To block friend who said this?

[Nameychangey2022]

I've name changed for this. My friend posted a gushing post on FB about the new priminister. I probably should have ignored but I added a comment that given the state of things in this country under the last three/four tory priministers, although it was great we finally had a more diverse priminister, a general election would have been preferable in my view.

My friend just said to me on messenger, direct quote

" We are not going to be friends if you you're so extreme about your political views".

I've just responded with 'wow' for now, am I being unreasonable to have also blocked her?

Before this she also said 'Your hormones are getting to you!
Gotta take emotion out of big decisions!' I am pregnant so yes hormones and I am emotional... but I am frustrated by how bad things seem to have got and was before I became pregnant, even accessing maternity care this time around is a struggle, the NHS has been chronically underfunded .

She meanwhile doesn't have kids or a mortgage, lives with her parents at 40 plus (cultural reasons). Nothing wrong with any of that and doesn't bother me but perhaps means she is a bit sheltered from real life. Just trying to understand but really a bit upset. I was more than happy to never discuss politics with her but she brought it up..should I pretend I hold the same views to fit in?!

Perhaps it is a natural end anyway to the friendship as it can be very one-sided, I listen to her talking about herself for ages before she thinks to ask how I am.

What would you do?

Jesus!! These arseholes mocking the op because of her spelling. What sad little lives you must have!

It just shows what sort of people they are.

I like to think I am quite good at grammar/spelling but I would never take the piss out of someone who makes a mistake.

The independent reported 202 Tory MP’s out of 357, the BBC 193. Either way, more than half.

I don’t want a general election just yet. There is so much apathy in the country right now. Hopefully this will change in the next 18 months.

If your friend was simply celebrating the fact that we have our first brown PM then I think you were wrong to bring politics into it.

But the conversation is inherently political, whether OP's friend likes it or not. How can people pretend it is as simple as "celebrating the fact that we have our first brown PM" when we're talking about the same man who served as Chancellor for Boris Johnson, a known racist, and only stopped backing him and defending his lies when it was no longer in his own interest to do so?? How can Sunak's rise be seen as a win for diversity when one of his first acts as PM was to re-appoint a Home Secretary whose "dream" is to forcibly deport refugees to Rwanda?? To ignore these facts and pat ourselves on the back for being such a tolerant country not only fails to hold Sunak accountable for the above, it also fails to recognise that the reason Truss was allowed to swoop in, cause absolute chaos for 6 weeks and trash the economy was that many within the Tory party couldn't stomach the idea of a brown PM until the situation became absolutely desperate.

There's nothing extreme about the opinion that a GE would have been preferable @Nameychangey2022, it's a mainstream political view.

It sounds like your friend is one of those people who doesn't really like anyone who disagrees with her and is just looking for an endorsement of their own views when she posts.

You have to decide whether you can have a close relationship with someone like that – some people can, and some prefer not to.

No OP didn’t start it. The friend posted a political viewpoint on social media. OP replied adversely. They are equal comments both could accuse the other as having extreme views although I think neither is, the public and minister opinions seems pretty split around this issue, hardly an extreme far left standpoint there was even the odd Tory minister giving this view. Anyway I think OP should ditch friend she has given more than one reason. Friend sounds boring and judgemental.

I’ve voted YABU just because I think blocking and ghosting or whatever else people like to call just abruptly stopping communication with people and pretending they don’t exist anymore is abhorrent.

Just because someone posts something in their wall dies not mean you need to redoing. You can scroll on by.

of they post often and it rings you up, then choose to unfollow (not unfriend) and you will not see what they post. You would need to actively choose to search for their profile and look up their posts.

this saves many relationships and friendships.

people have many opinions, many may not be shared with all their friends and religions. Likely best not discussed but we can choose to not see these things that otherwise have no bearing on our true interactions with them.

just scroll on by.

You're okay with 200 people deciding who runs the country?

Fuck...Even Truss had 81,000 people vote her in, completely pathetic in a country of 67 million.

Well, OP.....you could have just ignored the post. Was it really worth all this hassle?

You sound as bad as each other, really.

You sound like children flighting on a playground. Perhaps try not to offend her if you know her well enough and you know the topic may be important to her - or speak to her privately if you're also passionate about it and may cause friction publicly.
Otherwise just ghost her and move on. Who cares? After all 10 years is nothing. Provided you're young enough, you will have another 10 years to build a new friendship.

"Perhaps it is a natural end anyway to the friendship as it can be very one-sided, I listen to her talking about herself for ages before she thinks to ask how I am."

I think you've answered your own question here. Your friendship is a long-standing one of 10 years, but given the sentence above, I don't really think it can be described as a good friendship. You met through work, your lives were in the same place back then and that can account for some acquaintanceships passing for friendships. But your lives are very different now and the cracks are showing. Personally I'd just stop putting in any effort to maintain the acquaintanceship and let it wither on the vine - I suspect most of the effort comes from your side.

How are they as bad as each other? All OP did was say that she thought a GE would be preferable, really not controversial or unexpected in the current climate. The friend is the one who messaged threatening to cut contact if OP doesn't change her political beliefs.

I have very political view to some of my friends. Very different.

doesn’t hinder friendships but we generally don’t share our views on Facebook or similar. That helps.

The desire to hold a general election at this stage is hardly "extreme".

A petition for a GE got so many signatures it was debated by MPs in the HOC. A YouGov poll the day Truss resigned showed that 63% in favour of a GE. Leaders of Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid, and Greens have gone on record calling for a GE. All three previous PMs who came to power without a GE in the last 15 years (Brown, May, Johnson) have agreed to an early GE. At this point, "extreme position" better describes Sunak's immediate dismissal of the possibility rather than your comment. And I really doubt that all of these people talking about a GE are driven by pregnancy hormones; that was an unnecessary personal swipe.

OTOH, if you'd decided to avoid discussing politics with this particular friend in order to keep the peace, you're not doing a good job. There's no reason to respond to a general FB post and it's not like she confronted you with her opinion directly. I don't know what she wrote about Sunak but perhaps she was relieved to have the leadership contest over so quickly, perhaps she preferred him to Truss in the first place, Perhaps she was responding to the apparent calming of the markets and slight stabilisation of the pound, perhaps she's excited about the first Asian PM, perhaps she's one of the weirdos who think he's "dishy".

If you don't want to be friends anymore, just let the friendship fade. If you do want to be friends, talk to her in person or at least on the phone instead of fighting on facebook, or by proxy here.

Blocking someone for something like this is just pathetic.

Based on the following things:

• Posting something political on SM and then having an immature response to views that differ from her own
• Threatening to remove her friendship if you don't align your views more with hers
• Patronising you by implying your hormones are somehow controlling your thoughts
• A history of a one-side friendship

First of all I wouldn't have bothered replying to her on SM about the Prime Minister, but after that I would now think that this friendship wasn't bringing anything positive to my life and it was time that I moved on from it. You two don't sound like a good match at all - just move on.

OP you don't sound like "friends". There's a lot to unpack from your initial AIBU. On a first reading your AIBU sounds diametrically opposed to your friends opinion. Idk any culture that insists that 40 year adults live with their parents. Most people I assume do it for financial reasons, given the current squeeze I'm sure this trend will only increase. Also just because someone doesn't have children that doesn't make their opinion any less valid. You're being incredibly judgemental on your so called friends lifestyle choices.

What ethnicity is your chum, @Nameychangey2022 ?

Her response to you via private message was over the top but if you comment on anything about politics, especially if you hold differing views, there is always a high chance it could turn nasty.

This says so much more about the left than it does the right 🙄

Fuck that princess out of your life, keep her blocked. She was out of order on all of it, from messaging you rather than publicly state her disagreement, to calling your view extreme (I could show her extreme and it's nothing like as tame as that!) and finally, the nasty little dig about you being hormonal. Wanting a GE when we're being "governed" by a self selected bunch of right wing nutjobs is nothing to do with being pregnant nor extreme. When she's got her own place, pays all her own bills and doesn't rely on her parents to continue sheltering her - and when she's offered a fulsome apology for her complete fucking ignorance - then you could think about being friends again. Until then, she can join all the Tories in my life, in the fucking bin.

I can't be friends with people if I know theyre Tories. It's not simply a different view, it's about values and the wilful ignorance of what they have done to the country that I can't stomach. The selfishness is beyond my comprehension, therefore a friendship is not on the table.

Being selective about friendships is really not the same as supporting the values of the right.

It depends on what way she was gushing?

Was she just celebrating finally having an ethnic minority PM? Is she an ethnic minority or Indian woman herself?

If either are true, and the post was just about that and not his politics, I would find your comment insensitive and completely unnecessary too. And tbh I always find it's the covert racists who have to caveat every success, just to knock us back down and keep us in our place.

Unless you've been living under a rock everyone knows all the shit that's been going on, it's not like you were saying anything revolutionary or riveting, just sticking the boot in on the first Indian prime minister we've ever had. If we had to caveat every celebration ever posts would become essays, just let ethnic minority people celebrate, this is already long overdue.