If so, what are they? How many issues are you sufficiently passionate about, and why do they press your buttons so?
And now the story that prompted the thread.
A while ago, my wife and I invited several friends of ours for supper; one of them was a woman named “Annie,” a long-time friend f hers alone. Ironically this meal led to the dissolution of the friendship, as it exposed Annie as something of a nincompoop. You see, the main course was roast venison, which Annie was initially happy to eat, venison being a rare treat. But when she found out that the deer meat had not been a gift or purchased by a butcher, but rather was killed by my wife in her first hunting trip, she had a visceral and, frankly, ninnyhammerish reaction. It was okay to eat meat as long as it came from a grocer or butcher, or as a gift, Annie averred, but to actually kill it yourself betrays one as a bloodthirsty monster who enjoys killing for its own sake, and she couldn’t be be friends with someone like that. My wife, naturally annoyed by this, eventually invited Annie to depart. (Her actual phrasing as considerably more Anglo-Saxon.)
Now I did not open this thread to start a hunting debate. What I had in mind, rather, was the oddity of Annie’s reaction to the revelation that my wife had gone hunting. Among the other guests at this dinner party were a married vegetarian couple, “Jackson” and “Cassie,” neither of whom were bothered by by the hunting issue. Jackson feels no compulsion to convert others to vegetarianism and will watch others eat meat, though he himself won’t even kill mice; and while Cassie will sometimes try to if given an opening, she also opined that hunting one’s own food is more humane, even more ethical, than buying meat coming from animals raised on a factory farm. In short, neither of the people who might be expected to have a huge problem with hunters actually do, and certainly neither find it a friendship-sundering issue.
So let’s reiterate the thread question. Is there any you feel passionate enough about that you can’t be frieneds with someone who disagrees, the way Annie obviously feels about hunting?
Other than outrageous things like a belief that child rape should be legal the thing you mention would bother me. I don’t have the patience for people who throw a fit about hunting or other issues where people have honest differences of opinion. One of my better friends is an arch-conservative and we get along fine even though I call him an idiot whenever he drags up Limbaugh’s latest ranting.
Oh wait, there is one thing, my patience is quite limited for Yankee fans, though I think they are redeemable.
I’ve lost two friends to evangelical Christianity. I’m talking young Earth, subordinate women, everyone else is going to hell evangelical Christianity.
The first loss was over the fact that she argued ceaselessly that there were no dinosaurs, fossils were planted by scientists, and the final straw, she got angry when my son told her kids that that was dumb.
The second loss was a friend whose daughter (11 or 12 at the time) was in hysterical tears because their sweet neighbor lady committed some infraction (swearing? a past divorce? I can’t remember) and truly believed that said lady was going to burn in hell forever. My friend agreed and basically fueled the hysterical flames, rather than comforting her daughter.
I’m not an atheist, but I can’t abide fear-based religious teachings.
No, there’s nothing that requires agreement per se. Some of my best friends have actually held very different positions from me.
Now, if we’re going to be friends, we need to have a friendly way to disagree. If you want to keep harping on your pet issue, we’re eventually going to have to part ways.
I don’t think I could be friends with an unrepentant bigot – someone who really believes that, say, black people are inferior in intellect, or that Jews can’t be trusted, or that gay people are deviants, and the like (including the mirror-image beliefs like “Christians are idiots” or “white people are evil”) – but I could be (and have been) friendly with such a person.
So if someone I knew held such beliefs, I wouldn’t want to hang out with them, and wouldn’t invite them to do things, and wouldn’t accept their invitations to do things. But I wouldn’t stop being cordial and pleasant, and I wouldn’t bring up issues to start arguments with them.
Somebody who has his email better contact Skald and tell him that his account here has apparently been hacked and somebody is posting nonsense on it. He’ll want to put a stop to it PDQ.
Atheists and religious, social conservatives and liberals, rednecks and metros, I’m friendly with 'em all and if we are able to agree on the importance of honor, respect, and loyalty everything else is just a different bottle for our brand of wine. Debate and discussion of our differences is fine, and even welcome, but if you can’t understand the difference between explaining your perspective vs. saying why you’re right then we’re going to have problems.
Going along with dracoi, I can probably be friends with you no matter what batshit ideas you have, as long as you’re not an asshole about it. I have a very good friend who is a borderline 9/11 “truther”, but I don’t mind having a beer with him.
P.S. Thor is disqualified due to being a god. Superheros get their powers from radiation, accidents in the lab, or psychoses.
There are friends and then there are “friends”. I only have a very very small quantity of actual friends, and I am incredibly discerning on whom I allow into this small circle. I’d rather be alone than be with sucky people.
I know I once killed a budding friendship, nipped it right in the bud, because of this thing. She and I were getting along really well too. But then she commented about her horoscope and it transpired she really believed that shit. Reiki, yes. Fortune-telling, yes. Lucky forecasts, yes.
Other people have said other things: you cannot actively disapprove of part of my lifestyle and think I will continue to be your friend. I had one person once disapprove of the fact that I “celebrated” Halloween. Dude, I put up a few witches and give out candy to kids. STFU with your stupid backwards ways, determined not to let us have any fun.
I also met someone who disapproved of people living out of wedlock. Which is, pretty much my life.
So yeah I am pretty picky about my friends.
Oh, and Batman is not the greatest superhero. He’s pretty amazing but not the best. I don’t know how you could have a “best”, but it would have to be someone with actual powers, I think.
Thor is stupid; let’s throw rocks at him. ETA: But oh good heavens he is one of the prettiest in his current iteration.
Oh come on! He’s still, like, in my Top 5! You may blame the recent spate of movies with Bale and all that crap. It took the shine off Batman for me. He used to be my #1.
Izzat Scumpup guy bothering you, ma’am? Want me to send the boys over to half a talk with him?
Anyway, the way to handle the Bale movies is to pretend that only the second one exists. It’s not like Batman’s origin story needed telling in the first place, and the one with Bane rips all the fun out of Batman.
Repeat after me: only three Batman movies have been made since 1988: the two with Michael Keaton, and the one with the Ledger.