People Share The Moment They Realized Their Friend Was A Sociopath
Talk about uncomfortable! While friendship almost always involves pondering at least one friend’s sanity or ethics, some friends take it to an unacceptable extreme. Some of these people don’t experience ordinary human emotions, like fear or caring about others. Others, characterized as psychopaths, enjoy inflicting pain and relish violence.
A buddy (or family member) might hide their tendencies well, or the change can be gradual. But at some point you have to admit, “My friend is a sociopath.” And while you might not have a friend like that anymore, like the folks telling the following anecdotes, you’ll have a great story. Keep reading for tales that all have the same theme: “That moment I knew my friend was a sociopath.”
Getting Shot Is No One’s Idea Of Humor
We were cleaning our guns. This guy pointed it at me and ask me if I trusted him. “Do you think it is unloaded?” he asked me. “I could be negligent or evil and I could have left a bullet in there.” He pulled the trigger, laughed, and carried on cleaning the gun like nothing. He thought it was funny.
Pet Abuse Can Indicate A Psychopath
Someone in our extended family offered to put down my cat for me to save a vet bill. The cat wasn’t sick. Or old. The family member was just very enthusiastic about helping us out with that particular issue.
He’s not allowed to be alone with pets anymore.
He Could Save A Life But Prefers Not To
I’ve been longtime friends with a sociopath. He is honestly like my brother. We have developed this relationship that basically treats me like his moral compass, but it doesn’t always work. He is still manipulative and cruel at times, and he does only truly care about himself, but he tries to be a good person because he doesn’t want to be a jerk.
This being said my most uncomfortable moment with him would have to be when he was telling me about watching some guy almost die. He was telling me how he knew he should have stopped watching and helped him, but he was too interested in what the outcome would be if he didn’t help. It was creepy to know that as hard as he may try to be a decent person, sometimes he still can’t help himself.
A Nightmare Type Of Mom
I remember from a very early age that my mom would just stand at the entrance to my room with a kitchen knife. This didn’t happen very often, maybe 2-3 times a year.
When I was 9, I finally asked her why she would do this. I’ll never forget how she said this. She looked me dead in the eyes and said that I was a mistake and she was deciding if she “should do what she should have done a long time ago.” I asked to move in with my grandma a week later.
Thinking about how she said it still gets my heart racing 22 years later. I don’t know if I can accurately describe it, but every single hair on my body stood straight up. I was paralyzed with fear and I felt like if I moved too suddenly she would strike.
Mom had me when she was 16 and regularly told me that I ruined her life.
When Next Of Kin Wants You Dead
My sister is a sociopath; it took me a lot of years to realize this and stop rationalizing it. I’m a diabetic and have been in comas. During the last one in 2015, after a year of no contact, she showed up at the hospital saying I had expressed to her that my wishes were Do Not Resuscitate. About 12 of my friends shouted her down and I woke up 3 days later on my own. If I had coded during that time, however, there would have been a lot of grey area around if they were allowed to revive me. About 4 months later she took out a life insurance policy on me and asked me to sign it….I said no. I no longer speak to her.
I Left And Now I Sleep Better At Night
Married one. Last straw was the day I caught his reflection as I passed by. Pure evil and hatred in his eyes. I told him I was leaving the following week. He said, “If I ever see you somewhere with someone else, I won’t say a word to you.” I said okay. He then added, “I’ll just walk up to you and mess up your pretty face.”
I was moving some things out and looked under the bed for a pair of shoes. Found his weapons, fully ready to use under his side of the bed. I went to the cops. Nothing came of it. Fast forward and he remarries before the ink is dry on the divorce. New wife takes away his life in his sleep. Yeah. I sleep better these days.
The First Sign Was No Sense Of Humor
I dated someone who I now believe is a sociopath.
The most uncomfortable thing while we were dating was that he would constantly whisper things in my ear in public (in earshot of other people) like, “Do you think I look hot right now?” or “Do you think I’m cool?” And the first few times I thought he was joking so I laughed, and he’d get angry. He wanted a serious answer, he wanted me to tell him how much I wanted to jump his bones right there in front of all of our friends, while they were watching and listening. I’d get lectured afterwards like, “You know, you really insulted me personally when you laughed at me in front of everyone.”
No Murders On My Watch
I was in the mountains at a cabin with my work colleagues. I brought my gun along and I let them take turns in shooting at a trash bin. The process was the following, I chambered a round, pull out the mag and then give the person the gun to point, while everybody was behind me, and shoot at the trash bin. Pretty safe, right? All went well until I gave it to a lady who thought it will be a good idea to swing it around and point it at her husband. When she pointed the gun around to her husband if felt like my intestines would explode inside me, my eyes would pop, and I could feel my heart wanting to crack through my ribs and run in a zig-zag. I took her wrist, lifted the gun in the sky and held on until she let go of the gun, which I took with my other hand. I’ve never been so scared in my life and since then I never gave one of my guns to anyone without checking 10 times the magazine was out and nothing was chambered.
The Charmer Who Gets Others To Lurk For Him
One of my best friends from high school was like this. For years after I ended our friendship, I would get friend requests or messages from random people. It would frequently turn out to be people he knew that he was somehow getting to lurk on my social media. Once, I started airing my dirty laundry and vaguely talking about it on Facebook, which wasn’t the high point of my life for sure, and some of my oldest friends told me he’d been asking them to keep tabs on me. They didn’t think anything of it, they didn’t know he was doing that with multiple people, and they thought he was just concerned.
It was very bizarre to have my paranoia validated. It’s only been in the past year that my first thought at private and unfamiliar numbers is a scam and not him.
Reversing Roles In The Retelling
When he would tell a story that I was apart of he would make up huge lies of what happened. He would even sometimes switch his role and mine. And I would just awkwardly nod my head and wonder if he truly remembered it that way.
The High-Power Sociopath Can Use Employment To Torture
We realized my uncle was a psychopath later. He’d routinely mentally torture people and enjoy their misery while pretending to offer sympathy and help. He’s in a powerful spot so he offers his victims jobs. Once they accept, he makes them entirely dependent on him. He’d then put his victims under even more psychological stress, be it threatening to cut off ties or getting them fired if they disagreed with him.
The “Aha” Moment Involved Brownies
I was making some brownies. My sister was visiting for some reason…maybe it was Christmas. Anyway, I like my brownies gooey and hot, so I’m cutting into them a little earlier than I should. Sister flips all the way out and starts beating on me, grabbing heavier and more dangerous weapons from whatever she can reach (pans, rolling pins, etc.). It becomes a scuffle where she keeps screaming “Stop hitting me!” while all I’m doing is grabbing her wrists to avoid taking one to the head.
Maybe it’s not the most uncomfortable she’s made me or the evilest thing she’s done (and she’s done worse to people we aren’t related to, I know), but when people ask “Why is your sister so crazy?” that’s the memory that comes into my head. Her gigantic freak out over brownies that I was making.
Escalating Over Packing Tape
It was college, I shared a suite with three roommates. I was in a side room and one roommate and a visitor were in the main one. The two involved had minimal prior contact. The visitor (female) blew up at the roommate (male) over a minor annoyance, in this case, his peeling packing tape off a roll – I guess it was too loud or something. Literally, in about sixty seconds she escalated from these weird irritated whine-growls to demands for him to stop, two insults, and then it was suddenly hitting, kicking, scratching, threats, like a full-on tantrum. Any time that he did anything to defend himself – putting his arms up, grabbing at her wrists, pushing her back, she would start screaming in pain and saying things like “stop!” or “How could you do that!?” or “What’s wrong with you!?” and saying it like she meant it. Everything she did was way out of proportion with what was happening in reality. Crazy.
The Day The Liar Got Kicked Out Of A Cab
I have a friend who’s a pathological liar. He’s also mostly Scottish in heritage – northern Scotland, where the Viking influence is. He’s 6’8, 350 lbs when he’s watching his weight, 400+ when he isn’t and there is a lot of muscle to go with everything else.
The lies aren’t all that awful most of the time – he’s known as a very entertaining storyteller and everyone knows he’ll embellish greatly from time to time. But he can’t keep a girlfriend – apparently he can’t be honest, is a pathological cheater, and the lies catch up with his relationships in a few weeks at most.
One day we were in a taxi together and he got the idea that the driver was taking a route that was unnecessarily long. He stopped the cheerful story he was telling me mid-sentence. His face changed and he barked at the cab driver in a voice I’d never heard, loud and angry and aggressive. The cab driver immediately pulled over and let us out without paying, and a good thing too – I think my friend was about to kill him. I was petrified in my seat – I felt like he might kill everyone in range, I was terrified.
It was the last time I spent time with him, though I’d known him for 20 years. I later learned that he won’t associate with someone after they’ve “seen him snap,” as one of his other ex-friends put it.
Cuts Are Bad, Coverups Are Worse
It was my childhood (ex)friend. We went downstairs (entertainment room) and he grabbed gold scissors that were sharp and open. I had already picked up a guitar for Guitar Hero. He kept telling me to put it down (it was still in my hands, just not covering me) until I did, and he threw the scissors towards my chest. I pulled the guitar back up and the scissors cut his finger. He told his mom I cut him (I said I didn’t and told her what he did, but she didn’t believe me). Deep scratch in the guitar. I went home.
What Was It About This Wallet?
I’m an ex-friend of a sociopath. I think it was when we were hanging out and we started arguing about me going to his house. I had left my wallet there and I told him this and told him we needed to go back so I could get it.
He then started claiming that his parents didn’t like me and didn’t want me at his house. He said since they weren’t home that would just make it worse. I just kept saying I needed my stupid wallet and that he could get it for me. He proceeded to call me selfish and a monster for arguing with him. Like he yelled it in my face at in a public area. I was shocked and had nothing to say.
Then he proceeded to act like nothing happened. Asking me if we should get food, etc.
I eventually got my wallet back from him. He didn’t spend any money of mine or anything, but needless to say, we aren’t friends anymore.
A Psychopath Can Still Harm Someone Older Or Larger
My sister feels nothing but rage. When she doesn’t feel rage, she feels literally nothing. She spends her life manipulating everyone around her and satisfying that rage. She mercilessly abused me growing up. She tried to get rid of me three times before I moved out. No one believed me. Because I was older and larger, I was always considered to be the aggressor, even when I was being violently assaulted in my sleep. Living with her was a nightmare. The most uncomfortable moment between us wasn’t something she did to me. It was something I considered doing to her.
I’d been sent up to the crawl space to get an ornament. You could only access it from a ladder in the garage. When I grabbed it and turned around, she was at the top of the ladder, staring at me. There wasn’t any room for her to come up, she was just waiting there. Staring. She told me to get out of the way, and I told her I couldn’t. There wasn’t room for two people in the crawlspace. She’d have to go back down the ladder. She immediately switched to rage. She said she hated me, and she wasn’t going to let me down from the crawlspace. It was 110 degrees in there, and I was already exhausted.
I remember thinking: she’s at the top of a ladder over a cement floor…I could make this stop. I’d just say it was an accident. I’m only 12, no one would convict me…
As soon as I thought that, her face suddenly went blank, and she went back down the ladder.
The Sociopath Work Friend Manipulates On The Clock
He once tried to manipulate me to come in and work basically 50 hours, 10 of which would be off the clock so that I didn’t get overtime because he knew that if he could keep labor low on his shift he could get a promotion. He would also expressly lie to my face about giving me a break saying verbatim, “I’ll come back here in a moment and take over so that you can go on break.” Then he would just never come. Then when the time had passed to where a break would be irrelevant, i.e. 30 mins before my shift was over, he’d offer again.
The Psychosis Did Not Skip A Generation
My niece has straight up told me she’s hurt animals, but after seeing my reaction she said they were accidents. She is not allowed to hold my baby nephew anymore because she drops him. She says he’s being squirmy, and again, it was an accident — but the look on her face and in her eyes was a look I used to see on my sister’s (her mom) face when she would try to hurt me as kids. She is also not allowed at my house because she terrorizes my pets. I caught her throwing my kitten into her travel carrier and shaking it, hard.
Sometimes The Wrong People Are Trusted With Scalpels
Dated a med student who out of the blue said, “I wonder what it would be like to cut someone open.” I said, “You’re in med school, haven’t you done that already?” And then he said, “Yes, but I mean without anesthesia.”
Bad Business From A Sociopath Buddy
I think my best friend may have been. For example: she got a job at a business that she wanted to learn, and when she had made enough money to start her own business, she totaled her employee van, hired off the designer, and stole all the clients. Then she paid the designer way less than she had promised and then closed her business completely in a few months when she was bored.
Playing Dead Kept Me Alive
Ex-boyfriend tried to drown me while I was taking a bath. As I was underwater I knew 100% that I was going to die. I relaxed my body and tried to save any oxygen I could. I guess he thought I was actually dead and just calmly walked out of the bathroom.
Trying To Pass As A Person Who Is Not A Sociopath
I have a lot of stories about my sociopathic former roommate, but one of the most uncomfortable moments I had with him was when he stared me dead in the eyes and asked, “Bravadu, how can I express more realistic emotions?” And then he became slightly annoyed when my one answer was “Have them in the first place.”
Overlooking Your Occupation, Stabbing Is Still A Deal Breaker
We met through some friends in the bar scene. She stayed with some friends and I for a few months because she was going through a rough patch with an ex. Turns out she was working through craigslist doing some shady business. She didn’t hide the fact and even tried to tell us she was a narcissistic sociopath in a sideways manner. We weren’t comfortable with her line of work but we weren’t about to throw her back out on the street. She was arguing with us over money since she hadn’t had work that week and I refused to give her money for substances. She snapped and grabbed a knife off the sink. I took two stabs to the gut before we could get the knife away from her.
How You Lose Your Last Friend
There was a girl in our crowd, “Shannon,” who was constantly doing highly inappropriate things and sleeping with everyone’s boyfriends. Whenever she was confronted, she’d blatantly manipulate her way out of it and could make herself cry on command. Eventually, the crowd dissipated, but she continued to hang out with me. Aside from her annoyance, it was fine, until one day she called me, saying, “I did something. Can I come over?” I said sure. She sheepishly walked through the door, and wouldn’t look at me directly. I said, “What did you do?” She said, “Please don’t be mad at me…I slept with ‘Chad.'”
“Chad” was my recent ex. He was my first serious relationship/high school sweetheart. We dated for 5 years, moved out and got our first apartment together, I was his first everything. We were engaged for 3 of those years and broke up 6 months before our wedding date.
Scary And Only One Decade Old
My niece is 10 and I believe she is a sociopath/psychopath. I went camping with her and her family and we happened to catch some crawfish. When it came time to boil them she started freaking out over the top crying and when she noticed me looking at her and stopped mid-wail and said, “Does my crying make you sad, Auntie?” just deadpan with a smirk on her face.
No Soul Behind That Scary Stare
Dated someone with whom I shared a similar dark sense of humor, and the week before I finally figured out what he was, he was staring at me and I stared back. One of those “let’s gaze into each other’s eyes” moments went quickly awry when I got a weird feeling and said, “It’s like I can see all the way through you to your soul” to which he responded, “I have no soul.”
Of course, then all the darkly humorous things he said over the course of the relationship flew back at me in my face and I realized he probably wasn’t joking most of the time.
Delayed Reactions, Until She Got Mad
My ex-girlfriend was diagnosed with ASPD/Secondary Psychopathy and I never suspected a thing, but there were a few odd things about her. Like her delayed reactions, when she should have been sad or angry about something she would wait to see how the people around her felt to know how to properly react.
Also, something scary and unexpected about her was how she turned in 0.2 seconds from a nice girl to a terminator if she was given the slightest hint of betrayal from her closed ones. For example, towards the end of our relationship I told her that I realized I didn’t love her, then in the next second, she was chasing me with a metal bar to beat me.
Ignoring People Is Second Nature For A Sociopath
Honest, just normal conversation. We sensationalize it a lot in the media, but really having a conversation with someone that can’t feel empathy is super boring.
Me: “Hey I was driving to work today and some guy cut across four lanes of traffic and almost caused an accident!”
Sociopath friend: “Okay”
Me: “Alright well good talking to you.”
The Faux Mom Who Has No Feelings
When she told me she got pregnant on purpose because having children got her things. I do not know how to express it in the same way she did, but children were means to an end. Around people she wants things from, she is a really good mom, but her face stays stiff during the interactions, and once the other adults are gone, her kids just cease to exist for her. She doesn’t really ignore them so much as she doesn’t see their existence — like puppets after a show.
The Unsweetest First Kiss Ever
I was 14. He was my first kiss.
After he kissed me, he leaned down, dragged his hand across my belly and whispered in my ear that he was thinking about ways to hurt me.
That Time Dad Wanted Help With His Inheritance
When I was 17, my dad and I were driving the 4 hours from our small town to the nearest major airport so we could pick up his parents. He and I didn’t really talk much, especially after he gave me the speech on how he was pretty sure my mom and sisters were “automatons. They don’t really think.” when I was 12.
Anyway, I tried a few things, school, his work, video games. Finally, he starts talking about a specific spot on our route, how he knew you could hide a body pretty easy there. “Two, even. And while your grandparents have a lot of money, if they keep traveling like this, there won’t be much of an inheritance.” He went on like that for a couple hours. It was odd, but this was the guy who often reminded my mom that men in extreme domestic violence cases get shorter sentences than women do. (yes, I know that is messed up NOW) I figured it was just a weird conversation. Then, on the way back, he pulls over near where he said he could hide a body. When his mom asked what was wrong he said he felt like he was going to puke. I took over driving, and nothing else came of it, but I’m pretty sure if I’d gone along with him, he’d have killed them. Still not sure he hadn’t hid a body there before.
Not Exactly A Birthday Wish Come True
This guy I went on like three dates with always liked to talk about his violent past (lighting his school on fire, robbing houses, getting into fights) and would frequently bring up how easy it would be to get into my house or track my phone. The creepiest thing was when I told him I didn’t want anything for my birthday and he told me he would give me a shot of a truth serum (an actual substance) when I wasn’t looking so he could ask me when my birthday was and what I wanted.
Taking “I Don’t Care” Way Too Far
I don’t know if it counts because we were so young, but I dated this girl when we were 13-14 for a few days under a year. She would frequently come up with scary hypothetical scenarios like “what if I just hurt myself” and things like that.
One time, she was near some candles and a matchbox while we were video chatting. She said “what if I just burned myself” and kept hinting that she was going to do it. I freaked out so much. She hung up on me and texted me she was going to do it. Spoiler alert: she didn’t. It gave me a panic attack when she said she did it though. When I told her that self harm was dangerous and I would call her parents, she started laughing at me for believing her and showed me her exposed arms which weren’t burnt whatsoever.
This really scared me so she backtracked and said she just wanted to see if I got scared because she didn’t know if I cared about her. She told me she didn’t care about people at all and couldn’t care less if someone got hurt or died. I asked her if she felt that way about me too, and she vehemently denied it and cried.
Never Any Tears (Or Feelings)
My ex. His sister died of cancer back in England. He was in Canada and couldn’t afford to go. He tried to cry on the apt balcony by himself and all I felt was pity because the emotions were just not there. The tears would not form or fall.
Tales Of A Throat Puncher With No Remorse
My friend Ken definitely leaned psycho. Had a kid say some rude things to him because his wristband was pink. Without a word he punched the kid in the throat and watched him struggle to breathe for about 30 seconds, then calmly walked away.
This Blood? Let Me Explain
The sociopath was this kid from down south, a cousin of one our crew.
One afternoon I answered a knock at my front door. There was Kevin’s ugly mug trying to hold back a smile as he pretended he was stabbed with a wooden knife handle sticking out of his armpit. The surreal part of it was that he was covered in blood and it wasn’t his own. He spun around like a cowboy in an old western hamming up his last scene.
“What the heck are you doing? Get up before you get my carpet dirty. Who’s blood is that?” I asked. Hopping up to his feet as he removed the steak knife from his armpit he said, “Come on man, I had ya for a second. Admit it man.”
“No, you didn’t have me for a second. Who was it?” I asked. Kevin said, “I didn’t hurt anyone! I found this in the gutter!”
“Then whose blood is all over you?” I enquired and to which he calmly replied, “Tommy Angelino. I hit him in the head.”
My Cousin, The Stalker
I believe my cousin is a sociopath. He told me about how he has followed people for the sole reason of seeing how hard it would be to attack someone without anyone noticing. Yeah, kind of weirded me out.
Mom Ruined His Rep
We were together for about two years. We got engaged. He told me he was Jewish. He told me he owned his own business. Told me he was making $500k a year in this business. That he owned. I was on the partner track at a Big 4 accounting firm and decided to quit because we wanted to have a baby. I knew I couldn’t balance making partner with a marriage/baby. He told me he could supplement my future earnings with his “business.” He told me he had a master’s degree in cognitive science from MIT. Told me lie after lie after lie… Until I had some quiet one-on-one time with his mother. I pulled basic truths out of her… He lied about his religion, where he went to high school, where his brothers went to college, what his father did for a living. This led me to question everything else he ever told me.
Some People Like To Swim At Night So I’m Still Alive
The first time I was really afraid of Arron was in the pool at my mom’s apartment complex. We were playing rough, like always. Arron was always big and strong, and incredibly smart. I dove down to the bottom of the shallow end and Arron decided it would be fun to stand on my back. So I was face down at the bottom of the pool, with big old Arron standing on me, no way to get free. I struggled for a good minute. Trying to stay calm, and failing. Finally, he got off my back and let me up. When I got my breath back, I noticed some other people had come to swim. Lucky too, because it was late at night. I always wonder if I would have died after another 30 seconds if those people hadn’t come for a night swim and whether Arron tried to drown me because I had beat him out for quarterback, or if he just did it because he was bored.
A Jealous Rage Is Never Justified
I saw an old friend riding his longboard once and stopped to say hi and we ended up hanging out and I dropped him off at home after. He forgot his longboard in my vehicle so I threw it in the trunk when I noticed. A few days later I was at my boyfriend’s house and he opened the trunk and asked whose it was so I told him. He took it out and lit it on fire, got in my car after and told me and his sister to get in. He drove to the train tracks and threw the burnt longboard on them. Told me, “Tell Dain if he ever talks to you or looks at you again that’s going to be him.”
A Speedy Way To End A Friendship
My old friend from highschool was a bit of a psychopath. A memory that sticks out was when we were driving home late one night. He was the one driving and just randomly said “I’m done with this stuff, I don’t want to live anymore,” then let go of the wheel, closed his eyes, and stepped on the accelerator for about 10 straight seconds. Later he said it was funny how I (sitting in the passenger seat) was stepping on an imaginary brake out of pure panic.
Looking Down And Spotting A Lie
Met this guy in college and there were never any ‘I think this guy is going to kill me’ moments but his thing was to get attention and money from people by presenting himself as vulnerable and in need of help. So he would fake seizures, tell me that his mother was abusive so he was scared to go home and she had taken his money so he didn’t have anything to buy food.
The thing that made me least comfortable and really was my first ‘this guy I have given access to my home is NOT right’ moment was when he ‘passed out’ in my living room. I go to get my phone because I think this guy might need medical treatment and as I reenter the room I catch him WATCHING ME. His eyes were open, closed again when I re-entered the room, he didn’t realize I had seen this and he started to ‘come round.’ That gave me pause. He was testing out my reaction.
It still took a few months for me to build up all these similar weird moments to realize this guy was not someone I wanted to be around but that was my first moment of ‘uh oh.’
Silence Of The Lambs Does Not Involve Painkillers
When he argued that “Jeffrey Dahmer wasn’t such a bad guy. He was making the best of his mental state. He tried to not let the people he killed feel pain.”
Ditch The Guy Who Would Ditch A Body
I ran into him and another mutual friend of ours at the store once. We were all talking about the insane weather we had been having with many flash floods. He then told us how he had to help someone whose car had become stuck in the water. Apparently, with how the water was rushing down the long ditch he said it would have been so easy to push this guy in, kill him, and act like he slipped when questioned. He said it so normally. In a way, like he was telling you some fun fact he just heard.
There have been other times he’s said weird stuff like this, but there’s no actual proof he has done or will do anything.
