Skip Navigation
relationship_advice Relationship Advice @lemmy.world
latenightnoir @lemmy.world

My best (and pretty much only) friend of over a decade is displaying increasingly transphobic and racist views, and I don't know how to handle it

For context, we're both past the 30-year mark, with myself in my mids and him pushing 40. We've known each other from Uni, have been best friends since, and the entire thing pretty much turned into a siblinghood, with his family sort of "adopting" me (I'm perpetually invited to all of their family events and gatherings, his parents love having me around, etc.) We've been there for eachother through some of our worst times, and we got along really well.

That is, until the Pandemic hit. This has been going on for a while now, but it started getting more pronounced during the Pandemic, when he went from sharing edgy memes to expressing belief in the principles behind those memes (think "I identify as an attack helicopter," "immigrants are exclusively to blame for the downfall of countries," 4chan type jokes about minorities, etc.).

On my end, I tried to discuss these things with him at first, trying to get a sense of why he was doubling down on these things, and the closest I could come to understand it is that it's a relatively irrational fear, fuelled by his tendency to not really explore the veracity of the news he reads - as an example related to his transphobia, it's like he refuses to accept that sex and gender are not inextricably linked to one another, not on a logical basis, but on a "I feel this is incorrect" basis.

Things got pretty tense back in 2022, when I felt the need to call a time off on our friendship for almost an entire year. I just couldn't play it cool when he randomly blurted out something profoundly inconsiderate and devoid of empathy. Conversations turned from heated debates to outright arguments, I could tell that the gap was widening with every subsequent one, and his beliefs seemed to solidify.

We reconciled in 2023 after his wife reached out to me expressing regret that we would lose the friendship over "politics," tried to get back to acting normally around one another, yet the same issues popped up again. This time, with even less empathy. The most recent example was when we both learnt that Trump got elected president again. I expressed a sense of empathy and regret for all of the people who would no longer be allowed to get abortions, the risk he posed to HRT beneficiaries, the danger he posed to all minorities, etc. The only thing he could come up with is "I feel nothing, they deserve it. Did it to themselves." I called him out on his utter lack of empathy, we had a brief, but poignant argument, and now we've barely been talking for two weeks. He periodically drops a message like nothing happened, but I am beyond hesitant to reply. Everything is cold and superficial.

Now, I tried to understand him and his situation... He's a relatively fresh father (his daughter is 2 years old), he is aware of the fact that the world isn't doing too well, but seems to be in denial about it which I sort of understand as being a method of self-protection, but I just cannot abide by his views anymore. No amount of panic or self-defence justifies this in my opinion.

I just don't know what to do. I mean, I do know, or at least my subconscious does, but... I don't know, guess the age and depth of our friendship makes me hesitant to drop it, although this is just the sunk cost fallacy at play... The fact that I feel I'm past my socialite days and knowing that I probably won't make any more friends any time soon doesn't much help, either.

Guess I'm just looking for confirmation around what I already know is the only option...

54 comments

  • I do hate to send traffic back to reddit, but there's a support group back there called r/foxbrain that we don't have the equivalent of. They can help you out more if you need, this is specifically what they're for.

    Credit to u/ThatDanGuy over there for the following. This is more about people that specifically love Trump, but the conversational techniques can be applied more universally:

    Let me give my two strategies:

    1. "I Don't Trust the Guy."

    My current favorite approach is to be as simple and vague as possible. “I don’t trust the guy.” Repeat every time someone says anything about him or any other nutcase. Like a broken record. It gives them no where to go. If they do go into meltdown just cross your arms and repeat it.

    Do NOT argue. Do not reason with them. Do not give them anything but those few words. It gives them no place to go. And it does put them in a bind. They and their dear leader will have to bear the responsibility of anything and everything that goes wrong. You bear no burden of proof or responsibly. Their guy won, so you need not defend any of your positions.

    This avoids the problem of having to spend time arguing. And if you were to make a prediction, it won't be proven until it comes true. What if something happens that mitigates your prediction? For example, if Trump only deports a few people, but makes a really big show of it. His voters will be convinced he did what he said he would (he didn't in our scenario, but they won't believe that) and then they will gloat over their false reality. So don't give them anything they can win. Give them nothing.

    2.: The Socratic Method.

    This can be used defensively during a single encounter. It can be used to shut them up. However, it is intended more of an every time you have to talk to this person approach. Still, it may give you some tools you can use during one off encounters.

    First, Rules of Engagement: Evidence and Facts don't matter, reasoning is useless. You no longer live in a shared reality with this person. You can try to build one by asking strategic questions about their reality. You also use those questions to poke holes in it. You never make claims or give counter arguments. You need to keep the burden of proof on them. They should be doing all the talking, you should be doing none.

    You can use ChatGPT or an LLM of your choice to help you come up with Socratic questions. When asking ChatGPT, give it some context and tell it you want Socratic questions you can use to help persuade a person.

    The stolen election is an easy one for this. There is no evidence, and they will have no evidence to site but wild claims from Giuliani, Powell and the Pillow guy. Trump and his lawyer lost EVERY court case, and when judges asked for evidence, Giuliani and Powell would admit in court that there was NO evidence.

    So, here is my interaction with ChatGPT on the stolen election topic, you can take it deeper than this if you like.

    https://chatgpt.com/share/377c8a82-e6e0-4697-a9ae-a0162aa36061

    A trick you can use is to ask them how certain they are of their belief in this topic is before you start down the Socratic method. On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you that the election was stolen and there was irrefutable evidence that showed that? And ask the question again after you've stumped them. Making them admit you planted doubt quantifies it for themselves. And if they still give you a 10 afterwards it tells you how unreachable they may be.

    Things to keep in mind:

    You are not going to change their minds. Not in any quick measurable time frame. In fact, it may never happen. The best you can hope for is to plant seeds of doubt that might germinate and grow over time. Instead, your realistic goal is to get them to shut up about this shit when you are around. People don't like feeling inarticulate or embarrassed about something they believe in. So they'll stop spouting it.

    The Gish Gallop. They may try to swamp you with nonsense, and rattle off a bunch of unrelated "facts" or narratives that they claim proves their point. You have to shut this down. "How does this (choose the first one that doesn't) relate to the elections?" Or you can just say "I don't get it, how does that relate?" You may have to simply tell them it doesn't relate and you want to get back to the original question that triggered the Gallop.

    "Do your own research" is something you will hear when they get stumped. Again, this is them admitting they don't know. So you can respond with "If you're smarter than me on this topic and you don't know, how can I reach the same conclusion you have? I need you to walk me through it because I can't find anything that supports your conclusion."

    Yelling/screaming/meltdown: "I see you are upset, I think we should drop this for now, let everyone calm down." This whole technique really only works if they can keep their cool. If they go into meltdown just disengage. Causing a meltdown can be satisfying, and might keep them from talking about this shit around you in the future, but is otherwise counterproductive.

    This technique requires repeated use and practice. You may struggle the first time you try it because you aren't sure what to ask and how they will respond. It's OK, you can disengage with a "OK, you've given me something to think about. I'm sure I'll have more questions in the future."

    Good luck, and Happy Critical Thinking!

    Bonus: This book was actually written by a conservative many years ago, but the technique and details here work both ways and are way more in depth than what I have above. It only really lacks my recommendation to use ChatGPT or similar LLM.

    How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide

    https://a.co/d/bqW9RPN

    edit because I got the DanGuy's name wrong.

  • The "only" part is a big problem, although I am sure you can get a lot of advice here about meeting new people, but I will confirm your option that cutting him off is the right thing to do. I was in a worse situation than you with my best friend and I cut him off and I am now glad I did:

    I met him when I was in middle school here in Indiana- I came from a tiny private elementary school where the sixth grade glass had 11 kids and the ones I was friends with went to the other middle school in town. I was a weird kid and I was bullied a lot, so I kept my mouth shut for a lot of seventh grade and made no friends. He was one of the first friends I made in eighth grade and we hit it off immediately and never ran out of things to talk about because we had so many of the same interests. We also could make each other laugh really easily. It was a great friendship. We hung out together most days and even in college, since we both went to the university in the town where we lived, we hung out all the time.

    He ended up being the best man at my wedding. When he was in a long term relationship in the U.S., it was before gay marriage was legal. When it ended, he moved down to Mexico for a while and found a new boyfriend who he snuck into the country illegally. We let them stay with us in when we were living in L.A. for over two weeks while they got things arranged. The boyfriend basically spoke no English and it was a super awkward time, but we put up with it.

    Some time after that, when my daughter was a newborn, he called me up one day and said he was going to do a pop-up restaurant event in the town where we grew up and where he was now living again and asked me for a $400 loan. He's a really brilliant guy and excelled when he went into a career in restaurants and managing them, so this was plausible. I told him he knew we didn't have any money right now because we had a baby, but maybe call my mom and ask her. Which he did and she gave it to him.

    Now I knew he had what was essentially a life-long drug and alcohol problem. It had never ruled his life, but it had definitely held him back more than once. But I really didn't know what a lie of a life he was showing to me. Of course, the $400 was probably for drugs. There was definitely no pop-up restaurant. My mom and I asked him to pay her back multiple times and he kept making excuses. Then one day he ran into her in a grocery store and he hugged her and started chatting with her as if the $400 thing never happened. It was really clear it was never going to be paid back.

    So it hurt. A lot. But I cut him out of my life. I knew I had to. Who knows what other lies he had told or would tell to try to manipulate people so close to him? That was a bit more than fourteen years ago and I talked to him only once since then- he asked to make amends, I told him to pay back my mom, he never did. As far as I am concerned, I will not be talking to him again.

    And then more recently I realized that I could look up his criminal history in Indiana. His criminal record was over two pages long. I knew he was in jail for a couple of days because of a DUI when he was in his 20s, basically the entire time since he had returned to Indiana in his late 30s to his late 40s, the age we are now, he had been arrested multiple times on drug and fraud charges. At the time I looked him up, he was in prison for possession of meth cooking equipment (he's out now). Bear in mind, he's not some dumb hick. He composed classical music in high school and got into the Indiana University School of Music, a really prestigious music school, for music composition, which is not an easy thing to do. He ended up in jail because he was cooking meth. I started contacting all of our mutual friends and found out all of them had cut him out of their lives at various points in the last fifteen to twenty years as well.

    So yeah, it's hard. It hurts. But do it. Definitely do it.

54 comments