In life, it’s pretty common knowledge that everyone has an opinion — and you’re not always going to agree with them. People’s opinions can be complete opposites of each other, despite being great friends or even romantic partners. The glory of life is that it’s up to you whether or not you can accept someone else’s difference in opinion or not.
Sometimes, friendships and relationships can end when two people don’t see eye-to-eye on situations and topics. And, furthermore, there can be complete backlash when someone’s opinion takes it a step too far.
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Recently, one mom opened up about a group of friends she has
She shared her story on the forum called Mums Net, a place where moms share their questions and ask for advice from other women. She said that she has a local group of female friends who are quite different from herself. She shared that all other women are very thin and attractive, and live in areas where they send their children to private schools.
She also admitted that she and her husband both work
They both work full-time and live in an area with “definitely no private schools.” Despite this, she’s had a rather good friendship with the women in her friend group.
One day, while she was working from home, she met up with them for an early lunch. At lunch, two of the women whose children go to the same private school discussed the following school year and which teachers their children were — usually conversations between moms and friends.
However, her friend made a comment that rubbed the woman the wrong way
When discussing the teachers, one of the women in the group said something about the other teacher in the grade being “fat.”
Her friend said, “A has Mrs X next year and I’m so glad as the other teacher for her year is so fat.” Her friend continued to explain that she doesn’t believe that “fat people” should be teachers or be allowed to teach children because it sets a bad example for kids. She even compared it to “addicts teaching kids.”
The friend in question is quite thin
The woman continued to share on the thread that her friend is very thin and does Pilates once a week, as well as tennis. She also said her portion size is rather small and never enough to feed even her 6-year-old child.
In addition, the mom said she’s a size 12 to 14, which is not “fat,” but not the size 6 that her friend is. Her friend’s comment offended her, and she was unsure what to do about it.
She’s wondering if she’s wrong for wanting to end the friendship
Due to her outlook on the situation and feeling offended and totally “flabbergasted, she wanted to know from other women and moms if she was wrong for wanting to end the friendship altogether completely.
“I know lots of lovely teachers of all shapes and sizes, and she is of course a teacher herself — imagine thinking this about your colleagues??,” she questioned.
Many people online said that she wasn’t being totally unreasonable
Over 83 percent of people who voted on the Mums Net thread said that the woman wasn’t being unreasonable in how she felt. Many feel as though the other mom was being rude, and judgmental, and may have an inner issue with her own weight that she is working through.
Some wanted to know if she had ever said anything else along the lines to show her “true colors” in the past.
Some who are “bigger teachers” even chimed in
“Well I’m a fat teacher. I’m not perfect, but I have lots of qualities I like to think are positive attributes to share with children and being a role model for them. Yes, my weight needs to be changed for a healthy life and I am very knowledgeable on the fight steps to take to tackle it, but due to circumstances out of my control it isn’t that easy,” wrote one user.
“By your friend’s opinion, she is the perfect teacher as a size 6,” they continued. “Yet is judging others based on appearance only, which I don’t want as a role model for my children. My son has a visible difference on his face, he wouldn’t fit into the aesthetic she is going for so I most definitely would not want her teaching him.”
Other women said friendship shouldn’t make you feel uncomfortable
While not all friendships will be perfect, there were women who brought up the issue of feeling “uncomfortable” in a friendship and a conversation amongst friends.
“And as for the echochamber comment – we tend to be friends with people we have things in common with. It doesn’t mean we have to be clones of one another but conversation is normally easy and doesn’t leave us with a bad taste in our mouths,” said one woman.
However, some women said it’s wrong to dump her friend
Despite having a difference in opinion and disagreeing with what the woman said, there were some women who thought it was “wrong” to end the friendship.
“I can’t imagine dumping friends because they have different views about stuff than me. I have some friends who are very left wing and woke. I just discard their daft comments and change the subject,” wrote another user.
“It would depend a lot on how close we were and what they’re generally like, but I don’t think I’d end a friendship over that one comment,” added another.
Do you think this warrants a friendship termination?
