Unsupportive Friends and Wanting to be in the fandom again

[halotato]

Hi there, forum people. I should give a little background:
I used to openly be a furry in high school, drawing furry art in public, not denying being one, and all that stuff. I followed all the latest in the furry fandom and even drew for some people. I never had really any friends though, except for one reaqlly good friend I met on an MMORPG called ArcheAge ( she and I were really close and she is the reason I figured out that I am actually a trans-man, thus bringing me joy from knowing myself), so I didn't care what people thought of me. Then junior year hit and I became flooded with schoolwork and prep for the future, falling out of the fandom.
It's the present day: I am 19. After 2 and a half years finally moved out of my hometown and away from my bullies. I moved into the same city as my long-time online friend and she introduced me to her friends. Now I have an actual friend group-- people who I relate to, who want to spend time with me, and who want to include me in their lives... but they HATE furries. They have gone on tangents ranting about how they hate furries and how they creep them out, their arguments full of all misconceptions about the fandom. When they would go on these rants, I would just keep silent. I didn't want to tell them that I was an active furry because I don't want to risk being alone again, or alienated.
For the past few months, I have been struggling to land a job. It's taken a serious toll on my mental and emotional health, panic attacks several times a week and a dark cloud following close overhead. I can't seem to find interest in the things I had loved only months ago. I stumbled across old furry art of mine while going through my art files. a rush of memories came back to me, and now I can't stop emmersing myself in the fandom again. It seems to be the only thing I can find joy in in this dark time of my life. I don't want to hide it, but I risk losing the only true friends I've ever had. If I do muster up the confidence and become open about my interest ins the furry fandom and I do lose these people, I don't have friends in the fandom to turn to-- to share my interests with... so it's kind of tough if you get me.
just felt I had to share this. Thank you for listening c:

 

[Fallowfox]

Sorry that this is your situation. Hating furries is the sort of attitude I would have imagined people would grow out of in their early teens. :S

Hopefully your friends are just being boystrous and don't really mean it.

 

[halotato]

Sorry that this is your situation. Hating furries is the sort of attitude I would have imagined people would grow out of in their early teens. :S

Hopefully your friends are just being boystrous and don't really mean it.

Thanks ;;. Yeah i hope they are too... yet the agressive and serious tone which they speak about their hate for furries to me doesn't come off as boystrous. One of them is otherkin too.

 

[JakeTheFoXx]

I find it weird that they seem to talk so much about furries. The topic of "Furries" has come up in my friendship circles maybe a half a dozen to a dozen times In that past 12-15 years, and even then its just like "oh, that's weird" or "so much cringe factor" and its left at that. I wonder why they would be so anti anything really, just seems to be a waste of breath and waste of time. A lot of my friends that I hung out with while being a closeted gay man would always say mean and hurtful stuff about "fags" (their words), but when I actually came out to them a few years later, they apologized for any mean things they said about gay people, and were quite embarrassed that they may have offended me.

If you find yourself in a situation again in which your peers are on a furry bashing rampage, just impose a little conversation about it... just say something like, "I dont see what the big deal is, they are literally hurting no one, so what difference does it make to you?"

It sounds like the group of people you are around have a bit of growing up to do, and that just comes with time.

 

[Muln]

>Openly telling people you're a furry.
>Gets bullied
>Moves on to a new life
>New people don't like furries
>Wants to tell them you're furry but scared to be shunned by new friends.


How about you put less emphasis on being a furry in your life. It would do you so much good.

 

[halotato]

>Openly telling people you're a furry.
>Gets bullied
>Moves on to a new life
>New people don't like furries
>Wants to tell them you're furry but scared to be shunned by new friends.


How about you put less emphasis on being a furry in your life. It would do you so much good.

I didn't put strong emphasis on being a furry o.o I drew a lot in school, my sketchbook or paper and pencil constantly in hand. People would see me drawing anthro stuff and ask if i was a furry and i would nonchalantly say yes.
I currently don't identify my whole existence on being a furry- far from it. more like i want to get back into the fandom because just seeing content from the fandom makes me happier than most things in my life.

 

[halotato]

I find it weird that they seem to talk so much about furries. The topic of "Furries" has come up in my friendship circles maybe a half a dozen to a dozen times In that past 12-15 years, and even then its just like "oh, that's weird" or "so much cringe factor" and its left at that. I wonder why they would be so anti anything really, just seems to be a waste of breath and waste of time. A lot of my friends that I hung out with while being a closeted gay man would always say mean and hurtful stuff about "fags" (their words), but when I actually came out to them a few years later, they apologized for any mean things they said about gay people, and were quite embarrassed that they may have offended me.

If you find yourself in a situation again in which your peers are on a furry bashing rampage, just impose a little conversation about it... just say something like, "I dont see what the big deal is, they are literally hurting no one, so what difference does it make to you?"

It sounds like the group of people you are around have a bit of growing up to do, and that just comes with time.

I completely agree with you. And yeah, i have found it odd how much it has been brought up ( 5 times in the past 3 months. each time was a rant.). Yeah they deffinately have a lot of growing up to do.
AND guess what? Funny thing happened after posting this: I was on deviantart and I happened to be scrolling through a furry artist's page who I admired and I SAW A COMMISSION DONE FOR ONE THESE FRIENDS OF MINE. I was so shocked and amazed. I sent her a text about it, saying "I didn't know you liked their art!" and this artist is 90% furry content, even sells fursuit paws and tails. She hasn't replied yet.
thank you for your reply to my post, it really helped me c:

 

[JakeTheFoXx]

Glad to be able to help! Your friend may be being explitave about the fandom because she herself may be embarrassed and might be trying to assimilate to her peers. You are spot on in the way you approached your friend. Dont cast judgement and dont condemn. Allow for the conversation to happen (you sound much more mature than your peers, and that is beneficial to you) by being warm and accepting to it. As your friends begin to age, they will mature. If they aren't closet furries themselves, they will realize how silly it is to be so critical of something that has no bearing on their lives whatsoever. Keep us updated!

Also, (blanket statement incoming) while I'm sure you're already aware, dont push your ideals on them, but conversely, dont put up with their shit either. Call their bullshit, and be willing to have a conversation. Maintain your cool, and keep a level head!

-Jake

 

[quoting_mungo]

Does your first friend, from the MMO, know that you're furry? If you met the others through her, and she knows you're furry, a good first step could be talking to her about it. Likely she'd have a better grasp of whether they're serious or just talking a big game about sod-all.

It also depends a lot on what about furry fandom they're bashing. I went with a friend to a night out, and met a couple of his friends who ended up bitching about furries in ways that pretty blatantly suggested they had very limited experience with actual furry events. So I toned down my involvement with fandom in talking to them, for their comfort, and kind of shrugged off their misconceptions. Now, obviously part of the reason I could do this was because these were people I likely wasn't going to see ever again, so not all of that situation will be applicable to your situation. But fact stands that the type of statements being made can help inform where you should be going next. There's no point in meeting "ugh furries have zero social skills" with "they're not all perverts", yanno?

 

[Connor J. Coyote]

I'm not a therapist, nor do I pretend to be.. (and no one else on here really is either). *But, (I will say this): that if your current friends hate your Furry hobby that much, and also make you uncomfortable about it - (then it might be time for you to consider some new friends).

As friends are supposed to compliment your life, not make it more difficult.

 

[quoting_mungo]

As friends are supposed to compliment your life, not make it more difficult.

*complement

Friends aren't there to heap you with praise, after all.

 

[Fallowfox]

Thanks ;;. Yeah i hope they are too... yet the agressive and serious tone which they speak about their hate for furries to me doesn't come off as boystrous. One of them is otherkin too.

Now that's confusing. Otherkin is way weirder than furry. x3

 

[Faexie]

Maybe when they say something false about furries, you could say something like ''Uh, that's strange, I've met some furries and they were not like that?'' This could open the way to clarifying some of their misconceptions without outing yourself as a furry.

What makes them hate furries so much anyway?