Life is chock full of experiences to be had. There are milestones, rites of passage, celebrations, heartaches, traumas – and mistakes. We’ve all made a few of ’em here and there and while some are bigger than others, at least there are two saving graces.
Number one – at least there is a lesson to learn. What doesn’t kill you, makes you smarter (yes, and stronger…) so as long as you can extract a lesson from your hardship, then you are in the lead, my friend. And number two – life is far too short to make every single mistake (thank goodness!) so while you may have your shining moments, take the opportunity to learn from other people’s mistakes too. That’s what friends are for!
Just joking, but not really. We love our friends and family, but they are human and perfectly capable of making a bad decision. Here are some horrible decisions friends couldn’t stop other friends from doing.
42. Covering The Costs For A Woman He’s Never Met
“My brother sent $1,400 to a ‘girl’ in Nigeria for a plane ticket to the States so he could start dating her. Yes, I called him dumb.” PancakeParthenon
41. Hitting Reply All And Sending EVERYONE Highly Confidential Information
“This wasn’t a decision so much as just a mistake my poor uncle made; He was working on a healthcare project and his secretary accidentally sent out an email or something that had a bunch of people’s medical records in it. It was a serious blow to him. Really sucked because he’s a super stand-up guy, really honest, really kind… and one minor accident (that he didn’t even make himself) screwed up his career for a while.” SeaTie
40. Going In And Out Of Jail So Many Times Bail Isn’t An Option Anymore
“Get released on bail for distribution charges only to re-offend a few hours later and go back to jail. Then get out on bail again, re-offend AGAIN, as well as be in possession of a loaded firearm. As a felon. No more bail.” satanshonda
39. Partying Away All Your Oil Money
“A guy I knew was a very successful contractor when the oil fields were busy. Oil started to plummet, so he was forced to shut ‘er down while he waited for the economy to bounce back. He sold all his equipment, had a couple hundred thousand in savings, and decided to do nothing for the next two years except go on vacations, party and feed his drug habit. He more or less burned all that money.” Quilt82
38. Get Drunk, Get Hit Then Run For The Hills
“A friend got drunk and got into a wreck driving home. He fled the scene on foot and ran all the way home. Cops picked him up at his house soon after. Things haven’t been great for him since.” Knew_saga
37. Actually Believing You Have To Pay $6,000 In “Processing Fees” If You Won A Prize Of $50,000
“My mother, who is in her 70s and lives on Social Security, called me up and said she won $500,000 from Publishers Clearing House (which she enters all the time). I told her she did NOT win. Then she said, all she has to do is send them $6,000 for processing fees-I told her its a common SCAM. The next day she said she charged $6,000 to her credit card, poof! Goodbye money. That was many years ago, she still hasn’t paid off the card.” outrider567
36. She Thought A Holistic Approach Would Cure Her Cancer
“I lost a friend because she wanted to go the ‘holistic’ route into trying to cure her breast cancer. She surrounded herself with those holistic med-type people on the Internet when her cancer was in a treatable stage. A year later, she was still on it when she found it metastasized. We went to her funeral a few months later. Lost my friend to a bunch of online quacks.” malabella
35. Still Paying $10,000 5 Years Later Because She Didn’t Want to Wait 6 Months
“My friend decided she was leaving a job earlier than her contract allowed her to. They paid for her relocation fee, so she owed them about $10,000 at the end of her time there. She was convinced that since she was moving somewhere cheaper with a different job, she would be more than capable of paying back them back within a year. She somehow didn’t take into account all of the other costs of life and of moving and has been paying them back for five years, complaining about money the whole time. If she had stayed for six more months, she wouldn’t have owed them anything.” violentlyout
34. She Left The Kids And Took All The Money
“My aunt once drained my grandma’s bank account and left her kids with her, never coming home. Now (17 years later) my Nan is in poor health and my aunt won’t visit because she’s afraid she’ll be arrested.” Killer-Barbie
33. He Was Bored With Alcohol And Chose Meth For His Wife And Himself Instead
“Was already a violent alcoholic. Decided alcohol alone was boring. Dude brings in $100k+ yearly. Started using meth. Put his now ex-wife through a door in an argument. She is also on meth. That’s been three years ago. He has not improved. His electricity and water get shut off for nonpayment a few times a year and he’s about to lose his truck.” MaybeVaderLater
32. She Was Done With 50 Years Of Marriage So She Bought A One-Way Ticket
“My 72-year-old grandma called me over one day to tell me she was hopping on a plane and wasn’t buying a ticket home. She left my grandpa after 50 years of marriage for a man she met online. Things have never been the same between us.” SuperMarioMom
31. He Wanted To Impress Her So He Got Mad At Her With His Made Up Personality
“My former friend tried to get a girl to like him by pretending to be other people when texting her, ultimately culminating in him making violent threats as one of the people he made up.” RIPGeorgeHarrison
30. She Had A Tantrum And Kicked Everyone Who Cares About Her Out Of Her Life
“We moved out of the country to take care of my elderly mother-in-law who was estranged from pretty much everyone. We moved in ‘next door’ (it was one house split into two which my SO owned half of). My mother-in-law had a tantrum over a sack of compost and invoked my wife outright to force the sale of the house. Obviously, we lost our home and she slandered us all over town and said she never wanted to see any of us again.
So, we moved back to our original country and obeyed her to the letter. She hasn’t seen any of us in more than two years and is completely alone. She has to pay for everything she needs and could well be being ripped off by all sorts of people who are smart enough to flatter.” Frecklesunlight
29. She Was Angry He Bought A Car Because They Can’t Afford It, So She Bought One Too
“My wife’s friend was getting married. I have no idea why because every time I met her (the friend) all she did was whine about her fiancé. Well, one day she’s complaining that her fiancé went out and bought a new car without consulting her and the monthly payment was too much for them to afford. So, to get back at him she bought her own new car?!? The marriage lasted less than two years and both cars got repossessed.” NoAstronomer
28. They Got Married After 30 Day
“Went swing dancing to celebrate her official end to a six-month marriage (they broke off their engagement once). Meets a guy that night and marries him a month later. Becomes 21-year-old divorcee and stepmom to four boys she met once before the engagement.” blackfalcon515
27. They Changed Faith And The Kids Can’t Cope
“My half-sister decided to convert the whole family from Catholic to Jehovah’s Witness. Our side of the family isn’t religious, so we didn’t overly care, but try telling two children ‘No more Christmas/Birthdays.’ Her husband’s deeply Catholic family is also very upset by this…. not the best idea…” XmagnumoperaX
26. He Gambled Away Their Luxury Home
“Gamble away $ 250k+; It was painful watching him sell their beautiful huge home and rent an apartment.” foreverwasted
25. He Won’t Date Or Leave His Mom’s Basement
“The decision to do nothing. My brother is 38 next month. He’s never moved out of my parent’s house. Never had a girlfriend. When my dad died three years ago he quit his job and has been mooching off my mom ever since.” Mongostein
24. He Got Drunk And Thought He Could Arrive Alive
“A close friend from high school who had a full ride scholarship to a Top 10 university decided that he wanted to drive home after a graduation party out in the middle of nowhere after spending the past four hours drinking. Countless people tried to stop him, to grab his keys but he got confrontational and left. He made it less than a mile down the road before wrapping his car around a tree.
Instead of heading off to college at the end of the summer, he went to a long-term care facility. He died four years later. A life wasted because he thought he was okay to drive after drinking.” Valiantlycaustic
23. Pharmacist Gets Wasted And Decides To Sell Prescription D***s Under The Table
“Auntie owned a successful pharmacy and got drunk one night and sold some prescription medication on the side for some money…. police found out and she was stripped of her license. It got worse when questioned by police. She said it was for herself because she was suffering from cancer, which she was not. With all of these accusations published in a prominent newspaper, her life and credibility was ruined.” wasa333
22. She Quit Her Job So She Could Blow Her Savings Drinking In The Backyard
“Sister: Took a year off work to go on vacation. By vacation I mean sit in her backyard and drink from 10 am on. Blew through her savings and now, even with a good job, is having a hard time making ends meet.” JohnnyBrillcream
21. Mom Barely Gets By After Selling House Prematurely
“My mom won my dad’s house in their divorce 13 years ago. The house was two years from being paid off. Instead of my mom working two more years, she sold it and retired at 47. She’s now in a low-income apartment and barely gets by. My dad always tells us how he wishes we still had the house so my sister and I could have lived there when he moved to retire.” chopedsuey
20. Guy’s Friend Turns On Him, Causes Massive Drama Then Wants To Be Friends Again
“I had a best friend years ago who I made every effort to help. We became incredibly close and eventually, a new woman entered his life. Suddenly, he didn’t want to be around me or his other friends. They went around to people I knew and said I was a crazy person and a stalker. Years and years later after they got married and divorced he called me and apologized for everything. He said losing me as a friend was one of the biggest regrets in his life. I thanked him for his apology and we parted ways. I won’t ever be his friend again. He seems totally different now, but I don’t want egg on my face. Not again.” Father_of_the_Bribe
19. She’s Dating A Deadbeat Dad
“Well, my ex-wife may be in an intimate relationship with my deadbeat dad. Does that count?” 319Skew
18. Small Guy Shows Up To Fight The Huge Boyfriend Of The Girl He Loves
“Buddy of mine got into a fight with the best friend of a girl he thought didn’t have a boyfriend. She was a piece of work. Anyway, I found out about the boyfriend and he was about three times the size of my friend. ‘Dude, just walk away and chalk it up as a learning experience,’ I said. But nope, he felt this need/desire to ‘Kick his butt.’ That kind of logic fails me.
Anyway, we show up the “designated spot.” We just got off work, and my friend was a manager and was still wearing a shirt/tie and nice flat bottom leather shoes.
The other guy, the boyfriend, dressed to fight. T-shirt, jeans and combat boots. It didn’t last long. My friend slipped and slid all over the place while this guy basically held his hand against my friend’s forehead to hold him back. The boyfriend actually seemed like a decent sort of guy. He knew my friend was outmatched and was just being a hot head.
He basically tells my friend, “Look, you aren’t going to win and why go home with a b****y nose and ruined clothes?” But my friend was filled with beer rage (we had a few before the fight began) and wanted his comeuppance. ‘Fine’ says the boyfriend. He sort of half clocks my friend in the jaw and down he went. He tried to get back up, that’s when I jumped in, held him down and told him, ‘Don’t’. I thanked the boyfriend for not killing him and dragged my friend away, all the while he was cursing and swearing at the guy. It was a comedic failure.” politicalatheist1
17. Alcoholic Parents Decide To Have A Baby
“My brother was sober for eight months when he and his equally toxic girlfriend decided it would be a good time to have a baby. Their girl is the happiest little thing, healthy and hitting all the milestones. However, he started drinking again two months before she was born, and the mother is literally the dumbest and most oblivious person I have ever met in my life. The two of them are beyond toxic to each other and it’s only a matter of time before she starts growing up and understanding how horrible they are to each other.” kjipg
16. Someone Threw A Brick To Watch It Land On His/Her Head
“I watched a friend throw a brick up in the air and over a railing, then proceed to lean over the railing to watch the brick fall, to then be cracked in the head by said brick.” PewPewWalrus
15. Family Steals from 94-Year-Old Grandma
“Multiple family members continuously taking various things from my grandma’s house, then acting like she’s crazy when she says anything about her stuff going missing. She’s 94 and still lives on her own. She’s a sharp lady and knows what’s going on. I guess some of them feel guilty about it, because things just mysteriously show back up.
My dad has recently talked to his siblings about it and we think it’s stopped. Also, she knows she isn’t crazy because my parents and I have had multiple talks with her about it. She’s sharp and definitely hasn’t forgotten. She still brings up a decorative garden stepping stone that went missing probably six years ago.” jessicaleigh101
14. Couple Has Shotgun Wedding
“My cousin proposed to his girlfriend after barely a year. They’re now renting a big house they don’t need in an expensive area because it’s close to her family, and he’s working two jobs while she’s a #bossbabe for a multi-level marketing company.” Somgr81
13. Guy Gets Dumped 2 Weeks After He Picks Up His Life For Her
“Friend of mine moved ten hours away and transferred colleges for a girlfriend. She broke up with him within two weeks of him living there.” Texas_Tucker
12. Young Man Quits Then Relapses Only To Never Wake Up Again
“I never really knew my first cousin once removed, but I guess he has always been struggling with depression and that sort of thing. He turned to d***s as a means of self-medication. He had been clean for a while, he seemed to have kicked it. But one night, a sketchy friend of his hung out with him at my Great Aunt’s house, since my cousin still lived with his mother (he was 25).
Apparently, they both shot up. After a while, his sketchy friend left, and I guess my cousin thought he could handle the amount he used to be able to, but he couldn’t. He died that night and wasn’t found until his dad came into his room the morning after, looking for him, because he just bought them tickets to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” JimmyTeabags
11. Wasting Money On The Wrong College
“Getting a $50k loan to get her ‘Masters’ at a non-accredited for-profit college.” BigDrew923
10. He Dies, So They Travel The World And Become Homeless In 2 Years
“When my cousin’s father-in-law died, her sister and mother-in-law went on a cross-country trip with the life insurance money and became homeless within like two years.” asyouwalkonbi
9. Man Believes Every Business Pitch – Loses $1 Million Of Family’s Savings
“My father. He easily believed every MLM scam and ‘business’ opportunity presented to him by friends from church. We lost $1M of life savings back in 2004 and even got my identity stolen because of my dad making shady investments with his so-called friends.” Sweetragnarok
8. His Uncle Is Building A House But Doesn’t Know How To Do It
“My crazy uncle was building a house using settlement money from an on-the-job accident. Purchased land that was lower than anything around it, so it always floods. During construction, saw the contractor was digging a basement. Directed contractor to stop. Contractor pointed out that it was clearly in the contract and the house design made no sense without a basement. Took contractor to court, contractor agreed to no basement. Now has door off of the kitchen that leads nowhere.
The contractor arrived to pave the driveway. Uncle ‘didn’t trust’ him, and just had him dump the asphalt where the driveway should be. Didn’t get around to spreading it before it cooled/cured, and now he has a giant lump of asphalt blocking his garage. Decided that he really did want a basement, so started digging it out himself, starting with the aforementioned door off the kitchen.
Given that the contractor changed the foundation design to accommodate no basement, this will eventually end up with the foundation slab cracking and perhaps failing… especially since the property floods all the time.” drsameagle
7. These Homeowners Don’t Know How To Be Homeowners
“One friend gave a substantial loan to another friend as a ‘gift’ in order to save some money on taxes. The loan was to help the guy put a down payment on a rundown condo, in which they would become roommates. Despite the loan, the guy is not on any of the paperwork for the condo. The runner-up would be the guy who bought the run-down condo. He is not handy. From what I’ve seen of the place, from his painting the sinks (which immediately began chipping) to the massive build-ups of ice on the windows in the winter make me think he’s bitten off way more than he can chew.” cyrus_hunter
6. He Let His Drug Dealer Be His Roommate
“My brother moved into an apartment with some other guys from the place they worked. With the new freedom and money coming in, one friend started into d***s. My brother was ok with it until he saw harder stuff coming in. That’s when he moved out and the others did too. My brother told the one friend that he needed to find new roommates to take over the lease, so the guy brought in his drug dealer. Now my brother is still on the lease for a place he’s not actually living in because the drug dealer couldn’t be approved by the complex.
The two of them start spiralling down and they adopted Pitt bulls with the idea that the dogs would protect them from anyone trying to evict them because they stopped paying rent. This guy had also been borrowing an old used car from the family of another former roommate and now he refused to give it back.
My brother and I told the police about the d***s, who was living there, and more. Luckily, with the police report and some of the guys trying to reason with the complex, most were able to avoid having any of this go on their credit history. I think my brother has seen him maybe once or twice since then.” BombA**Tick
5. He Told A Small Lie That Escalated And Now The Family Is Torn Apart
“My sister and I were really close with our cousins. My family went to Disneyland Paris one day and we went with a camper which we hired from my uncle’s camper rental company. After the four-day trip, we went back home, and we turned in the camper again. A day later, my sister and I realized we both forgot our Nintendo DS’s in the camper, so my dad called my uncle to ask him if they were still in the camper. My uncle said that they weren’t in the camper and that he had no idea where they were.
Months later my dad called my uncle again to ask if he had found the Nintendo DS’s, to which my uncle replied that he had indeed just found them in the camper.
When we got our Nintendo back we immediately wanted to play with them and saw our cousins’ names on all the save files in nearly every game, which obviously proved that my uncle was lying, considering some of the save file dates coincided with the date we turned in the camper. My uncle and my dad got into a big fight because of that, resulting in my sister and I completely losing contact with our cousins. It’s about ten years later and we still have no contact with them.” RoosMoos20
4. She Married Her Best Friend’s Abusive Ex
“My best friend (F 20) married my ex (M 23). He was abusive to me our entire relationship. Of course, my friend didn’t believe me when I told her. I just hope she is safe. They are currently trying to get sealed in the Latter Day Saints temple.” scout_twenty
3. Aunt Kidnapped Grandma And Turned Her Against The Family and The Family Against Her
“Grandma had a stroke so her kids all come to help except one who lived out of state. A few months in and that woman decides to move back, take over everything, and before we know it she loads grandma up in her car and drives back to the state she was in before without saying anything to anybody, drains the account so that they can afford a new home, and starts pulling money from the grandkids’ inheritance money.
Grandma has dementia, can barely tell right from wrong, and was manipulated into thinking that she was abandoned by her family. Meanwhile, she was telling us that she still lived in the city at her house while they were taking care of grandma. We went to the aunt’s house, and her place had a sign out front that said the power was being cut off due to not having payed any bills in weeks. Knocked, rang, asked the neighbors, they told us nobody lived there. Called her phone number and the number was disconnected.
My grandma is still being conned but has moments of lucidity. My family has a grudge against her because they think she went willingly, meanwhile, she’s calling us crying because she has no money and she misses us, then she flips back to thinking we hate her. We hate the aunt that took her.” pringle-prangle
2. He Quit His Well-Paying Job To Join The Army Then Got Denied Because Of A Skin Condition
“Friend wanted to join the military. Got all his paperwork in and everything and figured it was a done deal. Quit his well-paying job with good benefits (against everyone’s recommendations). Went to the physical and they found out he had psoriasis, something he didn’t think would be an issue and he was barred from service. He is currently unemployed.” J71919
1. She Married A Bad Boy Who Ruined Her Credit And Got Her Fired
“Andrea is a nurse at the hospital here. Originally from Canada. Anyway, Andrea meets Rodney in the hospital because he comes in after wrecking his motorcycle. They’re instantly dating and engaged within a couple of months. When they start talking marriage the RED FLAGS are flying everywhere for me. I grew up where Rodney did, and I know where he comes from. Every other sentence out of his mouth is ‘…and if Andrea will cosign a loan…’ Ugh…
I pull Andrea aside one day and I BEGGED her to not cosign any loans. ‘If no bank in the state will loan them money, why would you, I ask?” Of course, she tells me I don’t know what I’m talking about and does it anyway. Loans for him, loans for his mother, loans for his ex-con buddy who’s “a really good motorcycle mechanic.’
Fast forward a year: Rodney is in jail. Again. Andrea had to declare bankruptcy to get away from the bill collectors. Her credit is ruined, the hospital fires her. She has to beg money from her family to scrape up enough to just go back to Canada.” charlesml3
