Is my friend taking advantage of me?
I am a Christian man in the US and have a male friend who is also Christian who is from Canada. I've known him for 3 years now.
We met online through a common group of Christian friends. He regularly comes to the US every 2-3 months. When things are going well, he is a fun person to be with. We like the same cars, same sports, same foods, same religion, etc. He is in a position of leadership as a Christian.
When things get hard however, such as when I am experiencing domestic violence, he denies my claim, ridiculed me once, and then asked me to speak to other Christians. He said this to my face and on text message.
I am a socially awkward person, so when I meet anyone in person, it takes extra energy out of me. I felt a bit blindsided, to be honest, when I've invested to much time and energy to this person, but I am required to dance around sensitive topics, such as my struggles. But when he got stood up numerous times by dates, I was the first one to support him.
He also sends a flurry of messages to get my attention. A flurry of sentence fragments, emojis, and other people's Instagram stories, Facebook reels, or YouTube shorts. I suspect he does this to get my attention and create the illusion that we have so much in common, before a big ask is about to come: eg can I stay at your place, can you take me around the city, can we split the travel bills in a different state.
I've blocked him on 2 social platforms, but kept him open on a 3rd platform that I check once a week.
I don't have capacity for his sentence fragments and flood of messages that should have been consolidated into a single sentence. But I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially when the domestic violence comes to an end.
Thanks for taking the time to read my essay.
Posted Jul 6, 2026, 9:02 PM UTC