Here goes. You’d never know it, reading this, but I was always nice to these friends.

1. Friend rented my furnished condo when I became very ill and under-employed and could no longer afford the mortgage. Once I left the area, he paid no more rent — and when I lost the place and he had to get out months later, he took almost all my furniture with him.
2. Different very close friend wouldn’t tell a white lie to help me get a job before above occurred. She was a “Christian” and the lie would have hurt no one. She continued to send me birthday greetings, however. She also refused to return an expensive oil painting I loaned her to help her decorate her rental property.
3. When 1. was happening, another good friend kept a piece of furniture that I didn’t want to lose (it had great sentimental value), and a very nice chair. Even though these were the nicest things in his apartment, he was pissed off I didn’t pay him to keep the pieces (I had no money). He gave away the chair and I was lucky he didn’t sell the sentimental piece before I finally got it back. Oh, and when !. happened, he helped himself to my nice leather sofa, and became enraged when I protested.
4. Still another friend had a large basement where I kept some odds and ends, all small things, but important things to me. It was a roach-infested, dirty, damp place and some of my things didn’t survive being kept there. After I was able to get my surviving things out, I slowly noticed I was missing some of them. She’d sold them in yard sales to make up for the rent she felt I should have paid.
5. The person who claimed to be my best friend for eight years, whom I relied on at times but always treated well, stole $14K from me when I had to share a bank account with him (I was living with him outside the U.S., no longer had a U.S. bank account, and didn’t have the two pieces of ID I needed to open my own account when I got a job). Oh, and he beat me and later tried to kill me.
6. Certain friends stopped inviting me to functions because I didn’t vote for the current president. I never trolled them or even spoke harshly to them about their choice. I kept reaching out to them until I realized being a decent person makes you a pariah to some people.

My losses at the hands of these people were material, mostly. But I really did believe all of them liked me and were dear friends. When I became ill and needed their kindness, I found out otherwise. It was a very harsh several years and I realize as I write this that I haven’t completely gotten over it.

(I also realize some who read this might contend I must’ve done SOMETHING to deserve this kind of treatment. No, I was just vulnerable, and the “friends” knew I was not in a position to retaliate.)