Am I a bad friend? A bad person?

[LopezMonty]

For context, this is a diary entry I wrote after having a frustrating day with a friend of mine. I am also transmasc and gay and my friend is transfemme and lesbian, which might have an impact on this whole thing.

Is it normal for aspects of
your friends’ personalities to constantly make you angry?
Are they even worth calling friends, then?
It’s not that I hate (name), but she gets on my nerves. She’s so fucking pretentious—I hate it.
I can’t help but feel like she thinks she’s better than me. She certainly acts like her interests and tastes are better than mine.
Her favorite shows are “art” and mine are “just okay” or even “bad quality”. My desire for escapism is “juvenile” or pointless, while she’s real and serious and oh so mature. Fuck off.
She, knowing that I liked Heated Rivalry, called it soft porn to my face!
She didn’t even bother to finish the damn show! News flash (name), I like Heated Rivalry because it’s a story about queer men who are able to be happy. Every fucking queer story is a tragedy, and I’m so fucking sick of it.
But, of course, her favorite queer media, I Saw the TV Glow, is a tragedy. Hers is automatically better because it’s “realistic” and “real”.
My greatest fear is that my life will amount to nothing but another queer tragedy.
My life already feels like a tragedy.
Part of it is her pretentiousness. Another is most likely related to her upbringing; private education in England, immediate access to gender affirming care when she needed it, money money money.
Part of it might be because she’s a lesbian.
Her attraction is somehow more “pure” than mine.
Bullshit.
She thinks she’s so much smarter and more mature than everyone else. But if she was, why’s her head stuck so far up her own ass? Huh? Pretentious, elitist bitch.
Who do you think you are?
So now im here pitying myself again. Because no one ever takes my interests as seriously as I do. No one cares about them as much as I do. No one understands them. No one understands me. Again, I am too much and not enough.
I’m just so angry. I’m just so sad.

I’m aware that calling someone a bitch sounds misogynistic. Maybe it is. From my viewpoint, I call bitchy people bitches. People who whine.
But that makes me the bitchiest of them all, huh?

[Andy]

Hi LopezMonty and thank you for sharing this with you and I’m sorry the interaction with you friend have left you feeling like that.

I would like to start by asking, how are you feeling now, in general and about what happened?

And I’m also wondering, if you have ever called your friend out on doing things like putting down your preferences of art and interests in general, and if yes, how has she reacted? It is not okay to say someone’s interests or attraction is better than someone else’s, there just isn’t any scale to that, you know?

[LopezMonty]

I’m still kind of upset about it, but I wonder if it’s a waste of time. I wonder if I’m overthinking things, or making a big deal out of nothing.

I haven’t called her out on it, yet. I worry that I would jeopardize the friendship that way. To be honest, I don’t have many friends. I’m bad at making them and worse at keeping them. So i think if I ruin this friendship, it’s like, what else will there be?

[Latha]

Hi there, LopezMonty

I'm sorry to hear that you are still upset, but I don't think you are overthinking things or making a big deal out of nothing when you feel hurt by this girl's comments. She is not being a supportive friend when she diminishes your interests like that.

I understand why you'd want to avoid jeopardizing this friendship when you don't feel like you have many other connections to fall back on, but the current state of your relationship together does sound quite frustrating. As a genuine question, do you think you can continue being friends with her like this?

Could you tell us a little more about your relationship with this girl? Where do you usually see her, and what do you do together? What are the good parts of your friendship? Do the two of you have any mutual friends?

So i think if I ruin this friendship, it’s like, what else will there be?

I know it can be difficult, and it might be a little lonely for a while, but you will be able to make other friends. And if talking to her about her comments leads to a rift between the two of you, you would not be the one who ruined your friendship--she is the one who is doing so by putting your interests down.

[LopezMonty]

I usually see her at school, though we have hung out outside of school a few times. We mostly talk or do homework, play games, things like that. I guess the good parts of our friendship would be that we share some interests. We both like comics and movies, though I think we have different tastes. We have mutual acquaintances, I would say, but not mutual friends. She’s also been very clear about not thinking too highly of our shared acquaintances.

[char]

Hi LopezMonty. As Mikky and Latha have shared, it's not okay for her to say such disparaging things about your favorite series to you, knowing that you like them. Do you think it would be helpful to reduce the amount of frequency and intensity of your communication with her, if you haven't? I think doing so could be a good idea, even though it will cost you someone to keep yourself company at school. And aside from talking about your interests, have you been comfortable sharing things that are more personal and vulnerable to each other? Sometimes, there are people in our lives that may click with us better when discussing lighter or less serious subjects but not more serious ones, or vice versa. This could be the case with her, and it's not your fault--we won't be able to be friends with everyone we meet. But this doesn't excuse the hurt your friend caused at all; ideally, she should recognize that what she said was harmful and apologize, even if she didn't intend to hurt you.

So now im here pitying myself again. Because no one ever takes my interests as seriously as I do. No one cares about them as much as I do. No one understands them. No one understands me. Again, I am too much and not enough.

I'm so sorry to hear that your friend has also made you feel this way. I assure you, you're not a bad person or that you have "bad taste" for enjoying queer media with sex scenes in them (if Heated Rivalry is an indicator of the kind of stories you're interested in). I'm quite sure you're already aware of this, but the series has a large online community; you might be able to find someone nice that you can talk to about it (and maybe other things as well). Do you think looking for more online friends with shared interests can help you feel less alone?