It’s hard to realize that someone you looked up to or were even just kind of friends with might in fact be a bit of a monster.
Might in fact be in severe need or help, and may require that you stay far, far away from them.
When did you realize that someone you were cool with your whole life was actually really messed up?
byu/Shadow_Saitama inAskReddit
The people of Ask Reddit were certainly no stranger to these types of situations. Here are a few of their stories.
1. “They cut off all contact.”
Not me, but my older siblings.
One of their closest friends suddenly ended up in prison, which was very concerning. Turns out it was because he was sexually abusing his daughter.
They all cut off all contact with him after that.
– kryaklysmic
2. “You aren’t mature for your age.”
When I was in high school I was also in theatre. I was 15 when I joined. There were 2 guys, one my age who was really nice, and one 18 year old who I at the time thought was nice as well.
Most of his friends were 15 year old girls and he was making weird sexual comments. I was naive and thought he was great (he was a good actor).
When he started trying to get me alone though, and trying to flirt with me, I got creeped out and took my distance. He later started dating a 14 year old, and he later r*ped and abused her. I am lucky I realized he was weird on time.
To any young girl reading this, a grown man being interested in you at that age isn’t okay. You aren’t mature for your age, he is a predator. Please don’t get into a relationship with him.
– AngryMouse567
3. “It was like I’d died.”
When I left for BMT, my three closest friends from high school came by my house and went through all my boxes I had packed. Jewelry, books, video games, clothes- they took everything they wanted. What started out as 10 boxes turned into 2 mostly empty ones.
It was like I’d died, and they divided up my sh*t. The things that hit hardest were my hardcover set of Harry Potter (read them all my my sisters) and the jewelry set (earrings, necklace, tennis bracelet) that I’d gotten from my grandparents before my Papa (grandpa) passed away. They weren’t expensive pieces of jewelry, but they were my birthstone, and highly sentimental.
They blamed the whole thing on my sisters for a while, then I confirmed with all my siblings that they didn’t have anything to do with my stuff going missing. Haven’t spoken to those “friends” in over a decade now.
– i_just_read_a_lot
4. “He was free until his trial.”
When the local paper ran a story about them for being found guilty of possessing child p*rnography.
We went to high school together. This guy was good friends with my best friend at the time, she had a child in the age range that he had pictures of.
He’d actually been charged with the crime months before any of us found out about it because he was free until his trial (when the story was run).
– Snoo4071
5. “I trusted my gut.”
My ex-boyfriend. We had dated for two years.
He was really sweet, super motivated to be a firefighter, and overall a really nice guy. Super goofy.
I went to college and ended up breaking it off because something didn’t feel right. He was being more secretive, more reserved. I thought it was the distance, us growing apart, what have you.
A few years later my best friend sends me a pic of my Ex’s mugshot. He had been convicted on charges related to child p*rn.
I’m glad I trusted my gut.
– GirlScout-DropOut
6. “The police went to his place.”
My parents had a pretty close friend since I was a child that lived a block away from our house and would often have us over for dinner, spend holidays with us, that sort of thing. He was/is an obgyn.
About two years ago we found out through local news that he r*ped a girl in his home office, apparently he would practice abortions there (as it was illegal in my country at the time) and r*pe them while they were unconscious.
The police went to his place and found a bunch of guns there too.
– f1orencia
7. “He ghosted me.”
I found my best from high school on Facebook recently.
At first he was glad to hear from me. He is 60 and I figured out he still lives with his mom.
When I asked what he’d been up to the last 40 years, he ghosted me.
– Bobdavis235
8. “Yuck.”
Not my whole life but I became friends with a guy from my new job, we’d get a beer sometimes and I had him over for a barbecue a few times.
A few months later he got arrested for punching a girl and it became a pretty big local story.
In the process of being prosecuted a bunch of other girls (like about 10 or so) came forward saying he had threatened them. A girl he had dated briefly said he had given her some serious bruises while having sex. They also found a huge collection of upskirt photos an all the equipment he used to take them.
He had been expelled from high school for pulling up girls skirts.
Yuck.
– picksandchooses
9. “Currently trying to fix my life.”
At the end of last year I realized how many times my mom has meddled in my life when she thought I wasn’t going the way she thought it would.
Someone I was really interested in in my early twenties, she talked them out of ME while I wasn’t around. She was a really sweet person and I liked her a lot. Instead, I ended up with a psycho who left after our daughter was born.
That is just ONE instance out of many times my mother used intense manipulation on a person (usually me) to f*ck up my life because it wasn’t going the way she thought it should go. And she still has no idea she’s done anything wrong. Currently trying to fix my life from the last time she meddled in it. It’s not been good, but I’m almost through this mess.
– Meat_Sarcasm_Guy
10. “They stole a booster seat.”
They stole a booster seat from a restaurant and kept it as a trophy because they thought they didn’t get polite service.
No kids, plenty of money, educated; they just wanted to “hurt” the restaurant.
– crosleyxj
11. “I tried to guilt trip her.”
I had a cousin a couple years older than me who was killed in a car accident in his mid twenties.
My younger sister didn’t want to go to the funeral, and I tried to guilt trip her because her excuse was that she was spending the weekend with her boyfriend.
A month after the funeral, she told me that our deceased cousin had molested her when she was younger.
– shoopvedoobop
12. “Always a little weird.”
This guy was always a little weird, but we got along well. And then on a break from college while I was at my parents’ house, his mug shot showed up on the local news as a person of interest in a child p*rnography case.
I still remember my dad asking, “Isn’t that a friend of yours?”
The next day I ran into a mutual friend who gave me a few revolting details about the case.
And then it was like all of the weird stuff from over the years immediately summed up in my head and I realized just how messed up the guy really was.
– elevenghosts
13. “I wasn’t until I had kids that I realized…”
When I was growing up, my parents became involved with Amway/MLM. They had noble intentions (to get money to spend time with us) but it backfired. They were so involved with it that they were gone four nights of the week, and we never took a vacation without them voluntarily spending time at meetings.
It wasn’t until I had kids that I realized how much of my childhood they’d missed. I also became so used to fixing/solving things by myself before anyone noticed that it ties my insides up when someone offers to help.
– dammagedone
14. “Those weren’t uncles.”
Friends mom was a crack addict. Not entirely unusual in my neighborhood TBH.
He always had different uncles coming in and out of the house though i never saw him talk to any.
Hit me hard later on that those weren’t uncles and mom was funding her habit.
– Salty_Orchid
15. “I wanted to go to bed.”
A childhood friend that came to hang out when a mutual friend of ours visited after living out of state for a couple of years.
He showed up clearly on something which wasn’t really all that usual but he started straight making up stories about his dad working for the Irish mob and he just would not leave when it was 2am and I wanted to go to bed.
I ended up having to get our mutual to physically put him in my car and drive him home so we could get some sleep.
– handcraftedcandy
16. “He almost killed the poor girl.”
This cool laid back brazilian guy went to 7th grade with me.
I live in Peru and spanish and portuguese are mildly mutually intelligible, so we had a lot of fun as he playfully learned spanish, and had a carte blanche whenever it came to actually understanding school subjects.
We all liked him but him and his family missed living in Brazil, so they went back the following year. We stayed friends on facebook and he’d post jiu jitsu tournament pics every now and then.
Years later, a schoolmate found a brazilian news article about him beating a woman for refusing to have sex with him on a date. He almost killed the poor girl. There was a following article about him having beaten his disabled brother for years.
– computer_crisps
17. “Bragging about hookups.”
I had a fifth grade teacher that was f*cking awesome. He had high energy, talked about partying and the girls that he’d bring home on the weekends.
I thought he was so cool until I got old enough to realize bragging about hookups to a room of 11 year olds is weird.
– pantaleonivo
18. “Only to find that…”
This one girl I went to a church camp with.
She was really fun and nice and we exchanged social media at the end of the summer.
I got home and added her on instagram, only to find that she posts nudes, smokes, drinks, and does crack.
We were 14 at the time.
– ThislsMyTrashAccount
19. “Good God.”
Had a crush on a guy in high school, even made out with him once.
He ended up murdering his girlfriend, stuffing her in his trunk and dumping her body couple hundred miles away.
Good God.
Never let a nice set of abs distract me again after that.
– Erna626
20. “She’s a philanderer to this day.”
Ex-wife announced when she was three months pregnant that she was into group sex and was going to an orgy that weekend.
She hoped I’d “be cool with it and join her”, but instead followed through with destroying the marriage by following through with her plan.
Turns out she was cheating from day one. She’s a philander to this day.
– -Azrael-Blick-
21. “I overlooked them.”
When my former best friend stole a chainsaw and weed eater from my parents.
I knew about some bad things he had done but he had been my friend since grade school so I overlooked them.
– badword4
22. “He thinks I’m a sad pathetic loser now.”
My friends and brother to me. I used to be the cool HS rebel with a serious attitude problem. I smoked and drink and f*cked and people thought I was so cool.
Then I robbed a liquor store and spent the next 11 years in Prison. What’s worse is I ruined my best friends life too by strong arming him into robbing the Liquor Store.
My brother used to idolize me. I protected him from my Dad and bullies in School. I was so cool to him because I defied everyone. He thinks I’m a sad pathetic loser now and doesn’t believe I reformed.
– ArrogantDante
23. “Be careful who you trust.”
Didn’t really know this person my whole life, but I knew her for 4 years of my childhood. She lived next door to my family and my parents would hire her to babysit me, my sister, and my brother.
I didn’t really realize anything was wrong when I was a kid, but thinking back to it, a lot of the games she played with us (or with me anyways) were oddly sexual.
She also brought a pornographic video to our house once and showed it to me. I was somewhere between the ages of 6 and 10 when all of this happened and she was in her late teens.
Be careful who you trust to watch your children and remember that not all predators are men.
– 54R45VV471
24. “She’ll know it’s about her.”
A few years back was on a new birth control pill that ended up not working for me and got pregnant, tried working it out with the sperm donor only to find out that my sister had been f*cking him the entire time despite knowing we were dating and I was pregnant.
If she see this she’ll know its about her and all I can say is f*ck you wh*re.
– kitten896
25. “Really, really racist.”
I wasn’t really “cool” with this person, more tolerated his annoying behaviour because he was on the wrestling team with me.
But then he came out that he was like, SUPER racist.
Like, really really racist.
F*ck that guy.
– engineertr1gg
26. “Lost all respect.”
Someone I considered a mentor told me over lunch one day how the family dog was getting old so he dropped it off at the pound.
Lost all respect for them.
– _babycheeses
27. “They were in denial.”
I was friends with a guy for 16 years. We had a lot in common as we are both into the outdoors. We would hang out together with our spouses and even travelled a little together.
All was fine until he got me a job with him working for his parents. They were so kind and generous, they treated me very well. That’s when I learned my friend was an *sshole. He lied about everything to his parents. Lied about being overwhelmed with work (that’s why I was hired), lied about money (he pocketed it any way he could).
I tried telling his parents about a little of it and it ruined my relationship with them. I think they had an idea about how he was but were in denial
– hikermick
28. “Wish you didn’t exist.”
My neighbor/ lifelong friend when I followed them on Facebook…nothing like seeing your close friend posting about how they wish you didn’t exist/ you shouldn’t get the same rights as everyone else.
– Pipessqueak
29. “F*ck your opinion.”
She got a face tattoo and a neck tattoo that says f*ck your opinion, right out of high school someone told me they saw her begging for beer money at a Walmart.
She peer pressured a younger impressionable girl with epilepsy into smoking weed and then laughed and took a video of her having a seizure and sent it around to everyone to make fun of her,
She put her senior-aged cat in the dashboard of her car and hit the accelerator and brakes repeatedly so that the cat got thrown around in the car.
– redditorinalabama
30. “Bye.”
“No seriously, there’s loads of evidence, check you tube, the earth is flat.”
Ok then, bye.
– ProcessSmith
Always a super difficult thing to deal with. And yet you’re usually left at least a little grateful that you didn’t fall full victim.
Do you have a story like this?
Share it with us in the comments.
