Oct 25

Oct 25 How to Lose a Friend & Alienate People

One of my oldest and dearest friends has become a passionate anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist. We have travelled the world and been through births, deaths, and marriages together yet since COVID arrived, we are worlds apart. She’s sent me countless links to COVID-conspiracy theories and posts that push the anti-vaccine and anti-mask agendas but she’s not open to any further discussion about it. I’ve tried a number of different approaches; I’ve patiently listened to her arguments, I’ve read all of the information she’s sent me to try and understand her views and where she’s getting them from and I’ve tried to carefully question her on some of those sources (like Pete Evans). I read widely and consider myself pretty well informed so it’s definitely been challenging to digest the information that she’s treating as gospel, much of which is unhinged, unproven and frankly dangerous.

She won’t even let me express my own views because she thinks mainstream media is just fake news. The few conversations we’ve had seem to have only emboldened her position so I’ve very reluctantly stopped trying. She’s found her voice and she’s not listening to her closest friends (me) or family. We’ve stopped speaking.

I’m deeply saddened about this and worry our friendship is over but I’m not sure what else to do?

Hey Lady,
Oh this is S.A.D. With a very real tear in my eye, I give you my sincere condolences on the passing of your friendship. For it does sound like a death and here’s why. You’ve done what any decent, supportive friend should do when a friend first joins a cult: listen (while you chew your lip from the inside). You’ve taken the time and effort to go down her particular rabbit hole, to understand why she went there and is choosing to stay put, against all reason. [I’d like to think I would have done the same were I you but just the mention of Pete Evans would have had me hitting the brakes on that friendship for good.] However, your friend hasn’t given you the airtime to share your own views on The Issues in return. And I believe this to be the true crime, worse than being a fake-news-spreading anti-vaxxer.

I can only imagine what your friendship has endured through the years; all that linking of arms and wading upstream together through a river of unsuitable partners, toxic, all-consuming jobs, unfortunate haircuts, and splintering heartbreaks. Yet this highly flammable topic has fire-bombed all of that shared history and your glue. Just as it has taken out so many friendships and families over the last 18 months the world over. It’s been a virus within a virus.

I can only imagine what your friendship has endured through the years; all that linking of arms and wading upstream together through a river of unsuitable partners, toxic, all-consuming jobs, unfortunate haircuts, and splintering heartbreaks

I’d like to give you an enormous squeeze and pat you on the back for trying so hard to hang onto the friendship. It can’t have been easy for you to watch her slap on a tin hat and join the Evans brigade. Please know that you’ve done all that you can. I mean, you could consider hiring one of those black ops agencies to ruthlessly kidnap her as she’s walking the streets without a mask, muttering about 5G. Off she would go to an undisclosed location to undergo intensive de-programming until they spat her back out as her former easy-going, sensible self. But those outfits are expensive.

What would I do? Probably pump those feelings of deep sadness, loss, and frustration out through my fingers and into an email draft. Purely for the catharsis. [Just don’t send it or it will invariably boomerang back to you with 31 new links heavily scented with conspiracy theories.] I would be letting her wade along her own river for a while. She may find her way back. Just as science found a way to protect humankind from COVID.