'AITA for being disgusted with my best friend lately? She's being really mean on dating apps.'

"AITA for being disgusted with my best friend lately?"

Me (M20) and my best friend (F19) have been friends for many years now. She wanted to convince me to get a certain job that wouldn't align with my passions and future plans at all, only because she's got a similar one already and doesn't want to deal with it's restrictions alone. I ended up choosing a philosophical university degree that I'll be pursuing, and I am more than happy with.

Ever since then she's started trashing people to study philosophical things for not "making enough money" (my focus has always been a job that reflects my passions rather than forcing a high paying bureau job, unlike her). That was the first thing that made me want to distance myself.

Now the other thing, recently her colleagues have convinced her to use dating apps. She's a lesbian, so I assumed she'd set her preference to women, right? She didn't, though. Instead she actively searched for men, some our age, some older. She did this, as she said, to get more likes and attention.

She read out some messages she got to me and made fun of them, innocent things like asking her out on a movie date. "Ugly, musty men shouldn't even dare to like my profile" type comments. She also purposely set her interests to appeal to men, and then got mad when she got DMs about said interests.

The few girls she did talk to were mostly studying the same stuff as me, as we live in an university city. She was DMing them, saying it's silly to dream of getting anywhere with that degree and talked down to them A TON. Just how she did to me. I honestly feel hella disgusted by her behavior. There were a few other minor things as well, but I only wanted to talk about those, because they bothered me the most.

I asked my parents, and other friends, wanting to hear if I overreact or not, but I think I'm pretty certain I don't want to have people in my life that treat others so badly for attention and I feel like we're going into completely opposite directions. I don't have many other friends, but so be it.

The thing is, though, I don't exactly want to confront her. I've attempted before and made it clear that I find her behavior very questionable, but I don't think it'd benefit me to have a proper conversation about this. AITA if I cut her off without talking about it?

The internet quickly weighed in with their thoughts on the matter.

Red-Octopus91 wrote:

NTA. Maybe don’t even confront her, just slowly drift off into the horizon and far away from her.

Beautiful-Cup4161 wrote:

Shoulder devil here! This is the PERFECT age and circumstance to just drift away. It happens all the time around this time in life, even to people who want to stay friends. It wound be so natural that no one would blink an eye at it happening.

OP responded:

Exactly, I think at the end of the day, I won't be super upset about ending the friendship. I just feel like I need a lot of support to bring myself to confront it "the proper way" with explanations and all ?

HighonAltitude123 wrote:

This is my go-to method of cutting people out of my inner circle. I have a "friend" who isn't necessarily a bad person, but she tends to steer every conversation into pointless gossip. She's not the sharpest tool in the shed so I guess this limits the topics she can converse about and she loves to talk. Hence the gossip.

There are a few other things I have found annoying but like OP, it would be very difficult to confront her directly without creating a nasty scene.

I've just been gradually avoiding her, taking hours or days to respond to messages, not inviting her to every outing, etc. It's taking a while, but she's started to invite people to outings and excluding me...YAAY!! It's working. OP is NTA. This person sounds like a judgmental cow.

OP responded:

Thank you really ? & I'm glad it's working with your friend as well!!

mileyxmorax wrote:

You've done nothing wrong just reading this I'm genuinely uncomfortable with her behaviour it seems like she's got a lot of growing up to do and confronting her isn't really in your best interest, you're both heading down different paths so let the drift happen naturally, move on and find people who are a better fit for you.

OP responded:

Thank you, that's really sweet to hear :) I really want to have friends that improve my life, and let me do the same for them, and I feel like this is the first small step towards that!

Dynkofromthenorth wrote:

NTA. My advice is to grey rock her. Make yourself too uninteresting to engage with and she'll remove herself from your life.

OP responded:

Ohh, I've never heard of that! I'll try to grey rock her and respond less and less in general. thank you for your reply :)

Briiiiyonce wrote:

NTA. Cut her off. She doesn’t deserve an explanation after her disgusting behavior. I guess you could send her a brief message about why you’re doing it before you block her. Maybe she could use it as a learning experience and understand she can’t treat people like this because no one will want anything to do with her.

OP responded:

I don't think she'll learn from me :( I already tried to tell her my opinion on matters like the dating apps but she just comes up with excuses or cuts the conversations short whenever I try, but thank you so much for your advice!

Peachesl732 wrote:

NTA she is showing you who she really is. And she doesn't seem like a good person.

OP responded:

Thank you so much! I believe she was a great friend for a long time but over the past two years, I've noticed so many small things that seemed off. Gradually she just turned into a more judgmental personal overall, and that's not something I want to surround myself with. :(

noxin449 wrote:

NTA, though I have a slightly different take. If you two both were best friends for years I would give her an explanation even if it is painful. If you just drift off she could come back many a time and demand answers. Just telling her and cutting that tie would be good for you both and then it leaves no mysteries.

OP responded:

I feel like it'd definitely be more fair to her, I just doubt I dare to talk about it with her now, without making a fool of myself, honestly. I forgot to mention that she's started being friends with people that used to bully me back in school and I'd honestly rather not have them laugh about me more all together. ?

noxin449 responded:

Ohhhh ok, this is moving in a bit of a more negative direction than first anticipated. I take it back, just ghost of it does your mental health well. This is so disgusting she doesn’t deserve a single word. poof you’re gone.

OP responded:

Thank you so much!! looking back I didn't mention a lot of smaller details cause I was pretty upset writing the post, but yeah. All those tiny behaviors seem more negative to me in the grand scheme now, so thank you for your help :))