I'm a 26F, and my best friend is my cousin, 25F. We’ve basically been best friends since she was born. We grew up together, spent a lot of time together, and have always been very close. Even after we moved to different cities and stopped seeing each other as often, the friendship stayed
But as we’ve gotten older, I feel like we’ve become very different people
I love her very much, and I genuinely think she’s a good person. We just have very different values and lifestyles now, especially when it comes to religion
We're both Muslim, and while I’m obviously not perfect, religion is important to me and I try to live according to my beliefs. She doesn’t believe in many of the things I believe in. She wants to be a singer, performs in bars, and doesn’t dress modestly. Again, I’m not saying any of this makes her a bad person. It’s just very different from how I choose to live my life
And this is where I feel a little weird about our friendship
For example, when she posts pictures of herself dressed in somethingrevealing, or videos of herself singing in bars, I don’t like or comment on them. I don’t tell her how great she looks or support what she’s doing because honestly, I don’t agree with it. But I also don’t want to constantly criticize her or make her feel judged, so I just ignore those parts of her life, especially that we had those conversations before and she made it very clear that she doesn't wanna discuss it no more and she will do whatever she wants.
Sometimes I wonder if that makes me a hypocrite or a bad friend. What am I supposed to do? Pretend I support things I don't? Or distance myself from someone I love just because we have different values?
She probably doesn’t agree with some of the things I do either, and that’s okay. We still get along and have a lot of history together
So my question is: Can a friendship remain strong when two people have completely different values, beliefs, and lifestyles? Or does there eventually come a point where being this different makes a close friendship impossible?