Ever decide to give up on a friendship once you saw someone's true colors?

Yes, several times actually. One of those experiences was with a woman whom I considered the sister I never had. We were friends for several years. I loved her personality and humor. We shared the same values and perspective on reality.

As time went on, I slowly came to realize (via a story too long to relate), that she was a clinically diagnosed pathological liar. She was also a chameleon, taking upon herself the colors of whomever she was around.

She had told me many lies, yet she herself somehow believed them. How could I then trust a single thing she said? I began to doubt the authenticity of our entire friendship. I was shocked and so incredibly disappointed. I felt betrayed. I had lost what I considered a valued friend. I could not continue our friendship. Being lied to on a regular basis is a deal breaker, even if it is a disease.

I let go fairly quickly, as I also became a touch angry. After that, I just accepted it and moved on. Such is life. I miss her, but I simply could not enable her forays into la la land.

Ditto ^^^ I dumped two friends in the past 3 something years. One of 15 years, the other of 8. Both couldn’t handle having an adult discussion about some issues in our friendship. One was the “dish it out” but couldn’t take it type. She had no problem getting pissy and was hypersensitive about everything.

I got tired of the emotional management. The other was manipulative and when I really picked up on it and addressed a couple of things with her she digressed to a 3 yr. old. Game over.
I move on easily, I have no time or desire to keep any relationship in my life when the person has a low EQ. Too old for childish game playing. See ya.

Yes I did more then once, sometimes it hurt, sometimes it didn’t. It’s a good chance to see what a person really mean for you.

But please be careful and think about it. One time it was the worsest decision in my life and I still remember the pain.

Yes, I have done the same.

I’m not sure what you mean by true colors. People are a mass of contradictions that aren’t always so obvious. People share only parts of themselves, some more than others.

The only way I’d drop a friend is if I discovered that they did something that I find totally reprehensible, like torturing animals or murdering innocent people.

What did I do now?

Lack of empathy for other people is what I’m referring to in this case.

Well, yeah. But are you sure that the lack of empathy isn’t due to personal experience or general sociopathy?

Would rather not get into specifics.

Thanks for your answers, everyone.

Yes, though it wasn’t that I didn’t realize that they were X, Y and Z. It was that I hadn’t realized to what extent that they were X, Y and Z. You can only deal with so much.

It wasn’t hard to decide to let go. But, yes, it was hard to let go.

[hugs]

I’m sorry you’re going through this. It’s hard, but it’s worth it.

I dropped a friend once.

It seemed like she was just not growing up. She still wanted to play make-believe games when we were seniors in high school. I mean, I played Dungeons and Dragons, but she wanted to play dolls and stuff. Weirded me the hell out after a while. I gave her a long breakup speech after trying to let her down easy a few times. Her mom was pissed, and went on a huge rant against me to my parents.

It was this chick

Yes. It hurt, but over the long term, less so than the friendship did. It was the right thing to do, and I don’t regret it.

I can put up with a lot. A friend can grind shit in my face, and I will cut them slack. However, when I reach the breaking point, I will cut them off without regret.

Yep, once I saw her Cyndi Lauper album all bets were off.

Yes, but it took me a couple of times to learn my lesson.

My best friend from high school and I had a falling out at prom. She was mad at me for something I don’t believe I was guilty of and she basically turned all of my friends against me. She’s the reason my high school years were so miserable, in fact. We were best friends one day and she was pissed at me the next. So, the last month of my senior year was spent friendless thanks to her, and all over some stupid high school bullshit.

About a year later, when we were both attending separate colleges, I ran into a mutual friend. A friend that turned on me during senior year, but decided to act as if we were on great terms. Gotta love women. Well, she was talking to me about my ex best friend and, for some reason, I got back in contact with her. We decided to let the past be the past and rekindle our friendship.

We remained friends for about four years after that. She got a boyfriend and we would occasionally go out with them; sometimes we’d go shopping or have lunch; we’d text on a daily basis. About three months ago, her boyfriend dumped her. She immediately began acting like an idiot and basically told me she wanted a new boyfriend immediately because her ex already had a new girlfriend and she was willing to date anyone in order to prove to him she wasn’t miserable, which she was. She was even signing into his Facebook to read messages between him and this new girl. I said something honest that she didn’t want to hear, in the nicest way I possibly could, and she abruptly stopped talking to me. We haven’t spoken since.

I should’ve known who she was from the beginning. She’s your typical back-stabbing bitch that’s sweet to your face but will talk shit behind your back all day long. She’s only going to listen to what she wants to hear and gets pissed if she doesn’t hear it.

I used to think we were a lot alike, but we’re not. Even if she attempts to reconcile, I’m done with our friendship.

Yes, I had a long term friend. She was smart, happy and outgoing and in a stable (so she thought) long term relationship with her boyfriend. We used to get together often, have lots of fun and lots of laughs and do lots of silly things. We had a lot of friends in common too and we were all broke. This friend of mine was very beautiful, kind of like a young Brooke Shields, whereas I’m more of a plain Meg Ryan type.

One day, she came to me sobbing saying that her longtime boyfriend decided that he “needed space” but had no explanation for why, because they seemed so happy together and had been together for about 8 years. Turns out that he decided he wasn’t really interested in being in a “real” relationship, and that he was planning to move to another city to take a very high paying job. She knew about the potential of this job, but she didn’t want to move to that new big city, because her roots and her ties were in our smaller city. So he moved, and she was going up there every weekend to see him, when she found out that her boyfriend had been cheating on her, with this young woman (who was described to me as being a dirty biker chick) I saw the woman later, and that description was fairly accurate. I think it rocked her to her core that the man she loved was replacing her with her exact opposite.

Anyway, she went through a year of agony over this guy, whether or not they would get back together or not, and I was there for her during that whole time, while she cried, asked for advice, cried, cried and cried. Ultimately, the boyfriend told her he wanted to break up for good.

Then, for the next 8 years or so, my friend probably dated 100 or so guys, mostly one date and that was it, 2 long term (but ultimately unsucessful) relationships. She had a taste for men that was very specific: they had to be in a high socio-economic status, they had to have a certain “look” which included being at least 6ft. 2 inches (she was 5ft. 8 and would not even look at a medium height or short man). And he had to live near the beach.

It was at that point, that I realized how shallow she was. She needed a man, but that man had to be “perfect” in her mind. But perfect often comes wrapped in an ugly wrapper. The first long term boyfriend (6 months) she chose was a guy who looked like Eric Clapton. Too me, Eric Clapton is a good looking guy, but that is not the only reason you should choose to date someone. He also had lots of money, and lots of rich friends (which was at first a plus for her) guess what? This guy, at a party he had invited her to, wandered off into the yard, and my friend dame upon him making out with one of his rich female friends. She should have told him off right then and there, and fled, but she went home with him anyway, did the dirty and stayed with him for another whole week, before HE dumped HER.

The next guy she picked also fit her physical and monetary checklist. Just one small problem, this guy was still married to a mutual friend of hers and had just had a baby with his wife. The dude complained that his wife was cold and boring, and he confessed that he had always had a crush on my friend (pretty much every guy I knew had had a crush on her, because she was so pretty, but she wouldn’t go for any of them, because they didn’t fit the criteria). But she bought the line about “the wife doesn’t understand me or treat me well” and they hooked up and dated secretly for about a year. When the wife finally found out, she was furious. My friend gave the guy and ultimatum, either he get a divorce and stay with her or else she would have to cool it with him. He gave her the ultimatum that if she left him to cool off, then it would be over, he said it was a long drawn out process to get a divorce. Oddly enough, he was divorced and re-married to another friend in their circle within 6 months.

In the meantime she was serial dating, and became grouchy, rude and careless. She would make plans with me, and then break them at the last minute on a regular basis. On one of the few times we did get together, with some mutual old friends (all of us poor) she happened to be in the middle of one of these “longer term relationships” and all she did the whole time she was with us, was talk to him on the phone.

Then she hooked up with this other guy, the man she would ultimately marry. She went out with him for 3 years, and never introduced me to him. I think she didn’t want to introduce me to him, because the last guy she was in a long term with, that I met, was the dude who made out at the party. I met him the night before that party, and was being nice and said what a cute couple they were, and even took a picture of them together when we were having dinner. The next night he made out with another woman, I think subconsciously she thought I had jinxed her relationship. I’m mean puuuuleaaaase!

So after 3 years of hearing how amazing Rob was, over and over and over, she invited me to go out to dinner, just the 2 of us, because we hadn’t done it in over a year. So I get to the restaurant, and she sheepishly announces that Rob got off work early and was going to meet us there. So I meet Rob, and I’m thinking this dude looks kind of weird, not the usual type of guy she went for, this guy was kind of a rockabilly hipster dude, but he was tall and made lots of money. He had had a bad day at work and spent the whole time bitching and moaning about that. He seemed loud, and obnoxious, but she hung on his every word. After we finished dinner, I pulled out my wallet and he said, “No this is on me.” and then he pulled out some type of work receipt book and asked me to sign it. I didn’t know what it was, so I obliged. Turned out that he was USING me as if I was a client, for a tax write off.

After that incident, I became unavailable and busy any time she would contact me. For years and years, we had planned her big, fat, fancy wedding (even though she didn’t have a guy to marry) and when this guy finally, after 4 years asked her to marry him, she sent me a very odd, informal card (she was very traditional with the calligraphy and the sealing wax) card saying she was gettin’ hitched. I sent her a very nice letter saying how happy I was for her. Never heard from her again, and didn’t get invited to the wedding. In the olden days, I was probably going to be one of her bridesmaids, but I figure I didn’t make the cut. Didn’t have the look or the money. But she got what she wanted, a MAN. Even though I thought he was a complete douche bag.

That was about 12 years ago and I’ve never seen or heard from her since. Now I realize that I was just a fun person to play with, until her real life started. I was not suitable for her real life.

The only thing that bums me out, is that we really were good friends, when we were both poor and she was content with her lot in life. But I found out that she couldn’t be without a man, and finding a man became her sole purpose in life, but it didn’t help matters that she looked down upon a lot of men that were perfectly good men, because they didn’t have the look or the amount of money that she deemed necessary. She actually broke the heart of one of our mutual (poor) friends. She had kind of led him to believe that they might have something special, he was tall and sweet and he had loved her for a long time. So they went out, on what he thought was a date, he professed his feelings for her, and she told him that he wasn’t suitable. Later she told me, that she thought it was odd that he thought they were on a date. They took an evening stroll together, to the beach and a walk out on the pier after having dinner together! What else would he think??? That fellow was a good friend of mine, and it chapped my hide to think that she would do that to him, still makes me angry!

Nope but I’ve been dropped once or twice for not buying in to girls agenda’s. my integrity is not for sale

@Kardamom Gah..the one friend I mentioned was drop dead gorgeous too but the most freaking INSECURE and needy woman ever. Same scenario, she was a man eater and could never be without a guy. It got really old, and the games she played were so sophomoric for a mature woman. Pathetic and sad. She has ZERO sense of self or self worth without some guy, and same thing, he HAD to meet X criteria. Drove me insane.

She’d come over crying about how men never took her “seriously” and didn’t care about her inner qualities, standing in my kitchen in her 5 inch heels in her size 1 low rider jeans and crop tops that accented her boobs.
Really? Ya think guys don’t take you seriously and just see you as a hot lay? OMG!

I’ve dropped friends who have betrayed me or hurt me severely, although I’m glad to say this has been few and far between. Everyone has nasty colors, and true friendship is to understand and tolerate the shittier side of friends, and support them. I mean, I’d hope that my friends would do the same about my shittier side. I don’t got that many friends, but I value the ones I do have, and I’m real happy that they value me. Sometimes you piss each other off, but you gotta learn, and work it out. I gotta say, any relationship that has no turbulence in it ever, is probably not even a relationship. The world ain’t some fucking fairy tale, can’t just go all lone samurai every time somebody steals your cookies.

I dumped a friend on discovering he was a pedophile. No, it wasn’t hard at all. One of my daughter’s friends (aged 14 at the time) was his target.

@Kardamom “That was about 12 years ago and I’ve never seen or heard from her since. Now I realize that I was just a fun person to play with, until her real life started. I was not suitable for her real life.”

Boy, does that sound familiar. This has happened to me a couple of times, I think because it was hard for me to believe that anyone could be quite so self-centred. Hopefully, I’ve now become too jaded to let anyone else get away with it. :P

I’m In that situation right now. I have started working full time with someone that was a very good friend but since working withher I have found her to be selfish and negative and it’s really getting me down. I don’t think I can be her friend and work with her and so I have to make the transition from friendship to colleague. I’m hoping that this is just a passing phase she is going through and she’ll come out the others side a bit more positive but I’m not going to hold my breath. I’m sad that her true colours are getting me down.

@Leanne1986 That happened to me once too, ugh!
The “friend” was awful at work, took liberties with management, did whatever she wanted and then argued with the boss when confronted, padded her time cards for unauthorized extras, felt she was irreplaceable ( she got fired from her administrative position eventually, haha ) What an eye opener!

I will drop friends who I don’t feel are supportive of me or who do things that I feel will hold me back.

I had one friend who would always remind me of mistakes I made in the past – for example, if I met a new guy, he would remind me of how much I liked a previous boyfriend and how he turned out to be an ass. It wasn’t done in a constructive way, it was done in a “you’re so stupid” way. I felt like I was never going to move forward in my life, because this guy was always reminding me of past mistakes – and he made plenty of mistakes himself, btw!

I also had a friend who thought that I was not attractive and every time a guy was interested in me, she would say that he probably just wantsed to be friends, or that maybe he was drunk, etc. When one of those guys turned into a boyfriend and I referred to him as a boyfriend, she kept questioning me about how I knew he was my boyfriend and if he knew I was calling him my boyfriend and would he be mad if he found out. When I explained that it was his idea to be exclusive and yes, he knew. she didn’t believe me!! In many, many ways she was a fantastic person, but this was just too weird! More importantly, all of her negativity started to effect my confidence, and so I stopped being friends with her.

It was hard, but it was necessary.

I’ve ended two friendships in the past year and it’s been very hard on me.

The first was my girlfriend (but she was also my closest friend). She was having a nervous breakdown a year ago and I was having a little breakdown myself. I needed some space to gather myself while she couldn’t handle my absence. She asked me to cut her off and I did. I deeply regret that decision and my recent attempts to make amends were harshly rebuffed.

The other was my best friend of 17 years. I’ve had no greater support or companionship from anyone, but I witnessed him beating his wife 4 months ago. It took me a while to realize that despite being everything you could ask for in a friend (thoughtful, loyal, generous, wise, etc.), I wouldn’t be me if I tolerated that kind of behavior, so I cut him off.

These last few months have been some of the saddest and loneliest I’ve ever known. Being so thoroughly excoriated by my ex when I tried apologizing to her last month was pretty devastating. Analyzing the situation has made me question whether I’m better off without the friendship of such a hypocritical, vengeful and self-involved person. But that might be my hurt feelings talking.

Sorry for venting, but you asked.

I’ve made peace with it all. Like my partner said, “put it in a bubble and blow it away”.

@Coloma Did you manage to remain friends with her after she got fired or had the damage already been done. When I only saw my friend on a part time basis I just assumed I always caught her on an off day but I realise that every day is an off day!!

@Leanne1986 No, she is one of the friends I mentioned in my original post, I was still kind of friends with her for about 5 more years until her manipulative side got too big too ignore. Hindsight is always 20/20 and I when I looked back I realized she was doing the some things in our friendship she did at work. Not asking, using me only when she needed something, lots of little white lies, etc. Gah…good riddance. haha

@Coloma Thanks for sharing. I don’t think my friend is a bad person but she is getting me down with her negativity and spoilt attitude. It’s a toughie!!