"Alarm bells" about someone else

[Lost Oliver]

Had a friend a while back who turned out to be a controlling, manipulative little shit. Very early on, like the first day I started work, I noticed his mask slip - on the phone to someone he told them they needed to 'fucking sort it out' in a really nasty tone - but I just assumed it was a one off and as I didn't know the context of the situation I didn't give it any heed. He was just too nice. Unbelievably nice. Type of person who would buy you a coffee for no reason, give you lifts, small presents.

Anyway, 18 months later and I figured him out. Just a cunt really with massive abandonment issues. I invited him into my social circle and one by one he'd slag everyone off and then started to make up bullshit about things his partner had done, things I'd done, my friends etc. When I really thought about it, he was doing his best to undermine relationships in the group so that he would come out on top. His mask slipped a few more times so I just decided to exclude him. I felt terrible about this as I think people deserves chances but he was poison and having him as a friend was doing me more harm than good.

My friends didn't stay in touch with him as they're obviously more mine than his but one person did and she'd give me stick for my behaviour. A couple months later and he'd done the exact same thing to her friendship group and she'd also decided to cut him out.

Ultimately I feel sorry for him and it's down to his upbringing that this happened. That or his genes, neither of which he can control, but I just couldn't justify keeping him around. In short, stay away from these people and cut them out of your life as soon as you can.