Most of us have done things we regret. Sometimes those decisions, and their consequences, are things that not only affect us, but also our closest friends. And occasionally, these transgressions leave us with one less girlfriend temporarily, or even permanently.
We asked 9 college women to tell us the worst thing they’ve ever done to a friend to take a closer look at female friendships.
“I slept with my best friend’s boyfriend. Why did I do it? I don’t know. I was drunk? I always secretly wanted him? I just don’t know. But I did it, and that’s all that really matters. It was the senior year homecoming after-party. We slipped away from the crowd and lost ourselves in desires we never should have expressed… desires we never should have even had. We haven’t talked since it happened. The awkwardness between us is palpable; everyone in the room can feel it. Our friendship is dead all due to some drunken decisions. Sometimes I think it’s for the better, but other times I realize I’m just telling myself that to feel better about what I did.”
-Lily, Barnard College Class of 2019
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“I knew that one of my friends cheated on her boyfriend with our other friend’s boyfriend and I didn’t tell my friend who got cheated on. I had found out after both couples had broken up, so I didn’t want to tell my friend who was cheated on, because I didn’t want to cause her anymore pain; the wound was still kind of fresh, if you know what I mean. Eventually, I told the cheating friend that she had to tell our other friend or I would, because I was so guilty I never told her. When she found out, she was hurt beyond belief that I didn’t tell her the second I found out. I made the wrong call by not telling her right away; I wanted to protect her, but ended up making everything worse. It hurt her trust in me, but I knew I did the right thing by making sure she found out in the end. Our friendship was damaged for a while, but I made it clear how sorry I was, and that I only wanted what was best for her; I just made a mistake. Eventually she gained her trust back in me, and we are still incredibly close.”
-Sophia, Tufts University Class of 2019
“I hooked up with a good friend’s ex-boyfriend. I was probably 15, and she and I stayed friends after it happened, but I still think that it was a factor in our growing apart as we got older. She was a really cool person, and I still feel bad about it to this day.”
-Ariel, Western University Class of 2017
“I went through this phase in high school where I absolutely needed a guy to validate my existence (Ugh, that makes me want to puke). Anyway I was a 15-year-old sophomore and when my very best friend went on a family vacation to Hawaii, her ex and I randomly kissed. I felt so awful about it so I told her right when she got home. She was devastated, but she pretended like it didn’t bother her. I apologized so many times and she forgave me after a few days. That changed everything for me. I never wanted to do that to a friend again. Danielle and I are still best friends, sisters even, and I feel so lucky that she stuck with me through that shitty thing I did.”
-Marla, St. John’s University Class of 2018
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“When I was sixteen, my friend asked a guy to a dance that I liked and that I told her I liked. Rather than being an adult and telling her that it upset me, I hooked up with him the weekend before the dance. I continued to hook up with him even while he was staying with her family. We are no longer friends.”
-Sophie, Boston University Class of 2018
“When I was in my senior year of high school, my best friend of eight years and I were beginning to drift apart pretty rapidly. It was really hard, and my former best friend began posting on her blog about me and another friend. I printed out all the posts and confronted her about it, but she wasn’t having it at all and began yelling at me. It was one of the rare occasions that I’ve lost my temper completely, and when we got out into the hall I screamed some choice expletives at her and walked away — the sad part was, people in the hall cheered for me. Unfortunately, we did stop being friends after that point, and we haven’t spoken in more than three years. Sometimes I regret it, but sometimes I think that our lives were going to become too different anyway, so this would have inevitably happened.”
-Katherine, Molloy College Class of 2016
“My best friend for the first two years of high school was extremely promiscuous and manipulative. When we were in ninth grade she cheated on her boyfriend and actually lost her virginity to another guy. After that, she tried to manipulate me into hating him for everything he had ‘done to her’. When the next boyfriend came around she struck again. This time it was with my other friend’s older brother when we were sleeping at her house. They didn’t have sex, but she tried to kiss him. I felt so bad for her new boyfriend that I told him what had happened. She ended up convincing him of her innocence somehow and he sided with her. We stayed friends for only a few months after that and it was really awkward.”
-Maddie, Temple University Class of 2018
“When I was in middle school I was friends with these two girls. We were a bit of a squad. One of the girls is still one of my best friends to this day but the other one and I just stopped clicking in seventh grade. Instead of doing the respectable thing and speaking to her politely alone about it, seventh grade me decided to defriend her while accompanied by my other friend. We went into her homeroom and said to her ‘Look we don’t want to be friends anymore. So we’ll say hi in the hallways but we won’t have sleepovers or anything. Sorry.’ Is that not the bitchiest thing?! I still feel horrible about it to this day and it’s been about six years. We did not really recover from that, though we were polite in the halls (like we said we would be).”
-Lulu, University of Massachusetts Amherst Class of 2019
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“The worst thing that I have ever done to a female friend occurred when I was 17 years old and in high school. In my friend group at the time, I was always the friend that was jokingly made fun of for everything. It didn’t really bother me too much. However, my one friend always took things too far and made fun of me a little too much. So one day, on our way to a field trip, she was making fun of me and I snapped. She was sitting behind me on the school bus. I turned around and said the most awful thing to her, which was an awesome comeback but uncalled for. It basically involved me yelling at her and telling her to stop acting like a controlling parent figure and to start acting like my friend again. She had no idea where this outburst came from so this really upset her. Eventually we decided to talk things out and she was really sorry that she had been unknowingly bullying me. We spent an hour or two in school talking and then said that things were good between us. However as time went by, I realized she wasn’t even someone I wanted to be friends with in the first place. We aren’t friends anymore because I didn’t try to keep in contact with her once we went to our separate colleges.”
-Kathryn, SUNY Oneonta Class of 2018