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The original was posted on /r/twoxchromosomes by /u/Pregeneratednonsense on 2023-09-03 19:01:12.
A male friend of mine (26f), let’s call him Joe (m35) has been going way off the deep end recently. Emotionly I’m still reeling. Essentially we were a big part of each other’s support system throughout quarantine as well for context. We got used to venting to/at each other.
Recently Joe has started a trend of reaching out and lashing out at his exes in a way that has felt really disturbing to me. He probably uses reddit so I’m going to keep this as simple as possible.
The first one was his more recent ex, Elly. My understanding is that they were both toxic to each other, emotionally abusive to each other, and it ending was probably best for both of them. Well, Joe “happened to stumble on” Elly’s only fans account (which he later let slip that he searched for), tried to reach out to her, got handily rejected, and then complained to me that she was “falling into bad behaviors” and that “She isn’t making good choices for herself”. I told him it’s highly hypocritical to talk down on an ex for using a platform that he’s actively consuming, plus his own partner has an only fans!! He’s been in a bad place mentally so I kind of shrugged it off, surely he’ll get his shit together and realize he’s acting a fool, right? It was so uncharacteristic I really didn’t know how to feel.
A few weeks later he mentions a work friend, Liz. Liz is getting out of an abusive relationship. Liz comes with a lot of dysfunction- I’m not knocking on her, but Joe has a history of going after dysfunctional/ traumatized women and trying to “fix” them. We both have had issues trauma bonding, so I cautioned him to tread lightly. She ended up momentarily not having a place to stay, Joe came to me catastrophized saying he “doesn’t know what to do”. I asked him what could he do? Invite her to stay with him & his girlfriend? He agreed there was nothing he could do but continued to get involved and vent when her life was going sideways.
Few weeks after that he messages me absolutely fucking fuming. He had reached out to “yelled at” his other ex, Kate. Joe had cheated on Kate when they were married. Kate said she forgave Joe but ended up telling people about Joe’s cheating before cheating back and divorcing him for the other man. Joe was IRRATE, ranting and ranting about how Kate is an evil bitch who led him on just to hurt him etc etc etc and I’m staring at his enraged messages like…what the actual fuck are you doing messaging your exes like this?? Why are you doing this to them and yourself? What did you expect? He got defensive, told me I was being sexist, and shut down the conversation. At that point I was done being his sounding board for why all the women in his life are evil but was too busy with my own shit to fully tell him off.
Then, yesterday, he messages me and I’m surprised to find that he’s got some positive news. He’s looking into a new job in a new industry that he’s excited for. We chat for a bit before he drops that he’ll be glad to have some distance from work friend Liz because her new boyfriend just got hired at the same place and Joe doesn’t want to “be in the middle of that”. I asked how he would be in the middle, he said that Liz was moving too fast, going from one relationship to the next, she wasn’t making good choices, that it was messy, and he didn’t want to be involved when it fell apart. I found that really unsettling. He literally does not even know the other guy. It felt so r/niceguys along with his recent behavior and the fucking weird undertone of “they’re not making good choices for themselves”. Who the fuck are you to judge? You know what’s not a good choice for yourself? Fucking looking up your exes only fans and screeching at the ex wife you cheated on.
Anyway I know our friendship ends here, I’m too disturbed by how he interacts with these women, but I just needed to vent. I’m so disappointed that yet another male friend proves to be a fucking weirdo who thinks women can’t take care of themselves and blames them for all of his problems instead of taking literally any accountability for his own part in it.