Friends for a good few years. Live close by, and we’re in a tight friendship group of 4 as well as a wider group.
friend (let’s call her Jenny), has always been quite an alternative thinker, but has had a successful career which she’s recently retired from.
when I say alternative, examples would be:
vehemently anti vax, especially covid
believes in angels
is doing an online course in vortex healing
gets most of her opinions from Joe Rogan
thinks Trump is not all bad
thinks Elon musk also good
it’s never been too much of a problem, I generally live and let live, and some things are genuinely interesting as alternative viewpoints.
over the last 6 months or so, she’s been pulling me up in groups when I’ve pulled faces, rolled my eyes etc at some of the things she’s come out with, purely accidentally and haven’t even realised I’ve been doing it.
for wxample a few months ago the four of us were talking about trump’s picks for jobs. He’s chosen RFK as health minister and apparently he’s anti vax. I’d never heard of the guy but others were saying he’s a bit of a loon and apparently I rolled my eyes in the convo.
jenny told me off for being disrespectful.
i shrugged it off, put it down to Jenny being a bit unwell and overtired (she’s on a weird health program involving some seriously weird stuff).
few more times this happened, again I’d sort of apologise and try to gloss over it.
we all went away last weekend and it came to a head.
again we were sitting round, Jenny starts saying how amazing vortex healing is, I didn’t realise but she told me off for pulling a face.
mext day we were all having lunch.
jenny is talking about someone else and said “she’s like [friendproblem], she’s uneducated.
i ignored it.
next morning she asks me what the bible means when it says, if thine eye offends thee, pluck it out, and said does it mean if your friend isn’t getting on with you, stop seeing them.
i just said, dunno, maybe google it?
managed to get thru rest of weekend without any more incidents.
sorry this is so long.
my other friends have also remarked on her more extreme views, like taking ivermectin to cure covid etc, but they seem much better at not reacting. They tend to just go silent, change subject or walk away.
if we weren’t all practically next door to each other and very enmeshed it would be easy to just drop and block, but that isn’t really possible.
so my question is, do i:
still see her, entertain all this angel/woo bollocks
ask for a talk to clear the air, with no real expectation that she’ll see my point of view
avoid seeing her at all, which will also affect my friendship with the others.
sorry this is ridiculously long but it’s really affecting me.