Friend pissed off with me as I can’t seem to control my irritation

[Friendproblem123]

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.

Why do her opinions affect you on such an emotional level?

I have friends who a Christian, Muslim and I'm an atheist. I have friends who believe in ghosts. I have friends who support each different political party. I don't censor what my friends talk to me about. If I disagree with them I say, " I disagree with you on that." and then I move on. Eye-rolling and face pulling is an immature and unhelpful conflict response. Would you eye-roll at someone who said that they prayed to God for someone's good health? Her beliefs are HER beliefs. She isn't forcing you to believe them by talking about them.

I think when we truly love and care about someone and they have wonderful qualities, we can forgive them some batshit views, smile and nod and ignore. I'm wondering if there is something else about this woman that you have decided you don't like.

That’s a really insightful post, thank you, I’m going to think about what you’ve said.

Your friendship has met the end of the line - you aren’t friends and don’t even like each other anymore

You are only still meeting up as historically you were friends. It’s now very toxic with nasty comments and reactions from both of you.

Be the bigger person and step away saying we don’t have anything in common anymore- the other friends are adults and can decide if they see you separately

I've ended two friendships in the last year, partly because I find their views unplalatable but more because they really seemed to want to monologue, and snap at me or shush me if I treated it as a friendly conversation with an exchange of views possible.
I found myself rolling my eyes a lot, and one of them didn't mind that as much as he minded me speaking.
I escalated to saying "I know, I know", when he started, and quoting him verbatim, speaking more loudly when he tried to stop me. He said: "Stop being so abusive!" which was my tipping point and the end of all my attempts at conversation, though he tried to keep arguing by text message.
After that experience, I'd say start backing off and avoiding conversation with her starting right now. That way you have more hope of restarting the friendship in future if you both want to.

If you can't treat your friend with respect when you disagree, then you're not much of a friend.

It's not about what she believes in. It's because of her zealotry. The new converts are always the most zealous. No one likes an uncompromising fanatic.

I'm not great at poker faces either, my usual response to people like is "alright mate, I know we're not going to agree and you won't be able to convince me, let's talk about something else! Friend 3, how is your new dog?"

I'm another who thinks rolling your eyes and pulling faces is a bit mean spirited.

It's kind of implying there's something wrong with her for having alternative views. They might not be your views, they may or may not be batshit but what happened to being able to sit and talk open mindedly without judging each other.

I quite like Joe Rogan by the way 😂 but fully appreciate there are a million others who don't. It doesn't offend me. Variety is the spice of life and all that ...

Everyone has differences. If the person brings lots of good to your life but they have some pitfalls (some might say being a Trump supporter) then just take the good with the bad.

Also, RFK was a democrat. He comes from one of the most legendary left leaning families in US history. Then he became an independent. He is also a very intelligent man who is shunned by some for being a bit 'out there'. But that appointment is going to be a good one for America. The same can't be said for Elon Musk ... Tell your friend 😝😂

Nice response :-) I think @PureBoggin gave the best advice offered here on this question

@PureBoggin one of the best responses I've seen in a long time. Agree with this wholeheartedly.

Exactly this. I too would find you're friend's viewpoints objectionable but most people especially those who claim to believe in "live and let live would just keep their verbal and non-verbal reactions neutral. If you've reached adulthood without being able to control your facial expressions when you disagree with someone that's a you problem. You may not realize it but this is most likely holding you back in other parts of life as well.

Rather than roll eyes
just politely express your own pov or just say nothing and change the subject

she was really rude calling you uneducated tho
that’s shots fired really

Oops meant to quote @Cardinalita90

Yes she definitely shouldn't have called you uneducated. That wasn't very nice either.

I can't be bothered to waste time or breath on non-vaxers or trump fans. So my advice would be to avoid engaging with her completely.

Really? I've been part of a good number of different friend groups over the years and there's often wone person in the group who rubs me the wrong way. But group dynamics are complicated. Nobody wants to have to choose between which friend gets to stay in the group. Even if someone is expressing unpopular views it is often the one who speaks up, rolls their eyes or otherwise creates conflict who ends up ostracized.

I'm glad "Jenny", has been pulling you up on your disrespectful behaviour.

You are incredibly rude - both about her, and to her face. You are no friend of Jenny's and I hope she strengthens her boundaries and chooses her friends more carefully.

You're either live and let live, or you're not. You're just coming across as rude and judgemental on this thread. Re-read your first comment - you've called her beliefs "bollocks", is that a way to respect a friend?

People absolutely can have solid friendships with others with opposite views, I am in that position. The thing is though, it only works when you both respect each other's right to hold different views. You clearly don't and are openly rude and disrespectful about it. Honestly, you should horrible.

I think I may be Jenny.

I agree with none of what she seems to believe in but if you're pulling faces or rolling eyes when she speaks that's just very basic disrespect. You can disagree without being disrespectful about it.

I'd go to her and I'd own it. I'd say you don't agree with a lot of her beliefs but you acknowledge that you haven't handled that the best and at times you've made faces or rolled eyes and you can see how that is disrespectful. I'd say that at times you do get frustrated because you disagree but you could have handled it better and apologise. I would also ask her to refrain from calling you uneducated at the same time though.

What do you like about her?

From OP's opening post - haven’t even realised I’ve been doing it, ie the eye rolling and face pulling.

So, my question - are you actually eye rolling and face pulling ? If you're not sure, can you ask the other friends what they saw?

I'd definitely be eye rolling internally at her views but externally is very rude - I couldn't imagine any of my friends doing that while I spoke.

I think you have been very restrained at merely eye rolling and I would have to tell her exactly what I thought of those views! But I wondered what you liked about her to make her a friend in the first place.

Stupid views deserve eye rolling and people arguing against them. Real life is not an echochamber.

In my mind, I might privately translate this as "I'm worried about my gallstones and I really want to feel there's something extra I can to help, and things that are a bit woo just feel to me like they might work, so I get some extra reassurance and hope from doing them". The fact that the woo she's hit on is this ayawaska stuff isn't really the important thing, it could be anything really. I'd be inclined to respond to that implicit message rather than her literal words every time.

@Friendproblem123 i think both are being unreasonable would you be eye rolling if for example she was catholic and she was talking about Jesus rising on the 3rd day etc? Or would you just respect her beliefs. In the same vein calling you uneducated because you don’t share the same views of her is unreasonable either, both of you need to be more respectful to others POVs even if one is extreme (as long as no one is being harmed!)

Practise the "let them" theory 🤣