tl;dr: have a friend who has historically always been mad when his friends got a gf/wife. He acts like he’s 15 years old and saying “bros before hoes” still. He calls me and other friends a yuppie or breeder, and he thinks crosswalks are authoritarian so he has to always be a “rebel” and make it seem like he has the most unique viewpoint in the world. He doesn’t change anything about himself, and he’s stubbornly proud of having “no filter.” This has caused every wife/gf of his friends to not like him. He will never be invited to any kind of social event because he will say stupid shit. Like, nobody has to be a rabid commie all the fucking time. Him and my gf got into a huge fight because he always talks like an asshole, and i live with my gf, so he doesnt come to my house at all because he’ll say some shit. He still brings up this fight when im around him, and it’s like get the fuck over it. I basically don’t share anything about my life that involves my partner now, because he’ll say something fucking stupid about her. He also begins a lot of sentences with “well” or “actually” which is never helpful. He literally can’t admin when he is wrong, even about the simplest shit.

This really all seemed to get worse once I started my current long term relationship, and then it got way worse when my gf got sick of his shitty attitude and how he treats everyone like an asshole. He literally just can’t be chill at all. No leftist(or similar) should be ranting constantly about every single injustice during every single social situation. That is exhausting to be around, and there is a time and place for it, but there has to be an ability to switch that shit off.

Finding and keeping relationships requires changing yourself just a bit, and making compromises, and it’s now become apparent he isn’t capable of that.

related question: have you ever dumped a long time friend? This is all a somewhat recent change, like the past 3-4 years, and it really seems to be because im in a relationship like most of our friend group, so now he’s totally alone. Ive heard him say he’s in therapy but i have to wonder if that’s true, because it clearly isn’t working. I’m annoyed by him but I pity him too because he can’t fucking change for anybody at all.

  • Jenniferr [she/her, comrade/them]
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    162 years ago

    I’m about to dump a friend. I don’t know how I’m gonna do it because they are like reaaaally attached to me and honestly have told me they have romantic feelings (I have explained multiple times that I feel absolutely no romantic attraction, but they insist that I can develop romantic feelings for them…). Anyway, I just can’t do it anymore, it’s just too much knowing that they feel this way about me because it’s such a mismatch in feelings, like they say that they have never been closer to someone else before and I just… don’t feel that way about them.

    This feels like shit because it’s like, not their fault but I just can’t keep going with it. The friendship is literally stressing me tf out when I should be focusing on early transition stuff.

    • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
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      92 years ago

      that actually sounds like the kindest thing for you to do for them. somethimes you have to be cruel to be kind it sound’s like they are romantically torturing themselves about you and the best thing for them would be if you shut them down completely

    • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]OP
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      62 years ago

      and honestly have told me they have romantic feelings

      damn, that’s a whole other bag of shit to deal with. That doesn’t really make it a friendship if they are just waiting for you to come around.

      This feels like shit because it’s like, not their fault

      I’ll disagree with you here and say it’s definitely their fault. Nobody should try to be friends with someone they want to date, and especially if that that friend doesn’t reciprocate those feelings at all. Your “friend” should have moved on of their own volition, instead they are just sticking around so now it will be your “fault”. That’s a real shit move by them.

      • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
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        102 years ago

        Nobody should try to be friends with someone they want to date

        I think that’s a little too far I don’t see how you are supposed to approach people romantically if you can’t get to know them first. You just need to take rejection in stride and it’s on you to not make it weird after you’ve shot your shot

        if you’re just going to pine then yeah that’s not on. If someone makes it clear they aren’t romantically into you then you need to move on

      • Jenniferr [she/her, comrade/them]
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        52 years ago

        Yeah fair enough. It’s just like, ahh it just feels like I’m gonna hurt them and they are a very nice/kind person at heart. It’s just like, I don’t appreciate it when people tell me how I can feel/how I should feel/ it’s fucking weird to me to have someone argue with me about MY feelings. That really is what killed me

        • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]OP
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          52 years ago

          and women seem to be in this position the most often too. it’s definitely a running theme i’ve witnessed personally. There’s not as many men saying “i just can’t get this woman to leave me alone.” Men are very willing to just pretend to be friends and hope things will change, and it usually doesn’t change.

          • Jenniferr [she/her, comrade/them]
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            This person is actually a trans woman but yeah its just… not gonna change. They did something critical at the beginning which was assume that I had feelings for them, and expressed that to me. Like “I know we’re both feeling that way”. Just totally turned me off because it’s like, how do you just assume that? Like jfc gross. I have my own feelings and I can choose to express them. And then they were telling other people that I had feelings for them, I just found out last night. Just triggering me tbh lol sorry for a rant here

      • Jenniferr [she/her, comrade/them]
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        Update if you’re interested:

        Last night they got upset that I was being wishy washy about hanging out thos weekend, because I said I had non concrete plans with someone else. They Def got p upset because they felt like they were a “backup friend” (I was meeting a new person… not that they require an explanation) and they started doing the “Oh nice people like me get the short end of the stick” thing… which just kinda triggered me because like wtf is going on, we are not in a relationship lmao.

        So I sent them a long message telling them that I am ending the friendship and how I’m going to proceed with shared spaces. Don’t know how they’re doing now, hope they’re okay because it was pretty cold tbh but I needed to get the point across. Seems to have worked but idk, I’m a little nervous they’re gonna show up at my house or something >.> we will see

        • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]OP
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          12 years ago

          yea they were hoping for a lot, or reading into things too much. Like if someone is just hanging out and it never gets physical in any way(sex or kissing) then they are reading too much into it. it does sound like they think anyone who is nice to them might date them, which is erroneous on their part. hell, ive been in fwb situations where i knew they werent going to date me. It really pays off to be chill.

          • Jenniferr [she/her, comrade/them]
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            12 years ago

            Really does. Like it really just sucks though because we have shared spaces and I’m a little scared this is gonna basically make them feel awkward in those spaces. On the other hand, I’m not the one making weird romantic and sexual advances.

  • hollowmines [he/him]
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    182 years ago

    I dumped a friend of ~8yrs who got weird and standoffish with me after I got a gf (which only lasted a few months!). It’s a real thing that happens.

  • Adkml [he/him]
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    02 years ago

    Yea ditch this fucking turd.

    I didn’t dump anybody but when a couple friends from high-school were still religiously listening to Joe Rogan and said they had no sympathy for homeless people because they want to be homeless or else they’d just get a job.

    So I stopped hanging out with them because I don’t want to be friends with people who act like a bad stereotype of a high schooler.

    • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]OP
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      22 years ago

      honestly a lot of examples everyone is giving here makes me feel lucky he’s not some libertarian Roganite who hates the poor. my friend is just very immature in other ways.

  • DayOfDoom [any, any]
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    12 years ago

    saying “bros before hoes” still. He calls me and other friends a yuppie or breeder, and he thinks crosswalks are authoritarian so he has to always be a “rebel”

    Is this me? Jon, is that you?

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
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        42 years ago

        Yeah, in the same way that money is (see what happens if a nation says that US dollars are not accepted there).

        The problem is the idealism of the statement in the face of current material reality. Abolishing crosswalks at this time with nothing else changed is like telling people to stop using money to buy food with nothing else changed.

        • usa_suxxx [they/them]
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          72 years ago

          Abolishing crosswalks at this time with nothing else changed is like telling people to stop using money to buy food with nothing else changed.

          I guess it’s cause I’m in Texas, but crossing at the crosswalk always seems far more dangerous than just about anywhere else. Those cars hate slowing down on those turns. Zero fucks given. Hell the one without turns, those cars don’t stop at all

          • UlyssesT [he/him]
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            52 years ago

            That’s particularly fucked up, especially if (I assume) running over people at crosswalks isn’t a punished offense. doomer

    • LeylaLove [she/her, love/loves]
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      462 years ago

      He’s right though, jaywalking didn’t even exist until the past few decades. How the fuck are feds going to make a law just to harass minorities crossing the street, and just have everybody be cool with it?

      Pedestrians should always have right of way.

        • LeylaLove [she/her, love/loves]
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          232 years ago

          https://marker.medium.com/the-invention-of-jaywalking-afd48f994c05

          History of Jaywalking. Tldr: roads used to be for public use. Yes, crosswalks and safe places to cross the road good. But the fact is that urban streets used to be places for people, not cars. Jaywalking as a crime only exists to make people hate pedestrians just crossing a street. I live in bumfuck nowhere, where everything is completely car dependant. There are no crosswalks on many intersections, or they can be up to a mile away from where you actually need to cross the road. Why should it be considered a legal requirement to be in a car to be on 90 percent of local property?

            • LeylaLove [she/her, love/loves]
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              212 years ago

              No, I am not against cross walks, nor did I ever say that. You’re working with shit I didn’t say. You’re making assumptions about what I’m advocating for with no real base for it. I literally even said crosswalks were good in that paragraph, so this isn’t even in good faith now.

              All I am saying is that crosswalk enforcement in my bumfuck middle of nowhere American existence, I have only ever seen black people getting harassed for crossing the road in the wrong area. Why is it illegal to cross an empty street not on the crosswalk? Why is it considered acceptable that a law like jaywalking widely used to harass minorities to be upheld? How are carefully enforced crosswalks even helping people not get ran over? Are cops saving lives by harassing minorities for crossing the street in the wrong spot?

              • UlyssesT [he/him]
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                I did ask if that was what you were saying. See here:

                Are you suggesting some idealistic abolishment of currently-existing crosswalks with nothing else changed about the present system first so people get run over in even larger numbers with clarity in their hearts about how they should have had right of way?

                Otherwise contextually you just seemed to have a chip on your shoulder against @[email protected] and now it’s spread toward me.

                • LeylaLove [she/her, love/loves]
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                  192 years ago

                  That wasn’t you asking, that was you going in for a sarcastic dunk. You asked if I believed something specifically stupid and made an effort to make it sound stupid in the question.

      • Jenniferr [she/her, comrade/them]
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        12 years ago

        Is that what they mean? I thought they were saying “Cars having to stop for people at crosswalks is authoritarian” I could have misread it though

    • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]OP
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      112 years ago

      know what else is authoritarian? youtube making people pay to remove ads. He will literally apply it to anything. Wants the revolution, doesn’t want to be authoritarian. Failed revolutions are cool!

    • i mean the law is authoritarian in general but that’s kind of its point also. I share OP’s frustration with their friend though, some people really don’t read situations well or know how to interact without alienating themselves

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
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    112 years ago

    It took me a while to learn that he doesn’t know how to fucking talk to people, especially once they are in a relationship and have less time for him. He is constantly lashing out at everyone around him, even “friends.” He still gets into fights with his parents too. I recently realized I can smell his nasty dogs on him because he doesnt clean his house or his clothes or maybe even himself so that seems like depression. It doesnt help my gf and him got into a fight of their own, but that stemmed from how he constantly talks like an asshole to literally everyone, and begins most sentences with “well” or “well actually” and can never admit he’s wrong. Ever. Almost everyone he is friends with has a wife or gf, and none of the wives or gfs like him at alllllll. At best they tolerate him. He’s not getting invited to friend vacations or dinners because he’s a fucking pill to be around and when you want him to be a normal person in a social situation (instead of just a rabid anarchist all the time) he will proudly declare because that is who he is and he isn’t changing.

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa0x7DaDYP_vMQwyTqckCV7nM7KfNMs-B

  • MF_COOM [he/him]
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    152 years ago

    have you ever pretty much cut ties with someone after knowing them for a long ass time?

    Sure. Most relationships run their course at some point. That’s neither good, nor bad - it just is. Very few friendships continue until death, those people are very special and it really doesn’t sound like he’s in this category.

    There’s something to be said for being there for your friends when they’re going through hard times, even if during those times they’re not their best self. But it doesn’t really sound like there’s much to savour about this guy at all, and as you said he’s not really working on himself.

    It’s not your responsibility to hang with this guy and subject your partner to him. Life is short, there are a million cool and rewarding people to spend time with and it sounds like you have put in the effort to give him time to sort himself out.

    • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]OP
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      112 years ago

      i don’t even have him comes to our house anymore because I don’t want him around my partner. ill go to his and then we hang out, but he literally can’t control his stupid fucking mouth.

      • MF_COOM [he/him]
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        212 years ago

        It genuinely sounds like you hate this guy comrade che-smile why are you hanging out with him?

        • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]OP
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          it’s been a fairly recent turn of events. like the past few years or so. maybe not seeing him at all during covid helped me to see. even last time i hung out with him, he had another long time friend there and he treated the other friend like an asshole as well. it feels weird to have almost been seemingly blind to it before.

          • Abracadaniel [he/him]
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            82 years ago

            recent

            few years

            I think it’s been long enough you know it’s got to end. Life is short, don’t waste more time with him.

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
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    162 years ago

    I know too many people that stopped developing in college, if not before. A lot of them are now in tech jobs where being a selfish self-congratulating contrarian getting all their takes from edgy “adult” cartoons is a norm and a standard so they fit right in. yea

    • FactuallyUnscrupulou [he/him]
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      82 years ago

      Growing up is so weird because our whole framework makes us try to become successful and if those close to you catch a bad break the inequity can cause strife. I have high school buddies that I grew up with that I don’t see after having moved. I spent a very short period of my life going to college meeting tons of random folks I still think about or follow on social media but never contact. I got older and friends became more centered around what hobbies or interests I had. Hell I just have a category of friend that’s simply the one cool co-worker who liked to smoke shit tons of weed.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
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        Sucking up to billionaires until they pay millions for creepy Harry Potter fanfiction with slavery characteristics is also a tactic that sometimes works. doomer

  • @[email protected]
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    72 years ago

    Sounds like the dude might be on the autistic spectrum with some ADHD thrown in. These people can be toxic in this state and it’s hard to get them to move on without they themselves wanting to.

    Have you ever hung out with him and “the guys” in a while? Maybe he misses the “good old days” and hasn’t realized people have changed. Doing another might push him to that conclusion himself, and it would be a good way to get him pointed in a more constructive direction. If the dude is anti authoritarian and hates modern culture, getting him to get a civil engineering degree might be the catalyst to break him out of the cycle.

    If you do this, I would have at least one of y’all be prepared not to “refute” his claims but nudge him to a new discovery; if he brings up sidewalks being authoritarian say something like “oh, interesting. Have you read any of Jane Jacobs’ work? I think you’d like it.”

    However, it shouldn’t be like an intervention. Try to let him have fun—have drinks, games, a bouncy castle, I dunno—and go at his pace. People like him just need a push in the right direction before they hurt people.

    • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]OP
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      Have you ever hung out with him and “the guys” in a while?

      did that recently with another guy who has a wife and he’s just as abrasive with him.

      getting him to get a civil engineering degree might be the catalyst to break him out of the cycle.

      that would require debt he can’t afford(which is understandable), plus he never follow through on anything he talks about. he’s had about 5 careers he has talked about and he never follows up on the training or anything for them.

      Sounds like the dude might be on the autistic spectrum with some ADHD thrown in.

      possibly, he has said some hilariously stupid things in front of other people that made me want to disassociate.

  • daisy [he/him, comrade/them]
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    372 years ago

    related question: have you ever pretty much cut ties with someone after knowing them for a long ass time?

    Yes. A friend I’d known for decades, from primary school. I’d just learned that I’d acquired a 10-year-old step-niece. My sister had started living with her now-current-husband/then-boyfriend. He had custody of his daughter due to the biological mom making a very long string of very bad decisions. I told my friend about this and how much I was looking forward to being the awesome-cool uncle I knew I could be, to this bright kind kid with some lingering trauma.

    The first words out his mouth were “Is she cute? Is her mom hot?”

    So in the span of about a second I realized I needed to go no-contact with my childhood friend.

    (Step-niece grew up to be a professional nurse, and has been making a long string of very good personal-life decisions, and has become the kindest gentlest playfullest aunt of her own to her toddler niece.)

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
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      The first words out his mouth were “Is she cute? Is her mom hot?”

      kombucha-disgust Hedonic treadmill. Not even once.

      • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
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        152 years ago

        We called it the paraphilic continuum in Crim Psych.

        And yeah. It’s not a road to go down. I know some pretty disturbing statistics. Maybe one day I’ll make a post about them. But I’d have to CW the whole thread.

        • UlyssesT [he/him]
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          I would seriously appreciate some links detailing that sort of thing because online, including on Hexbear, sometimes people show up with dogmatic statements that their entertainment, no matter how horrifyingly creepy/violent or children-targeting (cartoon or otherwise) has no effect on them and that everyone would have an absolutely identical chance of being a sex offender at any given time if no such material was available. Some even make the “venting” claim about it being somehow therapeutic/preventive for possible offenders.

          • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
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            82 years ago

            It’s been like 18 years but I can do some digging and see if I can find some academic sources. I mostly studied serial killers.

            I can tell you this off the top of my head:

            Extreme CW:

            spoiler

            If a serial rapist begins to use a knife or scissors to remove clothing the chance that they will murder their victim go way up. Like you got 2-3 victims before they start cutting and stabbing as part of their assault.


            It’s some grim shit. I had to stop studying it because it was fucking with my head. It’s why I can’t do all that “True Crime” shit. It’s a Nietzschean fucking abyss I’d rather not gaze into.

            • UlyssesT [he/him]
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              52 years ago

              It’s why I can’t do all that “True Crime” shit.

              I can understand that. I’ve yet to know anyone into “True Crime” entertainment that was someone I’d actually want to voluntarily be around.

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
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    192 years ago

    have you ever dumped a long time friend?

    Yes. I recently cut ties with someone I had considered a close friend for decades because I could no longer make excuses for his immature, even violent outbursts. He was dragging down my friend group and making my wife miserable with his tantrums and his deliberate attempts to drag everyone else down around him.

    He was also exceptionally reddit-logo brained while under false pretenses of being a leftist, with big time “DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” treat defender tendencies, including repeated apologia for cartoon depictions of kiddie creeping. libertarian-alert

    • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]OP
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      142 years ago

      Immature and loud outbursts are definitely what is happening here. Like he just can’t shut off his ranting, he will have to go on some long rant about some injustice and its like, we just wanna have a friendly dinner goddamn. But he also still fights with his parents all the time too, much like he did when he was 16. He has always had a “don’t tell me what to dooooooo” thing going. Him still bringing up the fight he had with my gf is an issue too, he just can’t let shit go or shut up about it, he always has to claim how “correct” he always is.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
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        142 years ago

        long rant about some injustice

        "I want mlk-yes "

        “We have rants about injustice at home.”

        The rant about injustice at home:

        “don’t tell me what to dooooooo”

          • UlyssesT [he/him]
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            I know you said that that person was not a jordan-eboy-peterson fan, but I think it’s still relevant that Dr. Professor Lobster MD PhD Esquire raked in so much money from people that screamed “DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DOOOOOO” to their moms when told to clean their rooms, but then heard it from a patriarchal grifter and gasped at the profound wisdom.

  • Grebgreb [he/him, they/them]
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    142 years ago

    I knew someone who fell down the right wing yt pipeline. He became insecure and combative after, every other thing would result in a massive wall of text and some of them actually devolved into raging at communists. In one moment he would proselytize about peterson and express his disdain for poors who didn’t bootstrap themselves before lamenting that none of it was applicable to him. He was also oddly elitist about video games, first it was old games good new bad, then it was consoles good pc bad, then it became Japanese games good western bad. Last time it was steam good, Epic and Gog bad because China. He also expressed his fondness for occupied Korea and Japan a lot which I thought was weird before I learned it’s a weird common right wing fetishization thing.

    In retrospect he was never great to be around but being radicalized by the anti-sjw stuff quickly made him unbearable. Last time I talked to him a few years ago he was still into that shit, insisting it was a debate that was ongoing, and was concerned with a societal collapse because women. He went on this insane rant about a video game woman character and I’m pretty sure he admitted there were days where he would just watch youtube all day. I was already checked out during that conversation so maybe I’m misremembering but I still feel like it was something he actually said even though it seems like something no one would ever admit.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
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      I wonder how that person felt about up-yours-woke-moralists calling for abolishing all social safety nets while also calling for government mandated sex slaves “as the price of civilization” to placate incels so they don’t shoot up schools.

    • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]OP
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      now luckily it’s not right wing shit that is happening here. If anything he has the views of a 17 year old anarchist that says all authoritarianism is bad, but he still wants the revolution. Although he is anti China and Russia, pro Ukraine and Palestine so our politics have definitely diverged a bit but he’s not a Jordan Peterson fan thank fucking god.

      He does seem to think he’s a feminist of some sort but I don’t think he really is, he hates his mother too much to be one.

      Im probably his most left wing friend but he still will call me a yuppie for having a gf, that’s really all it seems to have taken. He’s gotten to the point where he thinks he is better than literally everyone else, he has no equal. That attitude is a great way to end up lonely.

      • GaveUp [she/her]
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        bro sounds extremely neurodiverse and narcissistic which seems like you probably already know

        you should tell him about himself (the stuff you’ve written) for his own good. I’m still struggling with similar things like him though never quite as bad and every time I’ve made noticeable improvements was when I was able to get a clear glimpse of my self after realizing how fucking insane and douchey I acted in front of better people than me