Have any of you ended a friendship because the other wasn't CC?

Yes covid precautions are a boundary I can’t ignore. I stay friendly with some people who don’t care about covid, like may text or hang out with them outdoors occasionally, but I can’t be close with people who don’t care about covid.

Yes. I had a close friend who leaned hard into the “only vulnerable people will be affected so I shouldn’t have to change my lifestyle” rhetoric. My entire family was high risk - my husband has a heart condition, I had a young kid at the time, my sister lived in a nursing home, and my parents were in their late 70s. I was terrified of getting COVID and losing one (or all of them). My friend was acting like nothing serious was happening.

The joke is on me though - my husband, kid and I got COVID a few years in and I’m the only one who developed Long COVID. I don’t regret being cautious (at least I didn’t kill any of my family) but it really sucks to be so careful and still have these long-term consequences.

Yes, I think it’s normal. People drift apart for various reasons all the time, including a change in values.

If you asked “I am changing my friend group because all my friends party constantly and do hard drugs and I’m not into that,” then no one would ask questions. It’s not different if your friends are risky about COVID and you’re not into that, either.

Wishing you the best with this :)

I have a few long time friends who are still coviding but the majority are not. I still text/video call with some that are not, but simply don't attend invites. I think the quality of the interaction is what keeps friendships. So for those people who are the more superficial on the surface friendships- yes, those fade away. Or those where people absolutely only want to interact in person- and that's okay. I've made peace with the change and see this time as one which requires flexibility while honoring my safety and community care needs too. In life we're not always going to be everyone's cup of tea but when we find people we vibe with- it's beautiful. There are still coviding people out there (even if only online), and I feel lucky every time I find new friendship that grow over this shared experience. We are out there and this sub is proof of it.

i think a good percentage of people on this sub have done this to some extent or another, including myself. hell, i know a lot of people on this sub (again, including myself) have stopped engaging w their families bc of differences in covid precautions, or lack thereof.

i don’t think you’re overreacting at all. it can certainly feel that way, but it is incredibly difficult to maintain relationships when you’re not even living in the same reality. the dissonance just becomes too much to deal w after a while. ofc, there are interactions (e.g., work) where you kinda just have to tolerate people’s lack of precautions in a lot of cases. but in other relationships, it’s completely normal to want to have shared values!

i haven’t really built up my social circle again (yet), but i have tried to engage more w covid cautious people in my area through a discord group. i think we’re all just a bit burnt out lol.

i hope you can find people around you who are covid cautious and share your values :)

I have demoted all of them to acquaintances and do not seek out their time. If someone invites me to an event, I sometimes go, always with the primary goal of showing up in a mask to remind everyone that we are still in a pandemic. I am really focusing on new relationships that share my values - it is work but people are out there.

No and I feel guilty for not cutting them off :( but the dissonance is eating me up some days more than others. I’m trying to focus on just transferring my energy and making new friends but it’s very difficult for me

It’s very hard for me to cut people out of my life for their lack of COVID precautions, but its absolutely changed all my relationships. I hold very firm in my boundaries and engage with COVID reckless people ONLY in risk mitigated ways (and not at all during COVID surges). I’m focused on building a community of new covid cautious friends (thanks covidmeetups.com!!) so I can spend more time with them, instead of reminding people I only eat outside for the 100th time.

Have lost almost all friends. A very few have stuck around who are either CC or will engage with me from a distance (but we don't live in the same area/country). It's been really stressful. Especially as I was also diagnosed with a condition that makes me at high risk but instead of support, understanding and CC I was met with conspiracy (not something I would have expected), claims I might have a mental health problem or outright intolerance to me. Staying around people like this would have driven me to an early grave in more ways than one.

Yet to find CC communities where I am (London, UK). And, don't use FB or discord for a variety of reasons least of which my ADHD brain finds them exhausting.

I'm keen to build a CC community of my own though, or jump into a pre-existing one. I'm hopeful even if right now things appear bleak.

In short: I think it's healthy mentally and physically to keep people close-by who support you and your decisions. Even if in the short-term there's some pain, the long-term gain is worth it with fulfilling relationships.

Yup - tried to actually work with people to be able to navigate them doing what they want and me being able to express how I understand the risk and violence of it, but that didn’t work out. I don’t talk to most of the people I was close to in 2019, and I’m a long-term relationship, friend for life type of person, so that was difficult. I’ve made connections with other people who are either Covid cautious or at least respectful enough of me to accept that I am. It has worked out. The old friends were dead weight. But it was immensely painful, and especially distressing to see how little people I knew cared, and how intensely they were willing to lie to me and themselves.

Never as an intentional choice to end it, but I’ve drifted from a lot a lot of people. It makes me very sad.

Yeah, all of my past friendships have ended bc they don't take precautions. I'm not gonna surround myself with people that don't understand me or prioritize my health. The grief of losing those friends has 1000% been worth finding new ones. Now I'm surrounded by people that care and I don't have to listen to them talk about stuff that hurts me. I don't have to get fomo and feel like no one cares anymore.

Basically all of them. If they can’t be bothered to make the effort to literally keep me alive we’re not friends.

Yes, the pain I experienced agonizing over the differences between us and wanting them to do the right thing while knowing they would not—I’m talking about people who are informed and know better and have family more cautious than they are—ended up being worse than just ripping the bandaid off and ending it. After a last ditch effort to talk to them about it, of course.

Same boat. I ended up feeling like it wasn't even a choice it was a necessity because I couldn't honestly be myself with people who I felt such a chasm of distance from in terms of values. I couldn't stay rooting for them on the daily when they turned out not to care about how they were hurting people. And they couldn't understand my frustrations around all of it, so we just couldn't support each other the way true friends do. It definitely sucks to start over!!!! It's a lot of work. But I feel better doing the work of building new relationships than I did doing the work of trying to keep up older relationships that felt so ick now because of covid denial/disregard. So maybe you're overreacting but I can tell you this: you ain't the only one, at least, LOLLLL 😅

If someone isn’t willing to respect the precautions I take for myself or is an anti-vaxxer or anti-masker, I have no room in my life for them.

That said, at this point, I won’t cut my friends out of my life for not being CC - the government, the media, & even the medical establishment has actively downplayed the pandemic…on top of providing accurate information about Long COVID, how COVID is spread, proper testing methods, etc.

I don’t think it’s fair to frame people’s choices as unethical or irresponsible when they are following the guidelines they’ve been given.

Even as someone who is CC, it can be challenging to find accurate information - and I’m actively seeking it out - so I don’t feel it’s fair to make a moral judgment about people who are basing decisions on what their doctors & the CDC are advising.

The sad reality is that it’s understandable that people think being CC is extreme - because it makes zero sense for there to be an ongoing danger that the govt & medical professionals completely ignore.

Moreso the friends who had weddings in 2020, told me it was “just my anxiety” in Fall 2020, or told me in January 2021 they “deserved to get their nails done because customers aren’t covid cautious at their job anyway.” I just knew we couldn’t come back from that.

The others I kind of keep at a distance, but I am more interested in the friends who care about my and others safety anyway. They get the energy I’m able to offer most.

I haven’t started the process of finding new friends, but I absolutely resonate with what you said about losing patience.

What does CC mean here?

Absolutely.

No, I haven't ended any friendships over it, mostly because I'd have no friends left if I cut everyone off who wasn't taking precautions like mine and this pandemic has already forced me to give up enough, as far as I'm concerned. It's always been hard for me to make new friends and I've always been the type to just have a few close friends, so that entered into my thought process quite a bit. My friends have also remained understanding about my choices re: precautions even if they're not making the same choices. I think I would feel differently about this if any of them were pushing me to stop masking/constantly telling me I was overreacting.

Yes. I prefer to be friends with people who don't kill other people, and I also prefer for them not to kill me

I have ended the vast majority of my friendships because of this. I don’t hold anyone to the exact standards I hold myself to (1. because I am immunocompromised and 2. because I am not seeing any of them in-person). However, if they went the “COVID is over” YOLO bruncher route, it taught me something about their values, what kind of person they are — and that’s not the kind of person I want in my life.

Yes. I refuse to be friends with people who are practicing eugenics. If we can't even establish that as a moral baseline between us, we have nothing to build off of.

People have generally ended friendships with me before I could with them because I am a pathetic sap that always believes if I can just find the right thing to say, they'll come around. But yes many, many of my friendships have ended because of their lack of covid caution and those that haven't I really don't feel connected to anymore.

During the earlier days of the pandemic one of my friends came down with the symptoms of the current strain but had a Disney trip planned. She texted me to tell me that their doctor had diagnosed strep on the phone and she was picking up antibiotics so she could still go on her trip in 2 days. Her doctor hadn’t even considered Covid and my friend refused to. 2 days later she was posting photos from California without a mask in sight.

We don’t speak anymore. That little regard for anyone else didn’t sit well with me. Airlines and hotels were still refunding if you said you had Covid then and she’d been to Disney many times so it wasn’t a once in a lifetime trip. She just was unwilling to do the hard thing to ensure she didn’t get others sick.

The best friends I have are my friends that still take covid precautions. Friends who don’t mind testing before hanging out. Very occasionally I’ll hang out with an old friend in a public space, while I’m masked and they aren’t (maybe twice a year). And it bothers me for sure, they know it bothers me. I just still have that part of me that says to give them a chance.

I don't have any covid conscious IRL friends though I've been making every effort to change that.

It depends on where they are in their journey for me. For those that were extremely cautious, relaxed but are becoming more cautious again, I have kept those friendships since they’re willing to learn.

I know a few people that despite me sending a ton of resources over and talking to them multiple times about, they don’t care. I’ve been texting them less often and declining any indoor plans with them. The thing is, if someone doesn’t give a fuck about disabled/chronically ill people to that degree…why should I waste my social battery on them?

I will offer this piece of advice, especially to other people in their 20s: “just because it could be different doesn’t mean it would be better”. Even before the pandemic started, it’s hard making friends as an adult because people get caught up with work and family matters. Or maybe you don’t drink - that would make socializing more difficult even if Covid wasn’t around.

yes. one of the reasons i don't have friends. my own family isn't covid cautious anymore but since i unfortunately live with them i need to put up with them. but others? i don't have to put up with them so i don't. i will occasionally text and chat with them but that's about it. in my book this type of person is more of an acquaintance than a friend.

All of them. Literally all of them. I've cut every single person out of my life who does not take precautions or who sloppily got Covid after they were warned that they were going into a place that was very dangerous where there was high risk. I've cut them all out. They've proven that they don't have good enough risk assessment and judgment to keep me safe so I will not be around them. I cut someone out that I've known for over 22 years happily. They got Covid after I warned them about going into a situation after I sent them so much research and Gave them places of where to buy all different kinds of masks to find one that would fit them, summarized research for them, etc., etc. They still went to a fucking comedy show during a surge and got Covid. And now they're immunocompromised and dumber than they were before and I want nothing to do with them.

They're nothing but cancer and deadweight.

You have to remember that when someone doesn't take Covid seriously, that is straight out eugenicist stuff, the same stuff that the Nazis did. And I don't wanna be friends with people who are doing the work of Nazis.