Was this friendship abusive? How do you view this?

Hello everyone,


Little bit of background about me first - up until age of 16 very popular, funny outgoing guy. Likable a lot. Aged 17 discover I am gay and being from a homophobic area develop a lot of confidence and self-image issues expressed through a drinking problem, have many issues like ''am I a creep? weird?' made worse through smoking too much weed.

Go to university aged 18 and due to social anxiety it is hell.


Finally after a long road aged 23 I am psychologically in a good place. Once again, like when I was 16, I am socially capable, good with people, tactile, about to form relationships, charming and funny. I work as a telephone fundraiser - a job which requires you to be confident, comfortable with yourself and good with people.

I feel like I'm not going to work I love it that much. Very popular and well liked at work, described as charimastic - funny. Basically I am also really nice and friendly treat everyone the same. Because I wanted to kill myself two years before this this is good progress.


After having been there for about 8 months a new guy from a different city joins. He immediately makes an impact - very handsome and very charming. The first thing he says to me is ''There's loads of gangs where I'm from, you treat them like you treat these fundraising calls, manipulate them then get them on your side...' I thought 'that's a strange thing to say'. But we bond really quickly make friends fast and are tight friends.

It goes well for a while then he starts to do stuff that makes me feel uncofmrtable - examples, he'll put his arm around you in a friends way and then if you don't react shout at you ''Yeah just ignore it then!'. He'll go from looking really happy to looking like he's about to cry in the space of 10 seconds. He'll go from being completely normal to mad angry in about 10 secs and you can tell he's trying really hard to keep himself under control. He talks in a way where he like manically rants non-stop in your face about nonsense.

Whilst we are friends he is saying stuff to me like ''Calum I'll be friends with you forever..'' ''I talk to you differently to how I talk to other people''... ''what I like about you is your willingness to undersrtand I got so much time for you''. all the while whilst whilst make me feel uncomfortable.

He does things which make me feel uncomfortable and in retrospect seem manipulative. He told me a secret about kissing a girl at a party and said ''if you tell anyone else about it I'll trace it back to you''. A mutual friend asked me who he kissed, I shook my head and said ''no I can't tell you!' she thought it was funny so told him. HE came up to me the next day and said ''I know you told Julie that secret...' I replied ''I didn't!'' he said ''Yeah you did...'' I went I didn't I said I couldn't tell her because you're my friend!'' he went ''THAT#S EXACTLY WHAT SHE SAID! haha don't worry' and tapped my shoulder.


HE came to the pub once with a friend from Bristol and said ''I've told him you're a really lovely guy calum.... don't let me down.''


I am gay by the way this guy is bisexual but I think he doesn't go with gay men physically, just forms really emotionally intense friendships with them. I think this because I know three other gay guys he got close to and subsequently fell out with.


He tells me lots of secrets about his life - he got sexually abused as a child by a family friend. He got bullied a lot all through his childhood and teens. His dad is an alcoholic. and he's been beaten up a lot by gangs. I wish I saw the releveence of all of this back then and then maybe I could have dealt with him better.


I get to a point at work where I dread seeing him so try to distance myself from him. He notices and starts saying ''Don't you wanna be my friend anymore?? don't you wanna hang out with me??'' so I feel I have to hang out with him even when I don't want to.


I dread seeing him each day he makes me feel so uncomfrtoable.

Eventually we are at a party together where I don't expect to see him and I snap. I say to him ''Tom I think you're a really awesome person but you are just really really intense.'' He says ''What do you mean???' I reply 'you're just really intense!'' He keeps asking me what I mean so I keep repeating myself.

He replies ''Lot's of people have said that to me about you.''


The next day wekind of make up. A couple of days later I say to him ''Tom you said that lots of people think that I'm really intense and now i'm worried everyone thinks I'm crazy!'' he replies ''it's just your enthusiasm its something you need tobe aware off.'


Because he says this, all my issues from when I was finding out I was gay come back. I can't stop obsessing over whetehr I am weird, a creep , a freak, if there's something wrong with me. As everyone knows me as being bubbily/sharp/funny it makes it really hard to be at work.

Me and the guy kind of make up, but I meet him at a pub when we're both drunk and I say ''tom I'm really sorry for snapping at you!'' thinking he'd reply ''it's ok but instead he goes ''I haven't forgotten about it'.. And ''I can't be your friend there's something there'.

The next day I suggest we talk about it, he says there's nothing to talk about, so I text him ''Sorry it's just that when you say things like ''if you tell anypne i'll trace it back to you!'' it gets to me abit.

He then starts attacking like I have just killed his mother. HE starts slamming doors open at work, glaring at me angrily, wont speak to me. All the while my social anxiety has come back and I can't think or do job properly. When I look at him he looks really angry or hurt.

We happen to be at a party together about three weeks later by chance, I have a tray of his drugs on my lap, I spill them by accident he calls me a ******* doofus and sstorms out. He comes back in apologising for being angry and says ''just give me money for it.' I give him money for it the next day and he snatches it and says ''That will teach you a lesson'.


I send him a message on facebook saying I hate him for bringing my social anxiety back, then a week later feel bad so send him one saying he is a beautiful person and maybe there was just feelings there.

He then starts moving people away from me at work and not talking to me at all - remember he used to say we'd be friends foever and he speaks to me differently to how he speaks to others.

Friendship finally terminates for good as we are at a party together and all night he keeps initiating conversations with me then suddenly goes 'sorry I don't feel comfortable talking to you'' so I hit him in the face.



Now the guy has fallen out with two other mutual friends we had. (I had to leave the job coulnt be around him). We found out between us that he lies a lot. He will say ''I treat woman well ' he treats them like crap'. He started telling people at work that I was a psycho and he would say ''I tried to make it up with Calum today and he was having none of it, it's like bing back at school' when he never did that. He will say 'I hate dealing coke' and ''I hate being this guy who only goes after girls with boyfriends'' yet do it anyway.

I feel like this guy just used me then spat me out.


Obviously him being abused as a child might explain some of his behaviour (all of his close friends are gay like me and he is just horrible to them after a whiole).


He is a massive liar.

I feel I have lost all of my social capability, people skills and confidence, don't know how to get 'me' back.

What I have done from my side wrong is that I kind of took him for granted. I only really started making friends last year and as this guy looks like a model and is well 'cool'' I used to get him out to like show him off. Secondly I didn't really see the relevance of all the personal stuff he told me about himself, and didn't really appreciate that I think he did genuinely care for me.

What do you guys think of this situation? Thanks for reading appreciate it.