Emily Fields and Alison Dilaurentis were one of the most popular pairings on Pretty Little Liars. There was a lot to like about the two of them together, but it took forever for them to get to a good place. Unfortunately, The Perfectionists kind of butchered things as well. But before all that, there are a lot of reasons to look at their friendship and realize that one could make the argument they were never real friends.
This is all up to one’s own opinion, several people have different perspectives and in fiction, it’s easier to forgive grave mistakes since we know it isn’t real. But for this particular list, we’ll be examining the ways Emily and Alison let each other down over the years.
Alison Led Emily On For A Long Time
Alison’s sexuality was never really firmly established in the series. She was always considered, more or less, to be sexually fluid, as were many of the other female characters on the show. No one should be judged for experimenting and questioning their sexuality, however, Alison was definitely leading Emily on for a while when they were younger.
It’s okay that she didn’t know what her feelings were entirely yet, but Alison was also very manipulative and she knew Emily was in love with her and would do anything she wanted if she played along.
Emily Told Paige Alison Was Alive
It’s hard to figure out who was a more controversial character between Alison and Paige. Each girl had her fans and haters. But we do know that Paige tried to drown Emily at one point and held a major grudge against Alison.
Yet in spite of this, Emily foolishly thought it was a good idea to divulge top-secret information about Alison to Paige. To be fair, Paige didn’t give Emily much of a choice in the matter but it definitely angered a lot of Alison fans who thought Emily could be trusted to keep such pertinent information safe.
Emily Was Willing To Frame Alison For Murder
Nothing says wedding bells like trying to frame the love of your life for murder, right? Well during one of the many complicated storylines of Pretty Little Liars, Emily and her friends once tried to frame Alison for Mona’s death.
They were even planning to leave some of her hair at the crime scene to lead the detectives to the blonde. They were willing to send Alison to prison for a crime she didn’t commit. Luckily, we learn that Mona had faked her own death and that doesn’t wind up happening but still, not exactly the best way to prove your friendship.
Alison Was A Huge Bully In High School
Many fans have argued to death trying to figure out if Alison genuinely cared about the other girls in high school. She becomes a better person once she returns and begins to finally grow up and mature, but she was extremely cruel and vicious during her teenage years.
One has to wonder how Emily and Ali could truly have been friends through all of that when Alison was regularly tormenting people and making their lives suck. She even did things to Emily’s other so-called “best friends” yet, they never stood up to her.
Alison Kept So Many Secrets From Emily
It’s hard to understand how a friendship could exist when it was composed of layers upon layers of secrets. Even after Alison “disappeared,” the liars had little to go off of because they realized quickly there was a lot about Alison and her twisted family history that they had no idea about.
Alison kept multitudes of secrets. How could they have been real friends when they’re a huge part of Alison that Emily never even knew about?
Alison Let Everyone Think She Was Dead
Alison did a lot of crazy things to keep herself safe and to be fair, the girl was traumatized from a young age. She was buried alive! It doesn’t get much more intense than that.
But even after she fled town and went on the run, you’d think she could have found a way to at least let her very best friends know she was alive. She made flimsy alliances with other people yet not the four girls who were supposedly in her inner circle? Not even Emily?
Alison Didn’t Trust Emily Enough
As mentioned above, Alison apparently didn’t trust her friends enough to let them know where she was when she left Rosewood and allowed everyone to think she was dead, and that includes Emily.
But that wasn’t the only instance of her keeping dangerous secrets. It never seemed like Alison truly trusted Emily enough to share her life with her the way real friends and romantic partners would, at least not until way later in their relationship.
Alison Used Emily As An Emotional Crutch
We know that Alison led Emily on and manipulated her by using her romantic feelings to her advantage. That persisted well into adulthood. Even as a grown woman, Alison would continue to use Emily whenever she was feeling upset or depressed.
She knew Emily would drop everything to be there for her and she used that to her advantage and then she would pull away and feign disinterest the second she got Emily on the hook.
Alison Let Archer Come Between Her And Emily
Archer was not a good guy. He did a lot of terrible things and clearly, his relationship with Alison wasn’t healthy. However, even before all of the drama began, Alison allowed Archer to influence her and the way she acted toward Emily.
He knew that Emily could be a threat to their relationship so he wheedled his way into Alison’s head and got her to push Emily away. If they were real friends, Alison would have stood up for Emily.
It Didn’t Take Much Convincing To Turn Emily Against Alison
‘A’ famously caused numerous problems for each girl in the series. But one of the saddest and most frustrating moments was when ‘A’ managed to frame Alison as the real ‘A’, yes this is a very confusing and complicated series.
One would think, that if Emily was Alison’s real friend, she would know her character and know her personality enough to decide if she could do all the things ‘A’ was accusing her of. To be fair to Emily, Alison gave her plenty of reason to doubt, but that’s even more of a reason their friendship didn’t have a strong foundation.
