friend not being a friend?

Maybe your friend has reevaluated your friendship and has taken the opportunity to distance herself while she has been unable to be in contact with you. If that’s the case, she’s allowed to make that decision. Perhaps she’s enjoyed not being so reliant on you as before.

Same here cannotbelieveiamaskingthis208. How did that come about?

Am I the only one who thinks it unusual that the friend of the OP was in a relationship with OPs son?

PinkCakes

I've been really upset by some of the responses on here. I took my chances by not having the vaccine, paid the price (many of you will think it served me right) of it. As I've said, quite a few of the patients who had already had the vaccine, still ended up in hospital.

I can understand that my friend may well have felt, perhaps still feels, anxious about seeing me. I wish she'd perhaps 'phoned me, just for 5 minutes.

Some days I feel very guilty for having survived. The judgmental comments I've had have made me wish I hadn't. Thanks.

I don’t think anyone would think it “served you right” getting Covid but “what did you THINK would happen?” by being unvaccinated.

sazzi the vaccine doesn't stop you catching a disease, no vaccine does, but it considerably reduces your chances of doing so. The incidence of COVID in vaccinated people is much lower than among non-vaccinated people.

I would imagine the pneumonia, stroke, and 6 week stay in hospital did that already.
Pinkcakes has said that all these responses have made her wish she didnt survive, so it might be best not to read pages of "telling off".

I would imagine that despite the long history of your friendship, you are not the person your friend thought you were.

You received a very hard lesson but don’t appear to have learned much from it. Does the fact that the majority of posters disagree with your stance give you any thoughts that you may have made a very poor decision and put others at risk whilst doing so?

I avoid the anti-Vaxers I know because it’s part of a cavalier attitude to the infection. I suppose I feel that they’re much more likely to dismiss any symptoms and carry on meeting up and very unlikely to take any sort of test.

When we were in lockdown they were the ones that wanted to come round and who met up with several other like-minded people. I avoided them then too.

The vaccine doesn't stop u catching Covid or spreading it. It does make symptoms less serious in most cases. So why do people avoid antivaxers?
If you want to be sure someone doesn't have covid a LF test or PCR test before visiting is the only way.
I'm not an antivaxer and had 2 vaccines but can't understand why people avoid those who don't have it. I'm just realistic about the vaccine's capabilities. Do people avoid the unvaccinated incase they die of the virus or do they falsely believe it prevents infection?

Your attitude doesn’t seem to have changed much after your awful experience with Covid although I’m glad you are now vaccinated. I work in intensive care, and I can assure you that fully vaccinated people rarely, and I mean very rarely, end up in intensive care on a ventilator. All we have been doing all summer is treating the unvaccinated. There is no way you saw many sick vaccinated people.

But back to your friend, perhaps she is just busy, could you be more sensitive to that?

I am sorry my post seemed harsh, I didn't intend it to be so, but it was just the original post seemed to show so little understanding of just how serious the COVID pandemic has been - even after she had caught it.

Never mind vivid.
Covid!

And yet, at the height of the pandemic people here were telling others to mind their own business, stop pearl clutching and hand wringing about others' choices.
I do hope you can get back your close friendship; vivid hasn't done anyone any favours in that respect.
Give your friend time, it may take some work to get back to how things were.

You too posted in aibu therefore you can expect robust answers. Maybe post under chat if you don't like posters saying that you are unreasonable.

Well you've rather spit your dummy out, haven't you? Did you expect we would all say, "your friend is wrong and you were right?" You asked for opinions and you got them! I would have put a healthy distance between us if you had been my unvaccinated friend. And reading your responses, I would not contact you again. Why not accept what the majority are saying, apologise to her and leave the 'friendship' to her to continue or not.

PinkCakes Well I'm glad you survived and I'm sure everyone who loves you is too. Life is so precious.

The vaccine and covid makes people judgemental, but we are all only doing our best in our own way.

You can't live your friend's life for her. Things will work out between you or they won't. Life is still good...carry on enjoying your days.

While agreeing with your sentiments MOnica, maybe your wording was a little harsh? Covid has put our tolerance under a lot of strain and unfortunately a number of friendships have suffered as a result.

It saddens me that so many people - anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, anti-social distancers et al – have put their own personal “freedom” above the “freedom” of those of us who prefer to be cautious. And unfortunately, although the majority of us do err on the side of respect for ourselves and for others, there is a significant number of people who do not.

Social distancing became something of an issue for me, not least because I have mobility issues and cannot move quickly out of the way of those who encroach upon my 2 meter space. I dealt with this by establishing that 2 meters was – conveniently - the length of my outstretched arm with my walking stick at the end of it. This enabled me to protect myself in queues and elsewhere. If someone comes too close to me I now have the equipment to demonstrate!

I hope you can make-up with your friend, PinkCakes.

Pinkcakes I think you were totally purblind in not realising just how seriously people have taken the the whole vaccination issue. Not only did you fail to take on board just how strongly most people took the issue and but also how extremist many anti-vaxxers are, so that anyone not accepting the vaccine is seen as conspiracy theorists and dangerous right-wingers.

I suspect that your whole attitude to the COVID crisis has been indiffernce and a slight feeling that everyone was making a fuss about nothing. You attribute all the careful protection most people adopted, including your friend to being 'anxious', and then when vaccine came along you really weren't bothered, probably couldn't see the point.

It has come as a shock to you that what you treated so lightly, has actually been treated as very serious by nearly all of the rest of the populaton, including your friend. That is why you are shocked by the responses to your OP that rather supports my belief that you never really realised how seriously everyone else was taking COVID.

Perhaps in the future you will ensure that you are well informed about issues that other people take very seriously, whether that means reading papers or news web sites and also think things through carefully before shrugging your shoulders.

I'm surprised anyone was going to Zumba classes in June. Were they in the open air? Most of the classes I know of have been cancelled since March 2020 and only available on line.
I'm sorry you didn't get the response you wanted, but I'm afraid I'm with the majority and see your anti-vax stance as the real issue. If you do want to keep her friendship (and I'm not certain you do) perhaps you could send her a card and some flowers explaining that you are now vaccinated, you understand how difficult she must have found it and you really want to stay friends.

PinkCakes

I should add that the last time I saw her was the end of June, when I picked her up for Zumba. She came back to my house too. I messaged her about an hour ago, she said she's been stressed because she's taken on extra work and an exam, (she's 64, got 2yrs left at work, definitely doesn't need the money, she could retire now if she wanted to) and that she hadn't realised how long it's been since she saw me.

You accuse many posters here of being judgmental and yet you feel free to judge your friend. Pot, kettle, black, it seems to me.

It’s unlikely, though not impossible, that you’d have ended up in hospital with the vaccine. It’s very likely you wouldn’t have been as ill. So this is honestly on your shoulders and you should just accept that, and that it may make people just not want to be in your life anymore. That’s the price you pay.

Part of the price of originally being an anti vaxxer is also how it affects relationships around you, not just getting sick

As for your last comment, tiny bit dramatic and insensitive dont you think?
Plenty of posters here have suffered losses due to covid (while doing all the right things) and your attitude is very self serving

I've been really upset by some of the responses on here. I took my chances by not having the vaccine, paid the price (many of you will think it served me right) of it. As I've said, quite a few of the patients who had already had the vaccine, still ended up in hospital.

I can understand that my friend may well have felt, perhaps still feels, anxious about seeing me. I wish she'd perhaps 'phoned me, just for 5 minutes.

Some days I feel very guilty for having survived. The judgmental comments I've had have made me wish I hadn't. Thanks.

“When Covid began she was very anxious, not having anyone in her home”

That wasn’t anxious, that was sensible and what we were asked to do to prevent infection.

Relationships of all kinds often rattle along for years quite happily, enjoying what you have in common and ignoring the things you don’t, until something so fundamental happens that the relationship can never be the same.

The splitting up wasn’t the rock on which your friendship foundered, but I think Covid might be.

I know I found it difficult to deal with people who ignored the rules. That fundamental disregard for other people, spreading infection and not caring about the burden on medical staff.
Refusing the vaccine would have been the nail in the coffin.

Sometimes the differences are just too big to overcome. I think you just have to leave it to her now. You made your choice and now she will make hers.