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.

You have 2 options carry on and she will keep pulling you up on it. But the eye rolling is rude and giving away your true feelings. Even if you don’t agree with her ideas which are ‘out there’.
Or just be honest “jenny I do not agree with x we are going to have to agree to disagree” She was testing you with the bible question and that’s not ok either.

This. If you disagree tell her why.

Exactly, translate your eye roll into words. Or change Your eye roll for a chinny reckon, if you need help with it then Lance and Andy on the Detectorists have it nailed.

or alternatively tell her if she didn’t spout such claptrap you’d not be rolling your eyes.

It’s difficult, because if you keep quiet or give positive body language (ie nodding/smiling) then she will assume you all agree with her & keep spouting shite.

However openly negative body language is considered rude & disagreeing with her will just lead to unpleasant arguments - which will annoy your other friends.

How do the rest of the group feel about her bollocks? I don’t think you should pull away from your friends because of her. Maybe if you annoy her enough she will avoid you instead. Although obviously the adult thing to do is have a conversation with her. Apologise for eye rolling, but tell her you need to agree to disagree on her views and suggest topics to avoid when you are together.

I agree with @Allswellthatendswelll - why can't you just say 'Actually, I disagree/don't believe in that'? What's wrong with healthy debate? Isn't that partly what a friendship group is for?

Maybe you can let a bit of harmless woo go, agree to disagree; but if someone were, say, defending alternative medicine or chakra healing for cancer, then as a cancer survivor I'd have some robust counter-opinions on that...

My thoughtS are that there isn’t an optimal outcome for this dilemma, as any decision comes with its drawbacks.
What won’t change, I think, is your friend’s behaviour. If she’s wacky enough to espouse all of these ideas and conspiracy theories, she absolutely will not be someone who is willing to compromise in conversation.
If you need this friendship group, you will need to suck it up, stop rolling your eyes and just allow her to speak.
If you value your own integrity and can’t deal with her going on, you’ll need to pull away from her meaning you’re also pulling away from the group. Tbf, if the group are allowing this, maybe they’re not for you either?

She is entitled to her opinions and you are entitled to yours. Stop with the rude eye rolling for a start. Maybe give each other a miss for a while. You both sound as annoying as each other

What happens if, instead of eye rolling and dismissing her views, you engage with them, debate her and challenge her thinking? It doesn't have to be aggressive, a polite and respectful discussion on why she holds those views, where does it come from. You can then explain why you disagree and the problem with her sources (if they are a problem). Try saying tell me more instead of mocking.

I don't know how you can even stand to be in her company tbh She sounds like someone who should be given a wide berth.

I would have zero in common with this woman.

If you are unable to distance yourself because of the four friend dynamic I think it’s best you don’t react at all. Just let it all go over your head.

Why are you even friends with her ?
Ok she's a bit alternative , but it's obvious you don't like her .

Friend is being rude if she is talking at length about her views on things others present don’t wish to talk about, and/or behaving in ways that make dissent or requests to agree to disagree or change the subject difficult.

Love MN! Love MN! Everyone is a health expert, political expert and an expert in macro and microeconomics. Everyone thinks they know more than Trump, Johnstone, Biden, Musk, Farage or Harris. Nobody ever says 'we know nothing, we don't have the information our PMs and Presidents have to pass judgement'.

Why don’t you try not being so critical of her and actually ‘live and let live’? If you really think she’s as bad as you’re making out here then drop her

Yet the friend calls her uneducated for not subscribing to crazy woo batcave views? That’s not rude?

To be honest, OP, I’d find it hard not to laugh if I heard some of that crazy stuff. I used to have a colleague like that-I had to change the subject or leave the room to avoid insulting her by shrieking with laughter. She was fun and kind but I’d do anything to
avoid those kind of conversations. If her friendship means a lot to you, maybe speak to her and say you have different views on a few things so shall we avoid those subjects?

Exactly. Total disrespect

I'm genuinely interested in what vortex healing actually is? I've never heard of it!

The eye rolling is probably quite hurtful, I know u don't realise you're doing it but I would be worried to open my mouth if someone kept rolling their eyes at me, however, I also feel that people do not need to be force-fed opinions/views on stuff, all is does is create bad feelings unless you're very lucky someone agrees with every single thing u say, so if this was her on here asking for advice, I would say your opinions aren't wrong or right, they are opinions not facts and not everyone will agree with them so maybe refrain from constantly bringing stuff like that up especially if people eye roll at you because it just won't end well.

Calling you uneducated was uncalled for and to me sounded like a way to hurt you in regards to your eye rolling, I think this all needs to be sorted otherwise it might end up becoming a massive fall out which would be a shame.

'Subtitle face'was a fairly recent social media trend and tbh I think it's deployed frequently as an excuse to be vile. Like the smelly colleague thread and the faux innocence about deploying bullying tactics to undermine.

I'm autistic and spend so much time concentrating on what my face is doing and trying to ensure it's the 'right response. There's can't and there's won't.

If someone rolled their eyes every time I spoke I'd start being rude too.

I have an old friend like this. But I try to just remain non committal when she goes into the woo. Funny enough she broke up with a guy, partly because he was even more ' out there ' than she was.
My dB is a lovely man but he went down the rabbit hole during Covid. His current obsession is the carnivore diet. Genuinely worried about us killing ourselves by eating Weetabix. Or something. I'm afraid it's everywhere OP. Wish I had some nice glib response you could give her. Best to just nod along and , hopefully, wait it out?

The views this woman is spouting need to be ridiculed and laughed at

Those views are extreme -extremely harmful and extremely disrespectful to science and human progress broadly. We can’t just sit and keep a polite straight face and entertain these ideas as if they are harmless.

They (the ideas) are degrading human society and the friend is a dissemination mechanism who is being used to spread them.

Freedom of speech = freedom to offend, to laugh and roll your eyes at that speech. This woman needs a reality check from kind friends - or to face the social consequences of her radicalisation.

I think you are being too nice to her. Don't eye roll, just tell her time you don't agree with her

I wouldn't be friends with someone who I thought chatted shit

What it comes down to, IMO, is that you may no longer be compatible? If you are finding it so hard to palate her thoughts/beliefs that you are struggling to keep a straight face (I would be too), then you need to consider whether you really want to continue the friendship? She may prefer to find friends who share her beliefs and it may be the catalyst for the others in your group of four, who possibly feel caught between you both, to step up and assert their boundaries too? [These may actually align with your friends though, so be prepared.]

You would be doing her a kindness to simply have the conversation that her attitudes on many subjects make you feel uncomfortable and that you are sorry if you convey that through perceived eye rolling (you say you are unaware, so it sounds as though you are not intentionally trying to undermine her by making eye-rolling faces at your other friends) but you would rather those topics were avoided going forward - and/or reduce contact if this is does not happen.

It would be no different if a friend of many years suddenly found God or Islam or became a vegan/animal rights activist and became obsessed with sharing their enthusiasm - it would be understandable to feel a distinct wedge form between you. People change and if this move towards a way out or far right position is difficult to palate, you simply have to distance yourself. It’s fine to tell the others in your circle that you no longer wish to engage in the 4-person meet ups but that you’d still love to see them when they are free. They may thank you for it too.

You don't like her, so just move on.

I'm happy to hear them once or twice. But that's not what OP is having to put up with.

If I had a friend who was so out of synch with my approach to life, and who constantly went on about these subjects and didn't actually listen to me, I'd give up on them.

My oldest couple friends suddenly started watching GB news and developed opinions at odds to mine, and which weren't compatible with the voluntary work that I do with a particular group of people. It was hard. But I tried to stay calm in our discussion and share some of my stories, and on their part they listened with compassion.
I suspect they still have the same general views about the kind of people I support, as a group. But we steer away from the general topic, and they continue to ask pleasantly about my work.

I don't get the impression that OP 's friend is a listener.