Work friendship hiccup. Am I being unreasonable?

[Pspspsps]

I am sorry for rambling but I am somehow confused and maybe I just need to write it down.
I have a really good friend who I met in work and we are like a dream team. Quite different personalities, but we just work so well. There is absolutely no romantic interest, and we are just friends.
He is very smart but definitely lacks in the social skills department, so that’s an area where I sometimes need to “step in” because he is out of line and just too aggressive or dismissive with people. At the same time I know that I can be a bit of a pushover and he has definitely swooped in many times to help me out when people were putting pressure on me. So far so good.

He is a really good friend and colleague, but I have now come to realise that it seems to come with conditions, if that’s the right way of calling it. We didn’t have any issues, could disagree and discuss things, but I always felt kind of “special” because he just accepted my opinion and wouldn’t pull this shit.

Until now he never ever treated me like he treats others. When he doesn’t get what he wants (and we are both working in senior positions) he gets manipulative and maybe even a bit bullying. For example, we had a senior colleague who was super obvious about a body issue, and he used it all the time to make her feel uncomfortable to throw her off her game and control the situation. Of course it made me feel bad because she wasn’t nice at all, but not was he!
Last week we had a disagreement, and things suddenly changed entirely. It was nothing but a work related issue but he turned on that nasty side: switch flipped. I actually left the room and said I wouldn’t engage further on the matter, and he later apologised and said we had probably misunderstood each other.
Its really weird now. He is acting like nothing happened, and I am doing the same , but I know something changed that day. Part of me is feeling really hurt because I didn’t think he’d stoop to that level with me, but it happened so quickly. I don’t really know what to do or how to react. Do I try to talk it through, or is there no point? I don’t understand him when I thought I did. As I said we have been so close and such good allies, and it feels like a waste to throw it away, but part of me was really hurt by the event.

You say you don't understand what's changed but that you feel something changed that day .. what changed is that you experienced the real him. Probably a bit naive to think he would be horrible, and in your words, bully others but you thought he wouldn't be like that with you. Of course he would.. bit like going into a relationship with a convicted women abuser and believing they wouldn't do that to you because 'your special'. He is who he is, that won't change, not for anyone including you. See it as he puts his mask on when with you, the pretend him, but it slipped that day and you saw the real him. One day the mask will stay permanently down until he moves onto his next new friend and the cycle begins again. Don't be friends with bullies because one day it will be you they are doing it too. (Also don't be friends because they are horrible people).. I say .. arms length from now on.

This is the second thread I've seen today where a poster is surprised that a 'friend' who's horrible to other people has been horrible to them. I don't understand why people choose to become friends with these people?

Agree

I didn’t think he was horrible. I thought he went for low blows (which I never would), but apart from one person the recipients were of a similar cloth.
I did challenge him on that occasion, not that it matters now.

I could have written this. Work colleague, knew he could be a twat, but he was never a twat to me (always had my back) & was quite good humoured (in a slightly sheepish kind of way when I pulled him up on bad behaviour). How it ended up for me was finding out he'd done something truly nasty and then lied about it, and all the charm fell away - much like an abusive relationship even though it was purely platonic! I've since found out lots of other stuff about him and wonder if he's a (charming when he wants to be) narcissist.

Apparently there had been a “mask slip” moment before and I had actually been been at the event, but I hadn’t witnessed it. Until last week I had been 100% that it must have been misconstrued or misunderstood, and I had always defended him.

Thank you!
We have done quite a few “irregular” things regarding security settings so we could cover for each other in work (mainly him updating my stuff) so I don’t want to rock the boat.

I don't know exactly what you mean by that, but my instant reaction is get a new job as soon as you can.
None of this is good, you've presumably alienated your other coworkers through your bad friend choice, and now he has some dirt on you.

I’m honestly appalled that you watched this man repeatedly be degrading about a woman’s body, to shame her into complying with his whims, at work, and still considered him a person you wanted to be friends with.

How did you justify that, in your head? Does nothing matter at all unless it’s happening to you?

(My colleague was not Boris Johnson, although I realise he fits the description)

Making sure he's got something on you, to keep you quiet if it all goes tits up. Textbook.

But wouldn’t that work against him too?

Sounds like you let your ego get the best of you on this occasion.
bullies can’t bully everyone otherwise they would hold no power. So they make some people feel very special, they groom/love bomb them so that they agree with them and back up them up, say for example if they wanted to bully another woman about her body.

In all fairness she was horrible and got fired for bullying herself. I didn’t feel ok with what he did but I did accept it at the time because she had been so nasty to a lot of people. But yes, I shouldn’t have condoned it.

You need to define better boundaries of what is acceptable to you in a work colleague. This all sounds incredibly toxic

I’m delighted I don’t work wherever you work, OP, between the bullying, high school cliques and alliances based on covering up one another’s misconduct.

He put himself in "protector" mode for you and you facilitated that. It's easy to then feel beholden to someone you feel grateful to. Work can be a lonely place and it sounds like you held a lot of store by the optics of being a duo. He also ultimately felt like you owed him for that and that's why it was OK for him to turn on you. It's a shock to the system. Make the most of it and learn from it. I've been where you are. He turned on me. Thankfully I had the clarity to stand up to him and bring him down a peg or two and he ended up leaving very soon after. The thing is without him I was actually stronger. You just can't imagine that will ever be the case, but it will be.

So you're fine sitting back and watching him bully others but as soon as it's you he's out of line?

Nope.

I have changed my passwords but I guess that won’t change anything.
No, it’s not a good industry but it’s worth a lot of money :(
I’ll try to lie low and move even if it means a pay cut.

Reading your last message about your passwords, I think you've been naive. Have you ever checked to see what he's doing when he's using your login?

It sounds silly but I am doing most of they work but I can’t “sell” it, so that’s where he came in. Despite missing all of the nuances and sensitivities, and not caring.
Thanks for sharing so I don’t feel like a complete fool.

I agree that people show you who they are. You have to believe what you see

No, how do I check this?
I had set up most of my reports (feeding different parts of the organisation) bypassing the official route because the company couldn’t facilitate it. So I set an alternate route which he can maintain and manage as my backup). It was simply a workaround because measures weren’t in place and there was no alternative to maintain the standard.

I’m not sure how old you are, but you sound very naive. If you can, I’d suggest going on on assertiveness course and see if you can move jobs/departments etc.

You need to work on your confidence so you don’t need anyone speaking for you, especially a bully. Just because he’s cut from the same cloth as your other colleagues, doesn’t mean that his bullish behaviour is ok. The workplace sounds very toxic and I’m curious what part HR have to play in this.