To have the ‘ick’ for a friend!

[WetBandits]

Been friends with a chap for the last 10 years or so, just want to preface this by saying it’s always been purely platonic; I have no attraction towards him whatsoever so this doesn’t come from a place of jealousy! We’ve always had a very open line of communication and have been through a fair amount of shit between us which we’ve supported one another through so there aren’t really any topics of conversation that are ‘off limits’; discussing sex/relationships/general life shit is pretty normal for us and always has been.

He’s 43 and has been dating a 21 year old woman. I raised my eyebrows a bit as wasn’t sure what on earth they might have in common (she’s 21 and looks it and seems to have her shit together, he’s 43 but could easily be 10 years older than that and is a bit fucked up mentally) but so far I’ve said nothing about it. However, he now regularly jokes about having a hot, young girlfriend and it just makes my stomach turn as he’s giving me real ‘dirty old man’ vibes and I can’t seem to shake it! He asked me for advice on buying her lingerie recently and the sets he showed me made me cringe as they were far from classy.

Caught up with him this week and he mentioned that GF has been talking about wanting babies; he has a tween son from a previous relationship and has always been very clear that he only ever wanted one child. I asked him if he was going to tell her that he didn’t want any more and he said: “I would but I don’t want to lose out to someone else, and the sex is so good I don’t want someone else to have that instead.”

WIBU to distance myself a little from him despite everything we’ve seen each other through (addiction, job loss, breakups, mental breakdowns, physical illness and everything in between!) as I can’t shake the ‘creepy old man’ vibes 😩 and I hate that he knows that what he wants in life is incompatible with what she wants, but he won’t end it because he doesn’t want her to find someone else!

Or do I tell him straight that he’s being a prick and stick by him for the inevitable messy breakup?

I adore him (usually) but he’s really given me the ick and I’m so angry with him for stringing his girlfriend along.

He sounds vile. His behaviour is gross and absolutely call him out on it - he should know better! She’s barely out of her teens - he is acting in a very predatory way I’m afraid. Yuck.

He sounds like a loser - but you sound like a partaking weirdo OP by choosing the GFs lingerie - who does that? Anyway - generally speaking, addicts don't make great parents so I'd be giving the GF the lowdown on how your loser mate won't make a great babydaddy.

Well…I ghosted him after posting this because the ick ramped up to the point of no return! For six months, I’ve had him trying to contact me on every bloody social media platform, moving on to the next after I’ve blocked him on one!

I’ve kept him unblocked on WhatsApp so I can actually see what he’s messaging in case it is genuinely urgent (nothing has been!) and have learnt that she’s dumped him. Not especially proud that I ghosted him but I couldn’t bring myself to deal with the whining if I told him why I didn’t want to be friends anymore. 😬

HOWEVER, life suddenly seems a lot better without him dragging me down all the time. I’ve just read my OP and replies and while I am cringing at myself for having entertained his shit for so long, I’m still glad I posted because it helped me put an end to it! No more emotional leeching 🙅🏼‍♀️

❤

That's not the ick, the ick is when some small personal habit or quirk of appearance suddenly puts you off someone. What you are experiencing is the realisation that someone you thought was a decent person, is actually a selfish bastard.