Our friendships are arguably some of the most precious, rewarding and unforgettable relationships we will ever have. There’s the school pal we fashioned BFF bracelets with and pinky-promised to remember forever and ever. There’s the university roommate who became more family than friend. There’s the colleague we can’t wait to see at the office every day. There’s the one who is always there to listen, advise and lift us up.

And then there’s that absolute bellend who used us, abused us and tossed us aside like an old Kleenex.

Read more: How to “friend date”: the art of pursuing new female friendships

It’s no secret that we have some degree of “friendship turnover”  in our lives: not too long ago, scientists uncovered evidence that we will all take stock of our BFFs every seven or so years (they call it the “'seven year friendship itch”).

But what about those friends who have just absolutely done us over? Who have done something so truly unforgivable that we have to cut them out of our lives, no second chances allowed?

Well, that’s a completely different kettle of fish – and finding out what pushes other people over the edge friend-wise is addictive reading.

These 19 people have all opened up about the moment their best friend became their ex-best friend on Reddit – and their stories are fascinating, thought-provoking and – above all else – completely savage.

Read through the list below for a reminder why some friends just aren’t worth the head space...

1) The user

“I realised that I only ever heard from her when she needed/wanted something,” says john_gee. “I stopped reaching out to her as an experiment, and didn't hear from her for close to a year, when she called me because she wanted help fixing a broken piece of furniture.

“Got a lot better at identifying the fake friends after that.”

2) The traitor to the sisterhood

“My best friend of six years started dating my ex a month after we broke up,” explains Enchantement. “Soon she started to suspect that we were still hooking up and spread rumours that I was a homewrecker to our mutual friends.

“I was initially planning on talking to her to clear up any misunderstandings, but then found out that they had started hooking up while I was still dating him (so she was scared of being cheated on as well). I cut her out of my life and since then I've realized how toxic our entire friendship was.”

3) The ghost

Ms_DragonCat says: “She just stopped responding to all my attempts to contact her. I think it is more depression and disorganisation rather than a deliberate slight, so I still send her Christmas cards, but it's been a few years and I don't ever expect to hear from her again.”

4) The art critic

Jeff_the_nurse says he and his former pal fell out “for the stupidest reason ever”. He explains: “I said that I thought Andy Warhol was a better artist than Jackson Pollock. She was so mad that she never hung out with me again.”

5) The deeply, deeply unsettling one

This one isn’t funny – it’s frightening.

Afiendindenial reveals: “I'm in a long-term, long-distance relationship [and] getting ready to emigrate to the country my boyfriend is from to be with him.

“[My BFF] was going on about how I needed to get laid and how she some guys who could help. I none too kindly reminded her I don't cheat, and she should drop this line of thought.

“Instead, she started going on about how if I f**ked another girl it couldn't be cheating. After telling her I wasn't interested, she went on about how she could get me to f**k her if she got me really drunk. I was stuck in a car with her while she went on and on about how much she wanted to f**k me and how drunk she could get me.

“I haven't talked to her since, not that she got the hint immediately. She actually messaged my mom saying she was just trying to help me out and it would have been just sex.”

6) The absolute child

Cheechsfeist says: “She threw a child-like temper tantrum in the front of a store while shopping in the mall, because I refused to date her ex-boyfriend after she set me up with him.

“Her excuse? ‘Well, I would date your (hypothetical) ex, and you'd have to get over it!’”

7) The homophobic idiots

“Two friends were discussing whether being gay was immoral,” recalls Skuginn. “Both concluded that gay people were definitely going to hell, but one of them was saying that they shouldn't be supported either and should at least ‘try to be straight’.

“They were having this conversation right next to me, and I was out as a lesbian to both of them… couldn't look at them the same afterwards.”

8) The friend who didn’t deserve it

“It was my fault,” recalls veryveryplain. “Six years ago, I got strung out on pills pretty badly and she tried to help me get clean. One day, her new debit card came in the mail while she was at work. I decided to activate it and ‘borrow’ some money without asking.

“I guessed the password on her computer, went through her files and found her tax records and obtained her SSN so I could activate the debit card. Then I went to the ATM and tried to use her normal PIN, but it wasn't right… so I freaked out, cut up her debit card and threw it out the window while driving down the highway.

“She eventually moved out and we stopped talking… I was a terrible human being.”

9) The demanding friend

Catalinafightsong says that her former ex-friend “wanted too much of my time”.

She continues: “I'm an introvert with major generalized anxiety, so even leaving the house to go to the grocery store can be difficult. People exhaust me.

“One day I didn't reply and he just never texted. We ran into each other a year later and talked for the whole night, but never set anything up after.”

10) The novelist

“This is not the most common answer, but she started writing a novel,” says Doctordoomduck.

“We were friends for a couple months before she told me that she had a ‘story inside her that was desperate to escape’ or something like that. Because I am a self-confessed book nerd, she asked if I could help her. Since this has never happened before, I agreed without really knowing what to expect.

“It was immediately an awful experience. She would ignore me for days working on new chapters then email them to me at 2 AM, expecting me to give her feedback in the morning. She'd send me unrelated paragraphs without telling me the context because she wanted me to ‘experience them like a reader would’. She would never accept criticism of any kind and if I even hinted at not liking something, she'd go out of her way to make me feel bad for not understanding her vision.

“But the worst thing about it all was that she was a f**king horrible writer. I still remember the pages and pages and pages of purple prose, flat characters, obvious metaphors, boring storytelling, and punch-you-in-the-face foreshadowing. After completing roughly 50,000 words of this terrible book she decided to quit college so that she could focus on writing full-time and asked me to follow.

“I told her no f**king way.”

11) The joker

Throwaway-3235 says: “My ex-friend’s humour revolved entirely around belittling and making fun of others.

“He was one of my closest friends for around eight months [but] right near the end, he ‘joked’ about something that made me feel like a complete piece of s**t. At that point I decided to start trying to cut him out of my life in the least aggressive way possible.”

12) The car crash

Cnmrsh says: “She was driving back to my house, speeding while it was raining, hydroplaned, and overcorrected. No one's fault, right? Wrong. Somehow it was my fault though I wasn’t driving.

“The car was on its roof, [but luckily we escaped with nothing more than] glass in our hands, bruised knees, and a fractured wrist. She pleaded with me not to wear my [prescribed wrist] brace, so that no one would know what happened – but obviously I had to.

“Long story short… we’re no longer allowed to be friends because of the car accident.”

13) The one who wanted a therapist, not a friend

“She had a lot of mental health issues and would use me as her therapist,” says ArchiveSQ. “More than happy to do so but I had issues of my own that she'd lightly brush off before turning it back to herself. She didn't seem to want to get better but I did and have.

“I love and miss her but not enough to talk anymore.”

14) The Friend Zone complainant

“He liked me romantically, I did not like him back,” says Alybank. “After he told me his feelings and I was like ‘I'm sorry, but I want to still be friends’, things were never the same.

“We were friends for a little while, but he was make subtle jabs at me. One day I called him out about being distant and kind of an asshole to me, and he basically told me that he doesn't want to be friends with females. Which I think is bulls**t: you shouldn't just cut half the population of the world out of possibly being your friend.”

15) The green-eyed monster

“She got jealous REALLY easily and would make comments like ‘oh I hope you're having fun with your new friends’ when I would go out with other people,” says Kawaiislayer0804. “She even started a fight with me over me telling someone else about something first and not her.”

16) The absolutely awful human being

Mockingbirdsoul recalls: “On new year’s eve in 2015, my partner and I found out we had suffered a second miscarriage. I was three months along and had already announced on social media, so I sadly had to un-announce.

“A few minutes later, my friend sent me a long message which more or less said, ‘hey, sorry you lost your baby... don't worry, because it was in God's plan. By the way, I'm pregnant. I'm really worried, can you tell me all the symptoms you had with your miscarriages so I'll know?’

“She also told me she was going to lie and tell her doctor she had bled in order to get an earlier appointment… I blocked her number and haven’t looked back.”

17) The not-so-nice guy

“When I became single, he acted like he was entitled to a relationship with me because he was such a ‘nice guy’,” says CatsonCocaine.

18) The traitor

Throwaway6308 says: “I confided in her the first time I had sex in high school, and she immediately told a bunch of random dudes about it, which obviously led to me getting majorly slut-shamed at school.

“On top of that, she had the gall to pretend at first that it wasn't her, even after someone showed me the texts she sent around.”

19) The bad cinemagoer

“He answered his phone in a movie theatre,” says Tfdoido. “I have zero tolerance.”

Images: Rex Features