Siding With the Liar Because the Truth Wasn't Satisfying

Imagine yourself in this scenario. You have close friends, a little herd. Everyone gets along with everyone. You all have your quirks and flaws, but you all tolerate and look past them because overall there’s no concern about anybody. 
Until one of those friends hurts you. They do it when nobody else can witness it. And they more than hurt you, they traumatize you. They cause irreparable damage and make themselves irredeemable because of it. They are evil in your eyes. 
But you don’t want to break up the friend group, you don’t want to cause a rift and force the others to choose sides. So for a while, you stay silent and resign yourself to the fact that you will probably just have to take turns hanging out with the others because you can’t possibly stand being in the same room as the one who betrayed you. 
This changes though, when you learn that not only you were affected by this person. Another friend also holds fury towards them. So you open up a little. You tell your friends that this person did horrendous things, that they acted with malice and manipulation. You don’t give details, but you make it clear that you were ruined to an extent by this individual. 
Almost all the friends in your wee group cut ties with this person after learning of the monster underneath tidy clothes and gentle voice. These friends hear your words, the few you’ve spoken and understand that you don’t toss said words around lightly. But one doesn’t. The one decides they need details, all the details to properly decide who is actually in the wrong, who is actually guilty. They don’t believe that you’re serious because you haven't divulged everything about the horrors you faced with this fiend. So they continue to hang out with that villainous individual. They continue to spend time with them despite the warnings that not only you, but the other friends as well, have expressed multiple times. 
Your experience is disregarded. Because you didn’t want to relive the trauma by talking about it. Because you didn’t feel comfortable spilling everything. Because you were deemed “too vague”. And now, you haven't lost one friend, but two.

Imagine yourself in another scenario. Someone you know tells you of a disgusting action done to them. You believe them, you got their whole story. You also notice that your close friend is getting closer with one of the people who committed said disgusting act. You don’t want the same thing to happen to your friend, nor do you want them around such an awful person, so you tell them bits and pieces of what you know. You tell them that you were made aware by a trustworthy source that this person has done vile things. You don’t say the details, but you make it clear that they are a bad person and unsafe to be around. 
Instead of listening to you, your friend goes to that person and asks them about the things you mentioned. Obviously that person denies it, and so your friend continues to hang around that person. They don’t take into account what you said, or they don’t care. But that gross human gains a friend who knows the truth about what they’ve done. Meanwhile you get to see a victim’s story get completely ignored and you are unbelieved by someone you were close with, someone who should have trusted you. 

Now let me tell you what I did and how it yielded much different results. Right after a soul-breaking situation happened to me, I messaged a groupchat with some of my friends. It was about an hour after the thing happened and I was in a safe place alone. I told them everything. I did not hold any detail back. They learned it all that night, before I even got home, before I even told my mother, long before I even told friends that I had known for many more years. I explained the entire thing. 
And they heard. And they listened. And they all despised the person that scarred me. Every. Single. One. And that, my dear readers, is not what should happen under only those circumstances. A person should not be required to rehash their worst moments in order to be taken seriously and for you to distance yourself from the ones responsible for those worst moments. I would understand that, if someone you didn’t know well told you not to be friends with someone else because…reasons, you never really heeded their warning. But this isn’t about hearing talk from strangers or acquaintances. This is about your friends and them telling you that you SHOULD NOT WANT TO BE AROUND A PARTICULAR SOMEONE because that particular someone done fucked up catastrophically. This is about you listening to the people close to you, the people who care about you and you, them. 
Maybe I lucked out that the bastard who sullied me wasn’t in my friend group, wasn’t even known by them. It made them a lot easier to hate. But sometimes, there’s a devil at your shoulder pretending to be a caring friend. Sometimes it’s unbearable, incomprehensible that a person who’s company and existence you enjoy can wreak such psychological and physical havoc. It’s not impossible though. And when others are expressing clear anguish over this person, this person who, to them, was also a friend, you should not so quickly dismiss it. 
Not everyone will have the same experience with the same person. Some folk will have an amazing interaction whilst others will be condemned to a form of hell. Humans are capable of greatness, both great good and great bad. You will not always bear witness to both, but that does not mean both haven’t occurred. Unfortunately, we are most commonly abused by people that we know, are close to. Thus far, that has been my only experience. So, before you decide that some of us drop besties the moment we’re mildly inconvenienced, mayhaps ponder a moment why a group of tight-knit friends would cast out someone permanently. It’s probably not a mild inconvenience, and if you listen to more than just the words, you’ll puzzle it out rather quickly that some prickly bullshit went down and people were getting hurt. 
We obviously want to stand up for friends we have never had a negative interaction with. It’s obviously a nightmare of a time when it turns out someone you thought you could count on actually sucks more than the suckers on a kraken tentacle taking down a ship. It’s obviously not going to be easy to hear terrible things about someone you know and having to then make a decision around that. In the long run though, the mental gymnastics you’ll have to go through will be worth it when the truly good friends rise and the false pretenders get chucked into oblivion for all you care. 
Some things can be forgiven, but the people I mentioned above, those things they did, cannot and should not. People who are wicked underneath a friendly smile and warm demeanor do not deserve redemption even if not every one of their acts in life have been damning. One good deed will not erase a dozen hateful ones. It is depressing that in the end, you never truly know what an individual is capable of until they’ve already done it. It’s frustrating that by the time you catch them, their hands are stained no matter how quickly you uncovered their raw intentions. It’s disappointing that even if you’ve seen their true colors, not everyone will believe you and because of that, they’ll get away. Hence why I urge you to listen to your friends, the ones who are pleading with you to believe them without having to hear every grimy, heartbreaking, foul, cursed detail. Even if you need to take some time to puzzle it out yourself, to investigate a little longer, don’t let those words fade, don’t let them escape your mind because odds are, those words are valid and honest and worth listening to.