her what was wrong or if she was even okay because maybe something terrible happened to her and I just didn't know.

She just completely ghosted me. I get a random text one evening from her—and what it said left me in shock. It was rather confrontational asking me about how my spouse and I weren't happy with our sleeping arrangements during the vacation we took together. I responded to her and said it wasn't something me and her hadn't already talked about and it wasn't that big of a deal. Never heard from her again.

My spouse and her husband are childhood best friends. Cut to me seeing her for the first time four years later this past Thanksgiving. I was dreading the situation because she's rather confrontational, but we're adults, and I'm not afraid of her. I was almost thinking we would just hash it out as I have been genuinely confused this whole time why she's so upset and can't even offer me an explanation. She said zero words to me. Didn't even look in my direction.

I guess I may never know, and I've come to terms with that. There are just some people that are petty and can't communicate I guess.

Otherwise_Peach6785

30. Some People Always Change

welcome to fabulous las vegas nevada signagePhoto by Zalman Grossbaum on Unsplash

This is dumb but sometimes…people are dumb. We went to Vegas, dinner, and a show. After dinner, my dress felt tight so I wanted to change into more comfortable clothing—from a dress and heels to a sweater/jeans and flats.

My best friend was annoyed that I “always do this” and “didn’t show up for the night” by getting dressed to the nines. She didn’t speak to me or the rest of our friends for the entire night. Weeks later, she called to tell me we’re just different people and after 17 years we can’t be friends anymore.

All because I changed my outfit. Good riddance girlfriend!

Aashface

31. Heard It Through The Grapevine

My friend spread rumors that I took some of her things. She never confronted me over the supposed theft even though we were seeing each other daily and doing our normal friendship things. I didn't even know anything was going on until another friend, from a different friend group, overheard one of the stories and came to me to ask me what was up with that. That’s when I learned the deranged truth.

It turns out she had been talking badly about me behind my back for a while so I ended up cutting ties. And that theft she had accused me of? It turns out it never happened. Her sister had recently moved out and had boxed up some things that belonged to her by accident.

ChibiKachi

32. Jealousy Hates Company

My best friend from middle school stopped talking to me after I started becoming successful around 20 years old. I excitedly told him I finally landed a good job and he asked how much I was making so I told him, thinking he'd be happy for me. Nope. He went silent for a bit, got cold, and we ended the call shortly after. I called him sometime later and his girl answered and I could hear them arguing. She was saying "Pick up the phone and talk to your friend" and stuff like that. Then click, the line went dead.

That was the last time we ever spoke. I was ghosted by my best friend of like 8-9 years because he was jealous of my success.

He had a pretty rough life in a lot of ways, really struggled in school, and as he got older had a hard time adapting to women as they got more mature. Back in the day, immature girls couldn't get enough of him, but as they grew up they were less impressed with him. They had all already dated a guy like him and his game just wasn't up to snuff anymore. By that time I was already settling into a long-term relationship with a beautiful girl. Between that and not seeing any prospects for a more successful life, I guess he felt like I was rubbing it in his face.

MrNifty

33. No-Flex Zone

white Maul type-C motorhomePhoto by Hanson Lu on Unsplash

For my friend, EVERYTHING was a flex on Facebook—how much money she'd made that day doing Instacart, her husband buying her a car, her full refrigerator, being able to stay at home and not work a 9 to 5 (she was also an occasional MLMer), her new RV, her spoiled tween son playing Xbox in the new RV, pictures of her plastic surgery, vacations, etc. Every conversation somehow, magically, turned the focus back to her, her life, her family, her possessions, and her struggles. Finally, I decided to say something.

I called her out on it. She said it was because she had anxiety and depression issues, she and her husband didn't go to college, and she was afraid of being judged.

Her constant need for attention grossed me out and I wasn't interested anymore.

Sweetbeamoney

34. A Short Fuse

I wouldn't necessarily say the guy was my best friend, but I'm pretty sure I was his best friend, if that makes sense. We met in middle school, and we had some common interests and some mutual friends. As we got older, he got a really bad Napoleon complex because he remained on the short side while the rest of us got taller.

A lot of our mutual friends distanced themselves from him, I was the last holdout because I felt bad for him and because I'm too nice. His arrogance and anger issues peaked in eighth grade. In the span of two weeks: he broke up with his girlfriend, punched two girls in the face, got dodgeball banned in our Phys Ed class, tried to choke one of our school's soccer players, and then got beat up by a girl behind the school. I had to give it to him straight when he started venting about his situation to me; he was kind of a tool. He disappeared the following week and I haven't seen him since.

Tom-cash2002

35. Bridezilla

I got pregnant; my due date was the month of her planned wedding. I said I'll try to be there but I couldn't be her maid of honor anymore. Her reply was unforgettable. She said: "I wish you would have waited".

This was after my first pregnancy ended as a miscarriage. Well, she ended up postponing her wedding anyway…

Sensitive-Dig-1333

36. Keeping Up With The Jones

silver foil on white ceramic platePhoto by Tom Radetzki on Unsplash

I had to cut ties with my friend when she became an early Alex Jones convert. The sweet, wonderful person I knew turned into a paranoid nutjob.

Grouchy_Writer_Dude

37. What A Gas

My former best friend needed a place to live during the summer and I let her move into my tiny room in my apartment. I told her beforehand that I needed her help to pay rent and she said that she could. So fast forward, she moves a ton of stuff in my room that is already full of my things, doesn't give me a single cent, and doesn't even show any gratitude. She constantly told me she had no money to pay rent while she would talk about how she went out every night spending $80+ on drinks.

Anyway, we were supposed to move into another apartment together. She bails at the last minute and I have to find another one fast; being in college, everyone leases way ahead of time so it was really hard to find a place. I was mad but I shook it off. Big mistake.

The next day, I needed a ride to the bus stop because I was taking the Greyhound home. This bus stop was literally 5-10 minutes from my apartment. She has the nerve to say "I only put enough gas in my car to get to work and back"...seriously?

I packed her things up and kicked her out. Haven't talked to her since.

lineocar

38. Why So Shellfish?

I had to dump one of my oldest friends. Finally, the penny dropped, and I realized that he was some kind of sociopath, constantly taking advantage of me, talking down to me at any opportunity, causing problems for me for No reason, except that he could. That was a very difficult (and painful) thing to realize—and I think he never did realize that he did it, even when I told him about some of the crazy things he'd done to me.

One time, he ate all the food I'd cooked for us both to eat that evening, apologized, and then did exactly the same thing the following evening.

He was also constantly borrowing small sums of money from me, not bothering to pay it back or keeping track of how much he'd borrowed—saying that was my responsibility.

He would also claim he "could throw me out on the street" whenever he wanted to, from the apartment I paid 50% of the rent for, to sleep on the sofa. This was when I finally gave up on him.

He riled up a common friend because his ex had flirted with me; he was trying to split that friendship up.

Once, he called everyone who I'd invited to a dinner party, saying the party had changed location to another city.

Weirdest of all? He brought me a gift of a big frozen crab. I've never eaten shellfish, during all the years I've known him. He put it in my freezer box and didn't close the door properly, so I had a big pile of water in the kitchen the next day and had to throw away everything in the freezer.

He also bricked my bank card PIN by entering the wrong code three times, saying he "thought it was his because they were similar". The card was at my apartment.

Toblotron

39. I Thought You Knew

woman whispering on woman's ear while hands on lipsPhoto by Ben White on Unsplash

My "best" friend from high school spread rumors about me because he wanted my then-girlfriend. When I went off to college I kinda left him behind, not really thinking much about it—but it wasn’t over yet.

Fast forward four years later, he storms into my apartment in a rage that I slept with his wife. Which is true, but I slept with her a year before they even met. After that incident, I knew our friendship was over. He pretty much just viewed our "friendship" as a competition of who can get the most women.

Permalink

40. Don’t Be Late

My friend took advantage of me and would sabotage me constantly. She would embarrass me or be rude to my other friends. I would put up with it because I felt bad for her. She had bad relationships with family, no boyfriend, etc. The straw that broke the camel's back was the time she chewed me out on the phone for being 10 minutes late and said—I kid you not—"You being late is the same level of disrespect as giving someone AIDS"!

Yup. AIDS. The lateness wasn't even my fault, it was a designated driver I had arranged to take us to a bar. I wanted to cheer her up.

Booktroll

41. Stop The Car

I met a really cool chick at university who was doing the same course as me. We hung out most weeks and did all kinds of cool stuff. We became good friends really quickly.

I lived with my two best friends, a gay couple, and decided to introduce them all to each other so we all went out one evening and had an amazing time. I ended up staying at her place that night.

The next morning she was driving me home and she decided to tell me that she didn't like my friends because they were gay and she was brought up as a Christian. In the same paragraph, she went on to tell me that she didn't like Asians, poor people, or people that went to public school. I got out of that car and I have never seen her or spoken to her again.

triforcegirl

42. Wore Out Their Welcome

low angle photo of buildingsPhoto by Agustin Lara on Unsplash

My significant other and I bought a condo and invited our mutual friend to move in with us. He got a girlfriend right about the time when we bought the house. Now, we were good friends with this guy and hung out quite a bit.

So he starts dating this girl as we begin to tear apart and redo the entire townhouse. Peeling off wallpaper and sanding down every crack and cranny. My boyfriend and I are working our behinds off on this huge investment. We keep asking him to come and help us, since, you know, he'll be living here too. He shows up exactly twice in two months of non-stop work, and one of those times, he left an hour later "just to drop off some keys to her" and obviously never came back. They had been fighting the whole time he was with us and he was summoned elsewhere I guess. So that's pre-moving-in.

He moves in and the girlfriend is immediately there every night and most days. She has no job and no car, so he goes to work and she just sits around at our house. She just hangs out at our place all day, with her one-year-old. She eats our food. She uses our electronics. She never leaves. She contributes nothing and asks us to buy her milk for her baby.

Our roommate can contribute nothing for food or anything other than rent, because of his new little family that he is responsible for. Our friend defends this, saying her kid is his son now. They'd been dating for five months and the child was not his, but he referred to him as his son.

There's way more, but those are the basics. She once told me, as she was eating a meal that my boyfriend and I cooked with the food that we bought and kindly included them in, that she "forgets that food costs money". This is the person that basically lives rent-free in my home.

She sat around all day and her kid ran around unsupervised. One very memorable time he picked up a knife that we were using to do a project. She didn't notice. God, I could go on for ages.

He, who was once an adamant atheist, is now wearing things that say, for example, "JESUS 4 LIFE"! That was hysterical. She was very religious.

Anyway, they went on vacation and were mad that we didn't pick them up at the airport last minute. The second they returned to the house, we argued—and what an argument it was—and then we sat them down and told them to get out. He is no longer friends with us. It felt awesome.

Snow-White

43. Talk About Paranoid

For background there is me and my boyfriend Dan, and then my friend Tiff and her boyfriend Todd. Two couples, all friends.

When we first all started to go out I was really good friends with her, but as time went on I saw more and more that she was selfish and egotistical, she once complained that her parents bought her 24k gold diamond earrings for Christmas when she just wanted the money, and so on. There is a long list of faults with her.

We roll around to a friend’s 21st birthday about a year ago. Her boyfriend cannot go anywhere without her except for work. No lads night out, he can't even look at other women and you can tell it grates him if I mention that Danny was going away for the weekend without me, or we'll be rating the lovely beer providers of our local pubs. But that’s not the most ridiculous part.

At this party, Tiff drinks and gets paranoid that a girl, who is a friend of ours, at another table is talking about her and decides to demand that none of us talk to her anymore. At this point I've had enough of her nonsense, tell her “She's free to make HER boyfriend do whatever she likes and he can be dumb enough to follow it but she does not have the right to try and control MY partner, so she better shut up, sit down and stay away from me for good”, and walked away.

I haven't said more than five words to her since, and only see her when Danny and Todd want to go to the pub.

Violentgoth

44. Request Denied

A couple of people in high school stopped speaking to me for going to the prom with a lesbian friend. They have tried to add me on Facebook since, which is hilarious since I haven't spoken to them since 1996.

Chefbexter

45. Friendship Is Magic

woman standing near body of waterPhoto by Lau keith on Unsplash

My friend was just like a brother to me; I'd never had that kind of relationship with someone before, especially since my direct family is quite dysfunctional. Ergo, I value my friends (the ones I have left) highly. This kid is about a year older than me, him being 17 now. We met at a meetup in our city and sort of hit things off from there.

After a long time of talking and relating, we decided that we were the best of friends and hung out as much as we possibly could. Due to distance, this was limited to each weekend. Our platonic relationship sort of pushed me to develop feelings for him—we were already acting like we were dating anyway, although it was just holding hands. He asked me one day if I liked him and I said yes, but I don't want a relationship because I'd just come out of an ugly one.

Here's the weird part. He goes off his nut and starts going on about how he'd be cheating on his girlfriend in Japan…whom he doesn't have on Facebook, whom he talks to once a month at best, whom he had only brought up once and didn't even reference her as his significant other at the time. He said that if he continued to see me, now knowing my feelings, it would be wrong. He claimed that he was an honorable man and had morals, and would dislike it if his "girlfriend" was hanging out with a guy who had feelings for her…not even my farthest rationalization could convince him to see reason.

He deleted me, ceased all contact with me; lived each day after as if nothing had happened. It was, to say the least, one of the most painful things I've had happen to me. I still love him as a brother/close friend and I still miss him. This was in May.

KittehCore

46. Nice Knowing You

My best friend got a girlfriend, so he had less time for me. After a few years, I got home and saw them moving stuff out. We lived in the same apartment, but a different floor. They never said anything to me at all, no hint. They just left, not even a card or an invitation. That was the end of the friendship.

MiJo198

47. Benign Tumor, Malignant Friend

I had a friend for maybe three years, she had originally been the girlfriend of one of my guy friends. I listened to all her tears and agony when they split up, all her depressing stories, and so on.

One day I went into the hospital for a biopsy, I was terrified I had cancer. I came home and looked at my phone—and what I saw made my blood run cold. It was full of texts from her about having a bad day, and a huge email about how she wanted her ex back. She didn't ask how I was, or how the tests went, all she wanted was someone to listen to her. That day I put her number on the block list, and blocked everything of hers online.

Ifeelsosoft

48. Best Friend, Worst Roommate

woman standing near gray concrete building during daytimePhoto by Jaclyn Moy on Unsplash

I moved in with my “best” friend, her horrid boyfriend, and her antisocial sister. The friend and I had been incredibly close throughout all school, but over six months that deteriorated. The boyfriend wouldn't let her go out unless he could come too. He was pedantic and argumentative for the sake of “winning” a fight.

The sister wouldn't let me invite people over (my boyfriend included) unless she knew about it a day or so in advance. She claimed she had a severe phobia of “outside” people. But the final straw was when their mother came to visit. She stayed with us for two weeks without anyone informing me in advance, who I knew yes, but had decided to tell me what to do (no drinking, etc) as if I were her child as well. At one point I remember the mother told me it was a bit too late and loud to have friends over.

The friendship fell apart, she would side with her sister and boyfriend. We became bitter, there was note writing on their part, and she put dirty dishes on my bed, etc, to the point I would avoid going home. They decided to move out without telling me. I had overheard them discussing movers. In the end, the girl and I sat down and decided it would be for the best. But my nightmare wasn’t over yet.

The evening that she moved out there was a complication with money, my friend couldn't pay the movers. I decided out of respect for what we had, I'd loan the money and take it out of her share of the lease, along with the remainder of the bills, etc. In total, it was $600. She had government aid in paying the lease (which she knew about but hadn't informed me) and her share went back to the Department of Housing.

I was unable to properly contact her again. I had been spat on constantly for six months and then when she was crying and begging I thought I was doing a good thing, only to have been ripped off by my “best friend” I had known since I was 10 years old.

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49. Snitches Get Stitches

I was 17 and my older girlfriend was staying with me while I had the house to myself. This friend was jealous and decided to tell my parents what we were doing. The aftermath was brutal. It resulted in a huge fight with my dad involving broken glass, screaming, lies and threats. I had to talk to the authorities and got threatened by them as well.

My friend tried to claim she had nothing to do with it…but I knew it was her. I cut off all contact and haven't spoken to her in 10 years.

RikersBeard1