I don't like anime. My friend reads manga and she calls me a "Yandere" or a "Tsundere" or other strange words and screams KYAAAAA when she is happy.
The only anime I liked was Corpse Party because I love parties involving corpses. And gore.
Oh...oh dear.
I would implore you not to base your feelings towards anime just from how your friend is acting. It's an annoying stage a lot of teenagers went through when they first encounter anime. From my experience in fact, it's either it pushes their weaboo button to the max or they are repulsed by it (like you, for example) because "cartoons are for kids". When people grow older it usually becomes less of a fad for kids and more just enjoyable waste of time. True that there's a lot, a LOT of commercial shit being fed to the plebs these days. I mean, anime/manga is an industry, these days more than ever, and like any other you have 100 new series each year just for a precious few among them to actually offer something new. Still, there are good stuff out there. It's not all just "b-baka!", "kawai!" and "moe". You have movies and series that easily match the quality of non-animated movies and more. You just have to sift through the garbage sometimes.
Speaking of - I have a question for all you here that are following this scene more closely. In past 10 years, has there been any Mecha anime for Manly Men
TM? I'm thinking something of a cold, realistic military fashion. Not interested in eye candy. Something that's badass but not "awesome" aka "posing to be something just for the sake of being something". From what I've heard TTGL falls somehow in this category and that's the main reason I've yet to watch it. I'm thinking something like Votoms, ok? Or even, dear me, MSGundam.
I've heard Code Geass is decent, at least 1st season, but dunno... Gundam Unicorn, maybe? Does it lean more towards Gundam Seed or original Gundam?
Alternatively - what about a decent one-man-army-battle-suit type of anime series, no matter how old? Think Tekkaman Blade, Detonator Orgun or Guyver. Tekkaman was pretty decent, despite it's shortcomings, Orgun didn't really deliver (I'm blaming it's short format...but was fun in a way) and Guyver is still just a manga, last time I checked.