My (23F) friend (27M) of 4 years has become unbearable and awkward to be around because of he became a PUA- how to deal with this?

This is utter bullshit. If you have problems finding women your standards are too high. Oh, you don't want to drop your standards to a realistic levels? Fine, then have fun not being able to find someone, but don't you dare try and blame it on anyone else but yourself.

I get the impression from OP that he is the awkward, low self-esteem, clueless about the opposite sex type of guy that got frustrated because he got no results just being from himself. He was not self-aware enough to notice his flaws. Then he found these PUA "friends" that fed him bullshit that it's the womens fault, he utterly believes it to the point of being religious about it because he wanted to find something to blame other than himself. I can only speculate from sparse information that he really was a nice guy and a good friend to OP before he was brainwashed and become zealous by his new PUA friends.

I think this is a classic case of separating a loved one from his/her toxic friends. Normally, I think the best thing to do is to continue the effort to separate the loved one from the toxic friends but in this case, there is a real risk of being assaulted. Breaking contact is the clean and easy way to get out of this problem.

If I were /u/Exotic_Space_Tiger fearing a possible assault but still help who I consider a good friend, I would break contact gracefully as advised by others. Then I would put my all in raising awareness to his immediate relatives about this potential train-wreck. I would watch from afar how they would help him but would still pull some strings if I feel they need help. This is going to be long game and I know this is easier said than done but what other risk free options are there in helping him?

/r/TwoXChromosomes Thread Parent