There's a guy who at point I considered my best friend. I met him 6 years ago and we clicked. We live in the same area so we hung out a few times a week. We shared a lot about our lives to each other. We were there for each other when we had issues with our exes. He met his current girlfriend of 3 years because of me. I helped him move several times because I was the only friend with a car. I used to think we were there for each other and this friendship was one of the strongest I've had in my life.
But we stopped hanging out with about an year ago due to a combination of things but mostly him making less effort to meet me. It didn't just happen to me but also to our mutual friends. I thought we naturally grew apart. It hurt a bit to think my best friend didn't want to be my friend anymore but I understood people have their own lives to live. I had no hard feelings, although I lost a bit of respect for him because he would give me half-assed attempts to reconnect without following through on anything. For example I ran into him once and we talked about hanging out the next day and he canceled the next day because he was tired. I have a hard time respecting a man who does that.
I recently found out he was talking shit about me behind my back. The way I found out was that I coincidentally ended up hanging out with a couple other people who also used to be good friends with him but the same thing happened to them where he made very little effort to actually hang out but talked a lot about hanging out. He came up on the conversation and we ended up airing our grievances about him. Turns out he was talking shit about me to another friend while he was talking shit about that friend to another friend. One guy said he was shocked that this friend was talking shit about me to him because he knew him and I were really close. Then this guy later found out that our "friend" was doing the same thing to another guy.
Dude was always eccentric and weird (one of the weirdest people I've ever met) but I'm not exactly normal myself so I just chalked it up as him being "unique." I never thought he was malicious. When I first started to know him he opened to me about him having severe schizophrenia and OCD but he has said he had gotten better. Now I'm thinking back and realizing this dude was never released from his illnesses. He's said some crazy ass shit that I always just laughed off but now it's all making more sense. It's bordering on psychotic.
You never know. This only makes me think I need to filter out people better and pay attention to red flags. I've met too many people who I thought were cool at first only to find out they're sociopaths or just giant douchebags.
Cliffs:
Had a best friend for almost 6 years
Dude stopped hanging out with me and a bunch of other mutual friends
Thought we just grew apart
Turns out he was talking shit about me including other people who were his friends
I'm like WTF because this dude used to be my best friend
People are fucking weird
