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Ex-Girlfriend
Cartman has a surprising history with Heidi Turner that goes back quite a while.
When Cartman began to lead a Church in South Park at the end of the kids' third grade year, he attracted the attention of kids far and wide throughout the town including a girl named 'Marcy'. The church ended up to be a get-rich-quick scheme resulting in her father's death.
In "Follow That Egg!", Cartman was assigned and paired up with Heidi to take of an egg for a school assignment, later when Cartman broke the egg he begged Ms. Garrison to give her an "A" and give him an "F", this could possibly prove that Cartman cares and has feelings for her, however in later episodes it doesn't show much of them having a relationship. It is also likely that he said this to get a better grade, because the A and F average out to a C, whereas two F's would mean Cartman failed. However, one can argue that this action is still altruistic by Cartman's standards. On a side note, he received four days of detention from PC Principal for referring to Heidi as "clitty litter".
When the girls were harassed online by a troll named skankhunt42, Heidi was the first to openly accuse Cartman of being behind it despite his denial. The troll's continued abuse eventually drove Heidi to quit Twitter and the to would later form an unlikely friendship when Cartman was cast out of social media by his friends. Apologizing for her earlier accusations, they began comfort each other over the isolation they found themselves in.
They took their relationship even further when Heidi settled Cartmans dilemma as to whether girls do have balls. The experience of seeing hers in the dark with a flashlight triggered a spiritual awakening for Cartman and they officially became a couple. The two of them constantly held hands hang out and referred to each other by pet names like "boo" or "babe". Despite the disgust and disbelief of their classmates Heidi and Eric would defend each other and work to create positive changes in the school.
In "Fort Collins", Cartman is unable to tell Heidi about his bigotry in the past and lies to her about an incident with Jimmy. Their relationship becomes strained in "Not Funny" when Heidi is focusing all her attention on solving the rocket problem. However, at the end of Season Twenty, Heidi and Cartman are still together.
After the conclusion of Season Twenty, their relationship becomes strained. Cartman begins to be annoyed with Heidi for not being submissive to him. He blames her for his unhappiness in their relationship, convincing his friends she was mentally abusive. He would even go so far as to nearly kill her by pushing her in front of a car and by having a witch try to abduct her (because of her lack of time management skills). It is later revealed in "Doubling Down" that Heidi tolerates Cartman's abuse towards her because she does not want to admit she made a mistake when she became his girlfriend. These feelings are directly influenced by the other girls, who are constantly belittling and ridiculing her for even beginning a relationship with Cartman in the first place. Although these teasings are playful in nature, they are not giving Heidi the space she needs, causing her to double down. They also expressed concern for Heidi's sanity, and her safety while in her relationship with Cartman, all holding a personal vendetta against him. Kyle addresses this and politely asks the girls to cease their teasing because it's making her feel insecure about herself. The girls assume Kyle has feelings for Heidi, leading Kyle to question his relationship with her. After breaking up with Cartman, Heidi begins a relationship with Kyle. Although this outcome did not go the way as he hoped, Kyle went along with it and agreed to be Heidi's boyfriend, angering Cartman. Cartman recognizes Heidi's confusion about what she wants, and uses this to manipulate her into betraying her healthy diet, and contort her beliefs, making her unintentionally prejudice against Jews. Heidi going back to Cartman further alienated herself from the people who care about her.
Despite trying to help Cartman for the better, Heidi ending up becoming more like her boyfriend herself, adopting his attitude and becoming fat and self loathing. She began to adopt his self-loathing and bad attitude and by blaming everything else instead of her toxic relationship, Heidi fell in a downward spiral with only her boyfriend and the torment of others to sustain it. Cartman had practically turned Heidi into his female equivalent, as the latter had turned into an emotionally damaged bully with really aggressive tendencies, so much to the point that Cartman himself is at times intimidated by her. Despite Cartman being clearly unhappy with what he turned Heidi into, he was desperate to keep Heidi all to himself no matter how demeaning and selfish Heidi became since he'll be lonely all over again without her. Cartman and Heidi switched attitudes in their relationship, and Heidi grew irritated with Cartman, while Cartman became more compassionate, acting much nicer to her. Eventually, Cartman has enough of Heidi's antics and begs her to go back to being the sweet girl she once was, only for Heidi to refuse.
After an adventure with the boys, Heidi visited the places in which her romance with Cartman was born she was able to reflect on her relationship and how it transformed her for the worse. Heidi then held Cartman at gunpoint, blaming him for the person she became, but soon realized that no one is to blame but herself for her transformation as she has been engaging in self-victimization ever since she began her relationship Cartman. Heidi then takes personal responsibility by abandoning the victim-hood lifestyle and break up with Cartman. Cartman tries to get Heidi to take him back by threatening suicide but the attempt failed as Heidi is now fully aware of Cartman's manipulative nature and simply leaves him.
The two haven't had much onscreen interactions since then, but it can be assumed that they are currently on bad terms since their final break-up. Heidi is shown sitting far from Cartman in her two appearances in "The Problem with a Poo" implying that she’s intentionally trying to avoid him. Likewise Cartman claims to have anxiety in "Buddha Box" because he can no longer trust or stand people anymore, including Heidi, and in "Board Girls" he insults her and the other girls for reading the rule books to win at board games and Heidi ignores him. In "Basic Cable", Scott Malkinson asks Cartman for love advice mentioning how he and Heidi were together a long time and Cartman tells Scott that girls and relationships are diabetes times ten showing that Cartman is still bitter about the break-up.
Past Love Interests
Romantic Rivalry
Cartman has always had a rivalry with the intelligent and level-headed Wendy Testaburger, his buddy Stan's girlfriend and one of the smartest students at South Park Elementary. They argue in class on a frequent basis, and he has targeted her for humiliation on more than one occasion. Cartman is known to taunt Wendy for her liberal and environmentalist views, and often refers to her as a hippie or a tree hugger. However, in "Chef Goes Nanners", after they were working together on the flag debate, he entertained her by talking through two action figures. During this encounter, they found out that they had a lot in common with each other. When Wendy kissed him at the presentation to get her emotions out of her system, he was pleased and facially bragged to Stan about it. He later seemed dejected when Wendy told him her feelings for him were gone which obviously proved he fancied her. It is believed his taunting of her is his way of "pulling pigtails".
In "Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society", after Wendy grows adult-sized breasts Cartman and the other boys laugh at her and Cartman calls her a "stupid bitch".
In the episode "Breast Cancer Show Ever", Cartman treats Wendy's plea for breast cancer awareness as a joke, and subsequently she beats him up, leaving him in a pool of his own blood.
In "Dances with Smurfs", Cartman began a smear campaign against Wendy. He consistently accused Wendy of hating Smurfs and repeatedly called her derogatory names. He wrote What Happened to My School?, a book about Wendy's supposed sexual exploits, and held a book signing, selling the books for $5 each. This is likely an act of revenge against Wendy as he may still hold a grudge against her after she beat him up in "Breast Cancer Show Ever".
He has simultaneously described her as having "huge frickin' hooters" and being "flat as a pancake". If anything, it shows he's a little bit preoccupied with her chest.
Best Friends
Cartman's closest friendships are those with Kenny McCormick, his official best friend forever, and Butters Stotch, his most loyal lackey and henchman.
While the foundation of Butters and Cartman’s relationship has largely been driven by Cartman’s selfishness and Butters’ kind, earnest desire to listen to his problems, comfort him after his failures, help him with any scheme he suggests and allow himself to be manipulated in unspeakable ways, the two have gradually the two boys have developed a genuine friendship over the years and Butters’ naivete seems to have invited Cartman to trust and confide in him in ways he rarely has with the other boys. Butters has picked up a number of habits from Cartman both positive and negative, including transphobia and misogynism, but has also notably pushed back on occasion and stood up to Cartman.
On the other hand, while they often insult one another openly, with Cartman once declaring his hatred of Kenny purely because they were alone together, a close friendship nonetheless exists between both boys, and they have considered themselves each other’s best friend for years. Before his complete transformation into the vile sociopath we know today, Cartman had mourned at Kenny’s funerals, and exhibited concern over his well-being. Even after his alteration of character, Cartman has admitted multiple times at his deathbed that he felt both him and Kenny were best friends. Kenny as well also mentions in his will that he “feels sorry for [Cartman]” and leaves him his most valuable possession. While Stan and Kyle often bond over mutual trust and similar beliefs, Kenny and Cartman often seem to bond over vices and mischief. They have shared secrets, such as when they borrowed Stephen Stotch's drone, and have also been to Casa Bonita together on occasion... but often disagree nonetheless, most notably during the bitter Console Wars, and of course, on the methods of superheroism, coming to a head when Cartman teamed up with the mighty Cthulhu.
While most episodes depict the boys as ignorant of Kenny's deaths, Cartman has acknowledged them more than any other character on the show, openly mentioning that he "dies all the time" on one occasion, though this has not been fully consistent. He has also been visited by Kenny's spirit after his passing, and after mistaking his ashes for chocolate milk mix, hosted Kenny's spirit for several episodes during the sixth season.
Close Friends
Very few people throughout town are willing to put up with Cartman for the most part, such as Stan and Jimmy, though even they get fed up with his bullshit sometimes.
Cartman seems to have a much better relationship with Stan than he does with Kyle. In "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow", Cartman seemed to genuinely enjoy hanging out with Stan. In "The Pandemic Special", Cartman put his own desires aside after hearing Stan's speech about how much the Covid-19 outbreak has affected him, showing he truly cares for Stan.
Whenever Cartman isn't hanging out with Kenny, Butters, Stan or Kyle, he can often be seen hanging out with Jimmy. On the other end of things, Jimmy also tends to hang out with all 5 boys whenever possible, demonstrating a close friendship between all 6 boys (with some exceptions, of course.)
Cartman maintained a friendly relationship with his neighbor Chef until the latter's departure and later death, crying when he left town and admitting to Butters that he genuinely cared about him. Chef also played a crucial role in curing Cartman when Kenny's soul was trapped inside his body. Chef is the only recurring character, besides Cartman's own mother, that he has ever shown any selfless interest toward.
The Guys
Cartman has an extended group of "friends" that he hangs out with at school. Outside of school though, he's usually trying to get them to go along with whatever crazy scheme he's come up with, or y'know, to just watch the newest Terrance & Phillip episode. No matter how nice to them he tries to be though, they generally hate him on a day-to-day basis.
Clyde and Cartman have a mutual understanding of body-shaming and are also close -- Clyde not only often goes along with Cartman's schemes, but defended him from the other kids more than once, became worried when Cartman fought Wendy, and nearly destroyed the entire town in retaliation when Cartman - er, the Grand Wizard King - banished him from space and time. Despite all this, Cartman still found him worthy of his "shit list."
Unlike most of the other boys, Cartman tends to hang out a lot with Scott Malkinson at school, primarily at lunch for Sloppy Joe Day or Barbecue Rib Day. His relationship with Scott appears to thrive on a punching bag mechanic: he'll have someone to rip on, and Scott will have someone to hang out with. Despite this, Cartman rarely has any regard for Scott's feelings or wellbeing, often making fun of his diabetes. After all, diabetes affects us all, but it mostly affects Scott Malkinson.
After his death in Season Finale, Cartman revealed that he knew Jason pretty well. He even helped Jason's family in their time of mourning. This goes to show how well they got on with each other, even though Jason was a shitty receiver.
Imaginary Friends
Cartman has an array of imaginary friends. Besides his stuffed animals, who were mostly tragically murdered, with only Polly Prissy Pants confirmed alive, and Antonio Banderas preferring to keep to himself in the basement, Cartman has the one and only Mitch Connor.
Other Friends
Cartman also gets along extremely well with Kyle's little brother Ike - uh, extremely well for an anti-Semite and a Jew anyway.
He and Stan's sister Shelly Marsh learned to get along over their mutual love of making people, like Shelly's asshole ex-boyfriend, miserable.
Jimbo Kern, Ned Gerblanski and Dr. Alphonse Mephesto have shown sympathy for Cartman on multiple occasions as well.
We've never met Lawrence or Toby, but Cartman has some annoying but friendly cell phone conversations with the two of them in "Let Go, Let Gov", much to Kyle's annoyance. Lawrence was mentioned a second time in "Buddha Box".
Acquaintances
Cartman's relationships with these characters have never been quite clear, and his mutual feelings about them is usually up for debate amongst fans.
Mortal Frenemy
While all four boys have been through adventures over the years and share similar goals of wealth and popularity, there is no weaker link between the four than the often intense heated rivalry between Cartman and Kyle. While their dissension has been a recurring theme since the first season, their correspondence were generally considered a "love-hate" relationship and it was often Kenny that Cartman would single out for unprovoked prejudice in these instances. Though they have been shown on rare yet notable occasions to be on civil terms, Cartman often shows an extremely sadistic and hateful side towards Kyle and will stop at nothing to humiliate him, and Kyle in turn often sees humiliating Cartman as morally justifiable, particularly given his anti-semitism.
Over the course of the fourth and fifth seasons, their relationship became significantly more spiteful and direct provocation increased, even in episodes otherwise focused on other characters; transforming their overall relationship from frenemies to arch rivals. Their moral differences are as far apart as black and white, while Kyle views himself as more moral and philosophical, often trying to take the safest and most logical route, Cartman is the antithesis to everything this stands for and will stop at nothing to get what he wants, with little concern for who or what it affects, often putting his selfish desires above everything else to take what he wants by any means necessary. Nevertheless, they do not care of each other's views and see their conflicting differences as a common source of antipathy between the two.
They share a competitive rivalry and have made bets with full intent of humiliating one another, such as the loser having to pay a sum of money, being each other's slave or on one famous occasion, suck the winner's balls. Cartman's obsessive hatred of Kyle above almost all others, has called into question Cartman's deeper feeling for Kyle. In the episode "Imaginationland", Cartman wins a bet with Kyle which requires Kyle to suck his balls, and goes to various extreme measures throughout the Imaginationland trilogy to make Kyle do so, including going to the Supreme Court and breaking into the Pentagon (twice). In the end of the trilogy's first part, Cartman is seen with a photo of an innocent looking Kyle. The scene ends with Cartman dragging his finger slowly across Kyle's mouth in the photo, which could be interpreted as an act of lust, this further hints at a confused sexuality. At the end of the trilogy's third part, Cartman conjures up an imaginary Kyle to suck the balls of an imaginary Cartman.
The back-and-forth of their outward conflict yet still regularly meeting with the other boys can be seen as somewhat ironic. Therefore, Kyle and Cartman could be seen to have a more complex connection than Stan and Kyle. In "The Entity", Kyle described Cartman as "my sort of friend-ish", as his best explanation of their relationship.
Nonetheless, Cartman himself has shown a disturbing lack of care for Kyle's wellbeing as well; whether it be laughing at his bodily mutation from a certain apple company, or offering him up to a room of very angry Germans. The two have also come to blows on several occasions, such as in "Kenny Dies", "Cartoon Wars Part II", "Tonsil Trouble", "Doubling Down", and "The Pandemic Special".
Despite hatred, when the two boys can set their differences aside, and a common goal is clear in sight, Cartman and Kyle can make incredibly strong allies, although this always seems to disband one way or another. They do have some common interests they do not share with Stan and Kenny in the same fashion, such as Faith Hilling and the Xbox One, and also share a particular shared business talent that is displayed both in their time together working at the Crack Baby Athletic Association and during their time at the Washington Redskins start-up company, where they even lead a high-profile press conference together. They maintain a surprising degree of tolerance for one another, with Kyle in particular continuing to feel sympathy for Cartman and his moments of plight despite their problems, and Cartman recognizing Kyle’s assets for various schemes, allowing no bathroom break stop him.
In "Skank Hunt", Kyle was convinced that Cartman was the internet troll "Skankhunt42" due to his bigoted behavior in the past. So he along with Stan, Butters, Craig, Token, Clyde, and Jimmy lured Cartman to a cabin and smashed all of his electronics. Later they discovered that Cartman was telling the truth and that was not Skankhunt. Kyle later felt tremendous guilt for his actions and even cried when viewing a class photo. Despite Cartman being ostracized from his male peers, Cartman was in contact with Kyle and Butters the most, but still did not rejoin their circle. After the conclusion of Season Twenty, Cartman was able to fully forgive Kyle and his former group of friends, as he is no longer isolated from them and rejoined his cricle of friends.
In "Smug Alert!", Cartman saves Kyle and his family when a large storm is about to go towards their house in San Francisco. Cartman finds Butters as too boring a nemesis since he will simply accept anything Cartman directs at him, and realizes that in order to have someone with which to argue incessantly again he must get Kyle back. At the end of the episode he hides the fact that he was the savior of Kyle's whole family, opting to insult Kyle again instead; Kyle replies angrily and storms off, to Cartman's satisfaction. Cartman also aided Kyle in rescuing Ike from Ms. Stevenson in "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy".
Overall, there is always extreme tension between Cartman and Kyle, but they can mature and set their differences aside for the greater good, with the latter acknowledging that Cartman will never change, while Cartman despite his clear intolerance and disdain for Jews continue to live in close contact with each other, which may be a testament of their friendship. Also, despite Kyle harboring generally negative opinions of Cartman, he did appear to have some degree in faith in Cartman's sense of right and wrong, as seen in the end of "The Pandemic Special" where he was astounded by Cartman's change of heart to surrender the pangolin to the scientist.
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