So me (20F) and my best friend (21F) have been incredibly close for years, since we were about 13/14. We’ve been on holiday together four or five times, and have never really gone longer than a couple weeks without meeting up. I love her so much, I’ve always said she’ll be the maid of honour at my wedding, her parents love me and my parents love her, etc etc. We’ve been through a lot together, supported each other through a lot of tough times, and are genuinely each others favourite people. We’ve not once fought.
We used to align politically as well (left leaning), and used to have some really good conversations and debates. For context, I’m bisexual and have always considered my gender identity to be very ambiguous (it’s a very complex thing for me), and she’s straight. Not too long ago we started to diverge a bit, but its honestly gotten to the point that I’m struggling to reconclie it.
In the last election (UK), she voted for Reform- which is the most far right party we have in the UK. This really surprised me, and upon talking about it more it became clear that she’s been falling into a lot more right wing content on instagram, and looking at more right wing sources that have completely shifted her perspective. She’s started to hold beliefs that completely conflict with the values I hold, like saying teaching children about trans people is ‘confusing’ and lots of quite extreme views on immigration, social support, and environmental policy. I was telling her about an incident one of my friends experienced where a teacher made a racist comment to them, and she responded saying they can say that because they have freedom of speech and I’m wrong for thinking it’s not okay. Last time I saw her she also said the R slur (which given she’s never done that before and knows I got diagnosed with autism last year, really took me by surprise).
I really struggle to fathom how a woman could vote for a party like reform, but I know she’s not alone in that. I also know people are completely allowed to have their own views- and I’m not trying to invoke any political debates here. But for someone like myself that feels incredibly strongly about a lot of these issues, particularly around trans rights, it hurts me on a more personal level that she holds these beliefs. To me it’s the lack of empathy that I cant understand. I am perhaps too empathetic (autism thing), but it completely goes against everything I stand for to be associated with someone who will openly spread such rhetoric. I do a lot of work in mental health, and even at work I’m sort of known for it, and to me it feels really insincere to be championing equality and inclusion, while sitting back while she says these things.
If it was anyone else in my life I would distance myself quite easily, I dont have a wide circle and have been burned before- so I’m careful who I’m vulnerable with. But it’s different because its her. We have so much history and theres so much value in our friendship that it would suck to lose. It hits me so hard every time she makes a comment that I always just freeze up too, so while most of the time I’m very eloquent I just find it too close to home and know I’ll get overly emotional if I try and debate it with her.
I guess I just need some outside perspective on the whole situation- so any thoughts are appreciated!!
Comments
You cannot keep calling someone your best friend when her beliefs deny your very existence loyalty should never come at the cost of your dignity. Holding onto history is tempting, but if she’s choosing intolerance, you owe it to yourself to choose peace.
Thats definitely hard. Maybe talk to her about if she wants to be friends despite her not supporting you and your beliefs. But even so, a real friend would support you no matter what, and it seems she doesnt do that anymore. I would say to try to distance yourself from her because being around people who dont accept you wont do anything good for you.
Ignore these immature comments. For gods sake, its ok to disagree on things as long as you guys respect eachother why does it matter what anyones beliefs are. The left has convinced people to hate anyone on the right. WHY? Let’s all just be frriends and if we have differing beliefs, lets just NOT TALK POLITICS?!
Yeah I think you gals might heading in different directions and if you both want to stay friends you’ll have to learn to accept each others beliefs don’t have to agree but be able to debate each other in a friendly way.
Ahahahahaha hilarious “she’s been falling into more ring wing sources on Instagram” man leftards really are pathetic and hypocrites. Stay salty and weird
It’s ok to have friends with different views than you.
So what? It’s OK to have different political views just as it’s OK to have different views on religion and whatnot. Having different views and opinions is what makes us individuals.
This is just natural.
As you grow older, more mature, and acquire more assets, you tend to lean more republican, funny how that works.
I expect the majority of the comments here will be “omg get out of there she’s clearly crazy and hates you and she’s a nazi so cut her off immediately” in typical Reddit fashion. But anyway, I have multiple very close friends who have the complete opposite political views and opinions that I do, and we’ve been friends for multiple years. If you truly consider her your best friend then you would try to put this aside for the sake of your friendship. If she’s very outspoken about her opinions then tell her that you disagree with them and that you’d like her to not bring them up around you, hopefully she’ll understand and also value the friendship enough to not bring them up or at least not constantly. People are allowed to disagree with each other, we all go through different phases and changes of heart throughout our lives, this is a normal part of life. Talk to her about it first, and hopefully you two can work it out. If in the end you realize that either you or her care more about each other’s ideas than your friendship, then there’s not a lot to be done there.
I’ve definitely lost a few friends to their far right beliefs. Including myself be I’ve known for over 30 years. It’s hard for me to reconcile their feelings about how they are superior to other people.
It’s a sad political environment we live in.
For the sake of your friendship, don’t be afraid to challenge her. If she’s a “free speech champion” point out that free speech doesn’t mean free of consequences of that speech. Tell her that being trans allows people to express themselves, and you believe in freedom of expression. Tell her she sounds dumb using slurs. She might not fully come around, but if she values your opinion or perspective she might make some course corrections or at least code switch around you.
If she can’t be challenged or reacts negatively to pushback, then it’s a matter of does she respect you. You can be friends with someone you disagree with, but it’s hard to be friends with someone who won’t hear you out or respect your perspective.
This is quite common as people gain more experience of life. Left-wing idealism gives way to realism.
Did she hit her head?
Don’t pick your friends on political beliefs or ideologies but on mutual respect, care and love.
Maybe you could be respectful and accept that people have different views. You expect her to respect and follow your beliefs, but clearly don’t respect her and her beliefs. Time to grow up. If you can’t, then you clearly are not capable of being her friend.
It’s a trend that will continue over the next decades. Your first instinct will be to demonize her. You’ve already started this by saying that you can’t understand her lack of empathy
To a victim of one of the many grooming / over 18 rape gangs, your attitude to immigration would be lacking empathy
Lot of people here are gonna say some bullshit about “the more mature/old you get, the more conservative you get” or how “you gotta learn to respect each others opinions while disagreeing” and that’s bullshit. Such unbelievable horse shit. Your friend believes in an ideology that directly shits on your existence as a human being, she’s using slurs around you while knowing you’re autistic, she’s defending racism openly and proudly in front of you.
Your friend is 21 and is a victim of the same type of right wing propoganda that has 15 year old boys worshipping Andrew Tate. This isn’t normal, do not let people on here make you believe it is.
You got two options, either drop this friendship and save yourself the trouble of having to watch someone you care about devolve even further into a racist, ableist, monster of a person. Or have a talk with her where you explain you’ve noticed her change in ideology and that it’s made you uncomfortable/fearful. Sometimes people aren’t too far gone, and all it takes is a wake up call from the people close to them to snap them out of a dangerous pipeline.
But you need to protect yourself first and foremost. Good luck, and I’m sorry you’re losing your friend like this.
It’s ok for people to have different views than you. Just because you may disagree doesn’t make her bad and doesn’t mean you can’t be friends. This is life
Who cares. Don’t let difference in opinions divide you.
I think sadly you grew apart. That happens. Political difference is one thing, but racist/disablist view is not something you can/should dismiss easily.
It’s up to you to keep friendship, but she is not the person you knew. And I don’t think it’s that easy for her to change her view.
Never really understood how people can just throw away meaningful relationships over politics. I know there are some people who are extreme and become unhealthy and that is a different story.
Most of the people in my life are right wing leaning and I am more moderate. I have accepted their differing opinions on situations and have been able to continue having a relationship with them. Maybe it helps that they are not extreme or the fact I think there are people on both sides that are an absolute joke.
But people seriously have an issue with accepting differing opinions, and people on reddit and all over have serious problem with extreme views on parties. Not every republican voted for Trump not every republican is happy with the choices other people make. People are a bit simple minded.
Ya that’s what democracy is. Don’t worry.
Well, we can’t even discuss this like grown-ups. Anything that doesn’t conform precisely just gets the writer banned. Maybe that attitude has helped swing your friend.
Let’s look at this objectively. Between the two of you, it seems like you’re the one with so much of an issue that you’d consider abandoning your friendship of otherwise harmless political beliefs, and she’s out there living life, presumably with no consideration of abandoning you despite your differences in politics.
Perhaps some serious self reflection is in order. Introspective will help you.
There is more nuance to a person’s voting choices than the well-packaged lie that the media and government want you to believe. As friends, you should be able to have conversations with one another about your beliefs, and hopefully maintain mutual respect if not understanding.
My very best friend from schooldays and my own brother diverted, politically, many years ago and in the past I have had furious arguments with them. Both became very right wing while I had been fairly left. I decided to ignore the obvious difference despite inevitably standing up for my deeply held beliefs. Before he died, my friend showed slight signs of mellowing his politics and now my brother (88) has lost some of his right leaning views in old age. I would be much poorer now if I had cut them off decades ago. A person’s views are not wholly his/her profile.