Staying quiet while your friend walks into a mistake isn’t loyalty. It’s spectating.

Silence often gets defended as respect for someone’s autonomy, and sometimes it genuinely is that. Often it is easier than the awkward conversation, and the word loyalty gets borrowed to make the avoidance sound principled. A friend who says nothing while you walk into something is protecting you from nothing except their own discomfort.

Say the thing once, plainly and privately, without repeating it into a campaign. Make clear you are staying either way, because that is what separates a warning from a judgment. Then let them choose, which is the part that actually respects them.