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.

Agree you won't talk about politics with her. If she can't stick to this then I think the friendship is done for.

It's pretty depressing how people are becoming radicalised online so frequently these days. It sounds like this friendship has become quite antagonistic.

For me being Anti Vax and pro Elon Musk would be enough to politely distance myself. I'm all for respecting people's views but there are limits.

So you want her to change so you don't have to have an uncomfortable conversation? Friendship isn't just the nice bits it's also being able to talk to the other person about issues.

Yes she has some unconventional views but you either have to move away from that particular friendship or have a conversation with her.

It’s ok for your friend to hold different views to you. The right to free speech is important.

You can either discuss those views intelligently with her or ignore them, staying quiet whilst she discusses them with somebody else in the group.
You could agree to disagree and/or just change the subject.

If her views seriously offend you, and your persuasive and well researched debates have no influence on her thinking you could agree with her that you stay off those subjects that offend you.

Or if it gets too much or she is too repetitive, you could simply let her go as a close friend and be in her company far less, concentrating instead on like-minded friendships.

What you should never do however, is pull faces, roll your eyes or make any other negative offensive body language actions towards her or behind her back, indicating that she is crazy. That would be very rude and any excuse that you don’t know you are doing it isn’t acceptable either.
If you can’t control your negative reaction, avoid being in her company at all when you know it will trigger that response in you.
Such bad manners shows you up which only serves to strengthen her position.

I agree with most other posters in thinking that pulling faces and eye rolling is not ok.
See what happens when you stop

Even if you're chatting shit?

I don't think I could be really friends with someone who is anti vax and who thinks Musk is a good person much less Trump.

Especially since they don't seem able to take challenges to their beliefs.

@Friendproblem123 jenny talks too much and you roll your eyes too much.
Can't your other friends help to get her off the subject or is it just you she pisses off?

This ^

Definitely

You don't like her and are unhappy that she has different opinions to you, so why not just move on?

I dunno why you're getting such a kicking here - some of us do have really crap poker faces, which is VERY different from an intentionally rude eye roll/face pulling response.

I don't know how you can stand to be in the same room as someone this idiotic, and to not have reacted when she had the audacity to call you uneducated is shows an astonishing level of self control.

But if you don't want to avoid her, or leave the group then play it her way, respond every time with a 'I don't agree with that, lets talk about something we are all interested in/enjoy' and change the subject.

You don't have to agree with her and you don't have to pretend you think what she is saying is ok, so don't. Be polite about it, but be direct.

If she doesn't like it, she is welcome to not bring those subjects up for discussion - having differing opinions is fine, but if you air them, you're liable to find that others disagree or find your opinion unpleasant, and she is not free of the consequences of airing her opinions, no one is!

I wouldn't be friends with someone who rolled their eyes when I spoke.
I couldn’t be friends with someone who was spouted the bible at me.

Op ,Maybe you two are better off not being friends.
You remind me of this sketch

' you are a Chancellorette not a Gif!' 😂

I'd start actually pulling her up in how crazy and ill-informed. Don't apologise for eye rolling, that legitimises her opinion and suggests you're in the wrong to think she's batshit. Behave like an idiot you've got to expect people to start treating you like an idiot

You say the others called RFK a loon too yet you’re the only one she objected to because you eye rolled. You could start to give your view immediately so she has no time to notice eye rolling.

I don't think it's ever kind to sit there and roll your eyes at a friend. However I also disagree with people telling you to just keep quiet.

With such easy access to social media it's really easy to access absolutely batshit ideas. It's then really easy to find a small bubble of people who share your views and then believe this bubble to be reality. It's actually really dangerous and imo what's contributing heavily to the growing unrest in the world. Watch the social media project on Netflix. It's a bit sensational but explains the dangers well.

People with these ideas need to be challenged imo and to accept the consequences of their 'alternate' views. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom of consequence. It isn't just your responsibility to keep your views to yourself.

MIL is a bit like this, some of the nonsense she comes out with is mind boggling.

I tend to ignore it, I've found the more you engage or try to reason with, the more ridiculous it gets.

Sorry, the documentry is called 'the social dilemma' not 'the social media project'

She is stupid.

You sound really rude OP and justifying it isn't helping your case. Either don't be in her presence or don't be rude in her presence.

That's brilliant! I hadn't seen that before.

As far as the OP's problem is concerned, I don't really understand why she can't control her face at all when her friend comes out with these ridiculous statements. Maybe it simply needs practice, as in the sketch? 🙂

I can understand why the friend feels it's rude when the OP rolls her eyes - it must feel disrespectful and dismissive.

I know someone with views on certain subjects that are very different from my own, but I don't react at all when they say something I strongly disagree with. I know that if I say anything, they will respond angrily. It's now second nature to me that I don't react at all when they raise these topics.

@Friendproblem123

Oh one thing I think your friend would firmly believe in is freedom of speech,

But what about your freedom of speech and your right to roll your eyes?

Like all these free speech advocates - it’s not ACTUALLY free speech. It’s “free speech for me, but not for thee”.

It’s “I’ve got every right to spout what ever bollocks I like, but don’t you dare react”.

I think most of us would agree that her opinions are stupid, but it doesn't help in a social situation to make it so obvious that one thinks she is stupid.

Exactly this.
If anyone spouted this bollocks at me I would roll my eyes so hard it sucked my arsehole through my eye socket!
I couldn't be friends/acquaintances with anyone who believes angels are telling them what to do and unfortunately for some of us if our mouth doesn't say it our face most certainly will.