I stuck with a friend despite him serially cheating on his wife, a mutual friend. I kept telling him to get a divorce and I didn't celebrate his conquests. I thought he was maybe working through some things and might have needed someone to talk to.

I know that men in particular be very good friends to other men but eventually you learn they have problem considering women fully human, and then what do you with that after knowing someone for years? Especially when they were outwardly following the social scripts of acceptability.

Everyone draws lines around who they consider their tribe--whether it's politics, race, gender, class... if you're inside that tribe with someone, you don't recognize their lines until maybe later, and even then it just seems kind of weird and abstract because it doesn't effect you, and you know the person for the compassionate qualities they've shown to you and others in the tribe.

Is there a way to bring that person into the light by being a friend? Or if they are just going to withdraw more into a reactive hatred and tribal grievance if they are abandoned?

I eventually ended the relationship with my friend when it was clear he was just a self-centered asshole emotionally manipulating me for his own social comfort to feel less alone. Looking at Russel Brand from the outside, I wonder if he's capable of being a good friend to anyone, even people he considers as part of his tribe.

And maybe my framing of in-tribe and out-tribe is naïve, a bit Polly Anna. Maybe the reality is that all these people are just assholes and if you could step outside the circle of their enchantment, you would be able to see that more clearly. Maybe moments like these are what should break the spell.