In my case, specific views wouldn’t be a problem: Basques tend to view debate as an indoor sport, to the point where we’ll get into loud ones even while being on agreement (so do many Italians, thus I love getting Italian customers). Disagreeing simply means we have more stuff to argue about.
But certain behaviors, some of them linked to the above, will be a dealbreaker. Ad-hominem attacks, lack of respect, not being reliable (there are people who can be relied on to always be half an hour late - that’s still reliable, although not optimal), being unable to listen.
I have no problem being friends with people whose views are different. It’s would be awfully boring to hang around with people who agreed on everything.
What matters is if we can respect each others position without agreeing with it and if we can agree to disagree and drop it.
Deal breakers for me are things I view as character flaws or worse.
I found out a co-worker and friend of a friend was a child molester. I couldn’t even look at him let alone talk to him. Deal breaker.
When a ‘friend’ asked me to look up the symptoms of mesothelioma so he knew what to say to the doctor, he was always looking for a law suit to set him up for life. Deal breaker.
People who try to get on disability even though they are capable of working. People who get grants to go to school and then drop out and keep the tuition refund. People who are always trying to scam the system. Deal breaker.
A man I knew who applied for a position at work, not because he wanted the position but because he didn’t like the person who was most likely to get it. Trying to take something you don’t want just so somebody else can’t have it. Deal breaker.
I had some friends who admitted that, as they grew older, they were becoming more racist. They were already pretty sexist, and proudly homophobic.
I found something else to do with my time than hang out with those guys.
I would probably have serious issues being friends with Defense of Freedom types, psychics and practitioners of magick (I always feel compelled to enunciate the ‘k’, and they hate that–“magic-k”).
Do you similarly mock believers in other woo, Christians, Jews, or Muslims, for example? They, no doubt, have things they’d hate if you insisted on saying them. Or, is this some kind of a hard-on just for magick practitioners?
I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life in arguably the two reddest states in the country (Texas and Utah). Perforce, I deal every day with people whose religious and political beliefs are diametrically opposed to my own. I count many of them among my friends.
The only thing that’s pretty much an instant deal breaker for me is proud, willful ignorance. YEC, Holocaust denial (I have had to break off a friendship because of this :eek: ), anti-vax, Obama birther types.
There have been people I counted as friends that I no longer count as friends due to disagreements, but it had less to do with the topic (Obama/Benghazi/global climate change/women’s rights) than it had to do with the attitude that no thinking person could possibly disagree with them. One former friend had come over for an evening of visiting and catching up, and she would not get off these topics or that attitude, no matter how many times I redirected the conversation (kittens, are they cute or what?). Worse, she knew I felt and thought differently on these topics, but she excused that as “but you’re not like the rest of them”.
I lost all interest in a potential friend when it turned out his approach to conversation was learned by listening to Rush Limbaugh - talk loudly over the other person, make up strawmen, assign insulting traits to them, and then employ a shit-eating grin while the other person holds on to their temper. Blech. I don’t even want to be in the same room as him.
Do you see a difference between mocking people and not being their friends?
The ones I’ve had a problem with were bringing it into every aspect of their lives, and the lives of all the people around them, whether they believed in it or wanted or not: Casting hexes at other drivers, scanning peoples’ auras to determine whether they were getting enough fiber, staying home from work because they saw a funny-shaped cloud… And yes, if people were claiming to be Christians and were also homophobic because somebody told them that good Christians should behave that way, you bet they’d be off my friends list.
^^These. I’m not Basque, but I do love a good debate. I’ll even play devil’s advocate and argue the other side sometimes. So long as it doesn’t get personal and everyone can move on when the discussion is done, we’re all good.
I have (had?) a friend who is very impassioned about several ultra-left topics including organics and sustainable farming practices. I’m pretty left-leaning but she is XTREEEEEM left, to the point of obnoxiousness. Like, if we go to dinner and my 92 year old father wants to order salmon, she starts lecturing a table full of adults about line caught vs farmed fish…repeatedly. Insert collective eyeroll here. Look, I get it and you have a point but…could you just let the old man have his damn fish without taking a stand?
Coincidentally, she is almost always either losing a job or a place to live, due to her apparent inability to just STFU, stuff her opinions and try to get along with people. I’ve temporarily put her up in my home (free, no strings attached) at least 4 times when her utopian standards don’t match up with those of whomever she is residing or working with. Last time, however, I got tired of the sermons and complaints about stuff like my wi-fi speed and cat hair on the chairs, and asked her to leave off about it. When she moved out to a new place, she left me some flowers and a bottle of wine and a nice, thoughtful hand-written card that described…what a bitch I am.
??
DAFUQ
??
She’s got lots of personal problems that need dealing with and I’m not the one to fix them, so I’ve pretty much given up on her. I’m very forgiving, but there’s a limit, y’know?
I don’t think I can really count any homophobes as friends (40% of my immediate family is or was gay). I do enjoy mentioning that to anyone who starts in with the “EEWWW GAYS” biz. Likewise racists or other ignorant bigots - ain’t nobody got time for that.
Anyone who is cruel to animals is out, and certainly anyone who is a molester.
Stubbornness over something petty. A good friend of mine was moving far away. His mom was urging me to call him before he goes. Right or wrong, I felt he should be making the effort to call me (but I did not say that out loud). In hindsight, I should not have let foolish pride or protocol stand in the way of a simple phone call that could have opened the door to strengthening our relationship over the miles. I’ve seen him once in recent years when I was out his way, but too much time had passed to renew.
I was going with a guy, and the relationship progressed to the point where we were discussing living together. He then informed me that we could only live together if I got rid of my 2 cats. No allergy on his part, he just didn’t like them, and gave me an ultimatum. That’s when he became my “ex.”
Another guy: He was perfect in every way: great looking, great in bed, smart, funny, many shared interests, etc. Then, one day we were discussing something with racial content, and it turned out he was a white supremacist. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt . . . until there was no doubt. He was, in fact surprised that I didn’t share his views. After learning this about him, I couldn’t stand even being near him.
For dealbreakers, white supremacists are the #1 primo example for me, antivaxxers are #2, and antienvironmental extremists are #3. Gun nuts, antichoicers, and the highly religious have to have another issue to wreck a friendship.
Some people have mentioned anti vaxxers and why they would unfriend them.
I’m sort of in this camp (it’s complicated but dont worry, I and my kids are fully vaccinated) but I know people have gotten to the point where if you even blink something wrong about vaccines you get such a smackdown that I’ve told people to really be very discreet and quiet about it. No need to lose a job, home, or even a friend over the issue. For example a friend said a tv show was looking to interview some anti-vax familys for the tv news and I told people - don’t do it. Keep it to yourself because the pro-vax side wont want to hear any arguments and the tv news will make you look like a nutcase.
I drop homophobes like a hot rock. I don’t care why they are opposed to gay marriage, think gay people don’t deserve the same rights as other human beings, or are grossed out by gay people. I really, really don’t care. Maybe they were raised that way. Maybe it’s their religion. Don’t care. If someone I know expresses an opinion like this in my presence (or online in social media) they’re not my friend anymore, effective immediately. Same for other types of bigotry, though I’ve been lucky enough not to run into virulent racists in my social circle the way I occasionally run into homophobes. (Maybe the racists are just better at keeping their heads down in mixed company.)
I think for me the context is pretty important. I have some friends from Senegal who sometimes post some horrifically homophobic things on facebook. But in talking to them, it was pretty easy to come to an agreement that people should just live their lives anyway they choose and it’s really none of our business, and oh yeah, it’s not like it is harming anyone else. It’s just that the minute the conversation ends they are inundated with hate speech, they have no education and no access to sources of disagreement.
So they get something of a pass from me, and gentle reminders that the most important thing is to treat all people with respect and let their god do the judging.
But if you should know better no such passes will be given. I met one person who didn’t think gay people should be allowed to raise children, and we are not friends. The thing is, that shit is really rare here, so if you come across someone who does think that it’s really extreme and they’re probably dicks anyway.
Generally, to me, it’s not the position or viewpoint, but how one expresses it. I quickly grow tired of a blowhard even if I generally agree with what they’re saying.
Sure. I also see that certain behaviors, like deliberately mispronouncing magick, simply to piss believers off falls under the heading of petty jackassery. No doubt it is cute when you do it, though.
For me, it’s not so much the views themselves, but the storm of ignorance, credulousness, misguided skepticism and general bullheadedness that make it hard for me to be close to people who have those views. Most of them are so convinced of their rightness that any questioning is considered a personal attack instead of a point of debate, and I have a hard time being close friends with people who can’t discuss a point and back up their views/beliefs calmly and rationally.
*I’d also like to add belief in woo, pseudoscience and other New-Agey loosey-goosey BS as something I can’t abide in my friends, for the reasons listed above.