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...
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.
I've heard a saying that sometimes it's better to pay someone to not see them again. $400 is a bit high though!
Plus, he would have come back for more.
Thank you so much for sharing this, and I'm so very sorry you had to go through it. It sounds absolutely horrible...
But you're right... This isn't just a difference of opinion, this is a pretty big difference in values, and I don't think he'll mellow out any time soon...
Edit: related to him being my only friend, it's a relatively recent occurrence. I live in a country where progressive... anything isn't really all that much of a thing for most people, and the Pandemic has been disgustingly effective at bringing out people's true colours. Which is why I had to cut it off with a lot of people I knew. Just couldn't handle their gratuitous toxicity anymore...