How do I cut off my male centered friend?
One of my (25f) best friend’s (25f) has become extremely male-centered in the past few months. This includes going as far as openly fawning over my boyfriend (calling him perfect, calling him her dream man, getting mad at me for not bringing him to what I wanted to be girl-time, and admitting to being jealous of me). I set a boundary with my friend that I was not comfortable with her speaking about my boyfriend the way she does, and that I did not want to talk about him when the two of us were together. That boundary did not last long, and she brought my boyfriend back up again within the hour. I also made my boyfriend aware.
The day of that conversation with her, she posted an unflattering photo of me on her instagram story that I had asked her to delete when she first took it. She followed it with a very cute photo I took of her. It felt petty, vindictive, and like she was trying to embarrass me (my boyfriend follows my close friends on instagram). She texted me that night and asked me if him and I would go out to a bar with her. I declined, but that was kinda my breaking point.
The whole time this was going on, she was also seeing an extremely toxic situationship. She knew it was bad for her, but would keep going back after saying she was done. The only things she ever talked about to me were her situationship and my boyfriend. It just got exhausting watching her make the same poor choices over and over and complain about the consequences.
I have two issues when I think about cutting her off:
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We have the same close group of friends. I don’t want to completely cut off my friend group, but I don’t want to straight up tell my friends why I’m distancing myself from this specific girl.
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I used to be very male centered because I lacked confidence. I went to therapy and did a lot of work on myself. I was single and happy before meeting my boyfriend. I have some hope my friend will snap out of her current state of mind.
I really just want to tell her that I have loved her and our friendship, but she’s going to ruin it if she doesn’t change her behavior. I don’t even think it’s personal; I think she wants male attention, and doesn’t care if getting it means hurting herself or others.
What’s the best way to go about this without rocking the boat too much?
Posted Jun 15, 2026, 12:58 PM UTC