So I'm posting this less as a rant and more as a lesson learned. You don't need to expend any emotional labour to make me feel better.

So as I mentioned last month, my oldest friend came to visit. We used to be super close. I do feel that I owe him a lot as he helped me out of my shell when I was a teenager. His dad is more a father to me than my actual dad. All this changed when he became a massive reactionary since as his life took him from guy with an actual job to a member of the bourgeoisie. His opinions on a whole host of things has become super shitty, which is super tragic as he was a half decent guy when he was a lib.

As he left to go to the airport, he told me that he loves me and that we're family. He said he'll always be a resource that he can rely on if things go shitty, which honestly is good as I don't talk to my family anymore. I think he really enjoyed the time spent together.

The thing is, I had to shelve a lot of my needs and boundaries to spend time with him. I didn't realise this before, but I don't have any single friend or acquaintance casually say r-slurs or other unkind neurodivergent labels around. And no other person who I meet has real problems blasting past my well explained boundaries. "Please don't talk about health stuff around me", then goes on anti-vaxx rants every day. "I don't want to hear you talk about trans people", and he proceeds to talk about every bad experience he's had with a gender queer person since 2002 every single fucking day. I even shelved my feelings with veganism and covid consciousmess: ya I masked around him and ate my veg meals alone, but it sucks to be with someone on the other side so much.

Don't bother trying to console me on this, because I knew it would be this way before we met. I tried to help him out: him complaining about service workers not giving a good attitude just made him look like an asshole, and of course it just led to pointless bickering. I've expressed multiple times that I have no interest in Joe Rogan, but he keeps trying to sneak him in or berate me for not listen. Bro, I don't enjoy your podcast. So when we hang out and a after we part, I just feel physically sick. There's no what this is sustainable.

Sorry comrades. I wish I had the personality to get angry immediately and chew someone out on the spot. My way has always been to ponder on what happened and choose the correct words, and this is what I'll do in this situation.

I'll just mention that my friend does testosterone/steroids (is there a difference?). He's also heavily involved in a fuck ton of pseudoscience. There's absolutely zero chance that he'll turn away from that, as he'll have to give up all the new income that he's receiving from it.