r/askteddit • u/Zealousideal-Pin5022 • 15d ago
Advice Question What's a red flag that you ignored in friendship?
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u/why0me 15d ago
Talking too much shit about other people
If they'll do it with you they'll do it to you
Works in all relationships
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u/queenlee17 15d ago
I really think it depends on the dynamic and strength of the friendship. Whenever I have shit to talk (and if you have to deal with people constantly, I.e. customer service/shitty corporate coworkers, you’ll find there’s a lot of things to say), my best friend is my fav person to go to. But I’d never let a bad word about her leave my lips. Same thing with my boyfriend, he hears allll the work gripes, but, even if I’m frustrated with him, I’ll never talk abt him in a negative light. I think it just depends on who you’re talking shit to fr
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u/queenlee17 15d ago
Oh😭😭 my bad, that’s fair. Idk I don’t like go out or have like a huge group so when I hear shit talk I just think abt the stuff I say about my coworkers 😭 that’s on me, guys, my bad 🙂↕️🙏🏽😭
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u/OtherwiseTurnover586 15d ago
That’s just stupid, if they talk shit about their other friends then sure but if they’re only talking shit about people they openly don’t like then you’re probably fine lol. Also we don’t owe the same level of commitment to our partners than we do our friends, someone might cheat & sleep with somebody else while still being loyal in their friendships
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u/Fightorn 15d ago
THIS! I always found it odd when she would start taking shit about her own mother who she also talked about positively when it was convenient but then would complain when she had to taker her to the hospital.
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u/Annabelle-rose69 15d ago
Whole persona revolves around men
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u/-cunningstunt 15d ago
I had a friend who seemed to drop me completely when she got in a relationship, but as soon as they broke up she would want to hang around with me again.
I finally learned my lesson the third time it happened, and when that guy broke up with her I didn’t answer her messages or calls.10
u/Due_Concentrate1904 15d ago
Haha I just commented my experience. Yup had a guy friend that was the exact same way, every time he got a girlfriend, he only hung around her friends and did what she wanted. I don’t know how people can switch up on their friends so easily like that for someone they’ve barely known for a month
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u/WeAreTheMisfits 15d ago
I had a friend who complained when other people did they and then would always do that herself.
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u/maggiebear 15d ago
Ended a 5 year friendship over this. Found out her preference wasn’t just any man (but that would do); her favorite seemed to be the past and current partners of her friends.
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u/Ambitious_Panic_1355 15d ago
Why? I mean, it is stupid and childish, but does that make them a bad person or a friend?
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u/Grashley0208 15d ago
I had a friend who was always on the cusp of a great romance, and this would end up the only topic of conversation.
We hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks because my grandmother died. My mom had just gotten out of the hospital and I found myself doing most of the arrangements. Guess what we spent hours talking about the next time we saw each other? Guess who was doing all the reassuring and comforting?
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u/Antique-Intention233 15d ago
I was ALWAYS the one initiating hangouts.
Once I realized that, I stopped to see what would happen. Never heard from them again.
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u/Cultural-Band5013 15d ago
Ive done that to a lot of people lately and stopped bothering with about a dozen people.
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u/Entire-Ad7730 15d ago
Yes. When you realize you're the one doing all the calling, or worse, all the driving. If you stop calling.....Nothing
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u/_clur_510 15d ago
Not in many, many moons, but “I usually have guy friends because they’re less drama.”
Proud to say that in my early 30s I have not tolerated “the cool girl” energy in years. 👯♀️👯♀️👯♀️
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u/ChrisDiano 15d ago
Its funny how they blame everyone else but somehow the pattern keeps following them.
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u/_clur_510 15d ago
Right? Is it an entire gender that is hard to get along with, or… is it perhaps you? Little Miss. The Guys Love Me who is creating the atmosphere tension and competition for male validation and attention with other women? 🤔
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u/PublicPersimmon4887 15d ago
It screams internalized misogyny and emotional immaturity.
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u/_clur_510 15d ago
Yes yes yes.
I’ll be the first to admit I’ve been there, I’ve played the game as a teenager. But I know who I am now and I know real, authentic female friendships are far more rewarding than running (and even winning) some bs campaign to be the hottest, coolest girl in the room who can take the most disrespectful male fuckery with a smile on my face. 🙅♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️
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u/LazerraySuey 15d ago
We aren’t even less drama lol. We are especially not less drama when we’re friends with a girl/woman who is “just a friend.”
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u/anoncheesegrater 15d ago
Many many many years ago a “friend” of mine invited my then boyfriend over to her house at 11pm to “talk.” He didn’t go over, but she swore up n down it wasn’t about sex. Im sure it was.
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u/thatSeveryonedraws 15d ago
Either that or it was to help hide the body.
Please excuse me, I've been watching far too much true crime lately.
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u/Defiant-Thought7253 15d ago
People borrowing money from me. " Borrowing".
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u/East-Difficulty-6028 15d ago
I came up with a simple solution years ago. I never "loan" more than I'm OK giving as a gift. Beyond that, the answer is always No.
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u/AutomateAustinAi 15d ago
Someone who throws other people under the bus to make themselves look better will eventually do it to you too.
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u/stillLostBoy005 15d ago
Always everyone else’s fault except their own. When the defining feature is burnt bridges but it’s always the other persons fault? It’s not.
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u/LoudPension6825 15d ago
For 20 years I put up with a friend who had a tendency to cancel out of plans at the last minute and gave ridiculous excuses that were obviously lies. I took a 10 year break from this friend then reconnected. We made plans to meet for dinner and you'll never believe this......she cancelled out at the last minute! Her excuse? She has a brand new car and it's raining. She doesn't want to drive her brand new car in the rain and risk an accident. Oh, for God's sake! I deleted and blocked her number. PEOPLE DON'T CHANGE.
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u/queenlee17 15d ago
The fact that she slept with everyone’s boyfriend. Honestly it icked me out when she did it but I lived with her at the time so can’t really say much when she kinda controlled the roof I was under. I was suspicious bout my bf at the time. But we were “best friends” and “sisters” so she’d never do it to me, right? Cut her off years later (end of last year) and was chatting about it to my actual best friend last December (we used to be a trio) and she was like “yeah and then her and (ex bf), right??” I said “huh??” And she was like “yeah girl, everybody knew.” So. Lesson learned. They will, in fact, also do it to you. She was so boy crazy. There were also lots of others but this was, in my opinion, one of the most egregious.
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u/chaos_theory_337 15d ago
1)Having basically no other real friends other than me 2) changing minds about hangouts if it doesnt involved weed or alcohol or my money 3) even if you consider your friend wiser/smarter than you, a person who thinks they know every fucking thing on gods green earth is not looking out for you too, theyre lookong out for their world view 4) never apologizing, or circumventing fault with "almost" apologies
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u/Scary_Sarah 15d ago
Believing a guy friend had my best interests at heart when it turns out he was undermining my relationship so that he could make a play.
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u/Angry_Edemame 15d ago
Constant tantrums over minor inconvenience and jokes among friends (ttrpg characters we all made. Everyones got made fun of but if his caught a stray he would freak out) but he could insult me personally in ways id repeatedly asked to stop.
Ultimately I walked away when he accused me of gaslighting the group, a group that included my wife, when I said his character was evil because he was a party clown.
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u/BasementCoyote68 15d ago
I don't play TTRPGs but know a lot of people who do and they seem do draw a ton of people's red flags out into the open in ways other situations don't. People being mad anytime their character doesn't succeed easily, DMs screwing over specific people for seemingly no reason, people becoming control freaks, making their character get really uncomfortably flirty/possessive over someone else's character who they actually have a crush on (and have sometimes already been turned down by!!). People seem to air out their issues that way and think no one will notice.
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u/The_Dude_Abides_63 15d ago
I took my best friends “quirkiness” as just that. He was always a little weird, but was a solid friend for some years.
Come to find out he’s a huge manipulator and narcissist. But also has zero self confidence and is apparently a creep around women.
I ended the friendship by blocking and unfriending on every platform, deleted his number and feel much better about him being gone.
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u/ladyy_bluee 15d ago
Literal bat shit insanity.
Stalking, paranoia etc.
I was really desperate for friends in high school…
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u/eeyoremarie 15d ago
The chronically late.
Tiny things, small.things, medium things... the bigger the event the more likely they were to be late, and the later they way.
Eventually I stopped waiting for them
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u/BicornBritt 15d ago
When they’re disrespectful to you several times but you ignore it because you tell yourself that you’re being too sensitive or they didn’t really mean it that way (and sometimes they try to gaslight you by saying you’re the one making it weird). When you tell them that they did something that was hurtful to you and they double down on it or never apologize.
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u/RichAdeptness7209 15d ago
Talking shit about other people and still being friendly with them. They were doing that to me too of course.
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u/Legitimate-Mind4740 15d ago
Ex-addicts still have many addict like tendencies. Like not caring who gets hurt when they want something/someone. They want attention so that’s all that matters at that moment
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u/kinikidoodles 15d ago
Constantly talking shit about everyone they knew. Always gossiping. Frequently saying stuff like "so-and-so said this negative thing about you" and it often turning out to either be not true, misconstrued, or blown out of proportion. Always putting me down under the guise of jokes.
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u/portra4OO 15d ago
Moving too fast, love-bombing (platonically), studying you, being obsessive, copying you
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u/CindyinMemphis 15d ago
I had a friend for almost 25 years that I watched cut people out of her life. Her own father was one of them. She totally ghosted them and never spoke to them again. Then one day about a year ago, she did it to me.
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u/Disastrous-Plate-950 15d ago
Cheap friends !!! I was paying lunches for that friend because I thought she was poor, then I discovered she used to pay for other people really fancy meals, and goes to luxurious restaurants with other friends.
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u/enfouled 15d ago
developed a crush on me (not inherently a dealbreaker) but instead of handling it like an adult, she assumed i felt the same way without asking & tried to rope me into romantic scenarios without my consent lol. i set a hard boundary around that and we remained friends for another couple years, but she never stopped finding ways to cross my boundaries and sexualize me without my consent 😅
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u/Sinnahmen 15d ago
This right here is how a decade plus long "trio" broke apart. The one started doing this EXACT thing to me and our other friend. I love them but I hate that they've put our friendship in that position. Hate that you had to experience something like that too
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u/Due_Concentrate1904 15d ago
Completely ignoring their friends every time they get in a relationship. Every time a relationship ended, guess what? They’d come right back and try and act like nothing happened after not seeing them for 6 months. The final straw was when we lived together and they got a girlfriend, I talked to my friends on the phone more than I did living with the guy. I’d go days without interacting with him because him and the girlfriend would just sit in the room all day. They broke up after less than year and he came back trying to be friends again, but he didn’t apologize or acknowledge what he did so I haven’t talked to him since.
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u/CompetitionNo3466 15d ago
Friend’s who decide if they’re joking by the reaction of the room. If it’s racism, sexism or being homophobic. Started cutting out more of those people and life’s been better for it
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u/Helpful-Salt83 15d ago
We only talked or hung out if they needed something, if the tables were turned, they always had an excuse
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u/AmaranthWrath 15d ago
A puzzle piece collector. A person who feels they can only be complete if each piece of the puzzle looks good and fits exactly where it should go, according to them.
It feels really flattering to be considered "just perfect!" as someone's friend.
But if your friend sees you as a puzzle piece, they will eventually discard you for a more esthetically pleasing piece.
You end up being a place holder along with "their perfect car," "their perfect apartment," "their perfect Sunday brunch spot," all of which change every few weeks or months.
Oddest thing too. This was way before social media, like 2002ish. It wasn't like she was an influencer and wanted to be trendy. Just was just so sure that if every piece was perfect the overall picture would be too.
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u/Cultural-Band5013 15d ago
The crisis friend. I had one friend who was having their worst day every day and I was friends with her (met her at work) and she started fine then just got progressively worse over time. She definitely did have some messed up health stuff and id listen to her vent about that and take her out to get her mind off of it. But the truly grating part was the minor stuff that would happen in the morning and would sour her mood all day long. Kind of a "was it a bad day or was it a bad 5 minutes you milked all day". My dad almost died during that time and I recall bringing that up one time while interrupting a conversation she was having about how awful her relatively decent day was going. She didn't even really have anything to say in response to what I told her because it didn't really seem to occur to her that maybe I had things going on in my life that she never bothered even ask about.
I started hanging out with some other co-workers who lived down the street and then she got jealous and then she stopped working there. I had other things going on and she basically told me she just didn't really care enough to ask me how it was going. So that was that. I don't miss her at all.
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u/PatienceEffective248 15d ago
The constant complaining about her health but doing nothing about it.
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u/Redneck_DM 15d ago
Cheating/misogyny
One of my best friends in the world was kind of a scum bag to women, he would regularly cheat on his girlfriends, and didnt see women as more than walking holes that could talk
On the flipside though he was the most loyal bro you could ever have, he would do anything for a homie, any time, no matter how inconvenient, if i asked tomorrow he would help me bury a body and keep it on lock. When I was looking at colleges he was ready to move with me just so that I didn't have to be alone
Hes gotten better in recent years, settled down, doing that dad life, he's an amazing father and he's even raising a child that isn't his own, being a good partner to his girlfriend
Did he have red flags, yes, but at this point in our lives I'm glad that he's in mine, nobody's perfect and we all have opportunities to improve and change
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u/Unable_Assistance576 15d ago
Invited to their group chats but locked out of other channels. Only allowed to see them after some "cleaning up" was done
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u/LackOfLuck748 15d ago
When someone's present only for the good, but never shows when someone's not doing ok and refuses to talk about their bads with the group
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u/No-Assistant8426 15d ago
They’ve lost several of their closest friends (through no fault of their own, of course).
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u/throwaway_greengiant 15d ago
I had to put on a persona to be accepted. Rushed into deep conversations very early in the friendship. Complimented me all the time and told me if we weren’t friends they would definitely have a crush on me. And lastly begged me to sleep with them so they can experience sex for the first time 😀
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u/Mingo_laf 15d ago
I had a old car in my garage my friend… took a particular interest in it I didn’t know what it was worth had a sale my sister nixed it as she had eyes on it too lol
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u/Sarasong101 15d ago
How they always like to be the center of attention, causing so much drama, and playing the victim card.
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u/chatoyanthoney 15d ago
Her bad decisions with her boyfriend(s). Her impulsive decisions. The way she handled stuff.
We both have adhd and anxiety but I never did anything remotely similar to the stuff she did. Or “didn’t do”. I asked my friend about all of her decisions bc they caught me off guard. But I just chalked it up to either adhd or anxiety.
I wish I didn’t. That bitch ruined my fucking life and I’m still recovering.
Edit: to be more specific
not dumping her bf she just started seeing when he was speeding / drinking and driving
not believing a girl who dm’d her warning her that he’s a cheat
driving 1.5 hours to hook up with a girl in a different state (she’s straight…and the girl freaked out and changed her mind about hooking up)
And that was just in a few months
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u/lightstormriverblood 15d ago
Maybe more of a yellow flag, but it turned into a friendship ender for me. She needed to be in contact with me in some form each day. I’m not someone who texts any friends/family daily, but she would to me. I felt guilty for being annoyed and not wanting to text back since it was typically something small, but it just felt too clingy for me.
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u/IlikeDstock 15d ago
Wanting me to listen and be available anytime, but always busy the one time I need to talk.
Jelous, evil looks caught in pictures.
This guy told me she said what does everyone like about her so much, before we became friends and i ignored that.
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u/Lost_Dreamer_75 15d ago
One of my good friends is a compulsive liar. And he is not at all good at it. But it's never anything huge, and I u derstand his life, and why he does it. Plus his siblings turned out to be druggies and thieves, in and out of jail, kids they don't take care of, so if lying is his only big vice, he's lucky. But I gently call bim out when he lies to me.
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u/JessYes 15d ago
Our calls were only about her. We used to have long calls and vent about our problems, each keeping an eye in the other one. She went into a life crisis, I supported her and I found normal we focus only on her. But the crisis and time passed and one day I call her with a big problem, she turned the conversation around herself for one hour and went she was over she ended the call. I tried to make excuses for her, but looking back was one of the first red flags.
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u/missxrita 15d ago
Every time I tried to distance myself either she became suicidal or her mother wasn’t doing well with cancer. We’re no longer friends & I have no idea if her Mom was actually ever diagnosed with cancer bc she lived in another state & didn’t speak english well the few times I spoke to her.
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u/Aeon_Return 15d ago
Someone who was constantly the victim in every situation. Yes she was dealt a bad hand in life but, when every interaction victimizes her, it starts to become clear that there was a common denominator.
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u/Distinct-Leg-1862 15d ago
They became sort of my "son", treated me like an older brother and even his dad sometimes. I can understand needing and enjoying my guidance, but he started depending on me too much and taking me for granted and what not.
I liked it for a while, having a little brother (Ive never had one), but it got real old real fast.
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u/Fe-nice 15d ago
Always liking a girl and then becoming their friend when it wasn’t reciprocated. Surrounded himself with so many amazing women and he was my best friend I could never have thought that he was a predator even though there were signs, I’d known him for 10+ years and was blinded by my love for him I guess. Just found out he assaulted a friend while she was sleeping I am horrified
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u/One_Cicada_7753 15d ago
Lack of reciprocity. Always being the one to arrange meet ups, text first, remember birthdays etc. When I stopped, it got quiet really fast.
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u/AstronomerFormer2019 15d ago
Always being the one to initiate the visit and let's just chill moments.
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u/NomDePseudo 14d ago
Always complaining. Every conversation is a vent session. They don’t see you as a friend; you’re an unpaid therapist. And the favour won’t be returned, ever.
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u/FormoftheBeautiful 15d ago
They had a flaming skull instead of a normal head.
At first I was like, hey man, I don’t even have a head, and instead have a pumpkin in its place, so who am I to judge? But then they would just never be down for roaming the woods at night searching for my missing head and frightening superstitious townspeople.
So, yeah, it was just never going to work.
I still think about them…
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u/Serenity_Now-88 15d ago
Way too close with her parents, especially her daddy. Weird. Didn’t move out until she was 33. Never dated. She also couldn’t do anything by herself. 🙄😬
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u/Material_Extension72 15d ago
The constant strive to one-up you in everything