Potential dealbreakers for trusted friends? (Resolution added to OP)

[FPLOON]

*sighs* This is a tough one because I barely have that many trusted friends to begin with... Trusted acquaintances are a dime a dozen from my perspective, but I honestly only have one trusted friend and not just because we could literally talk about anything without feeling like we're "lying" to one another...

Anyway, back when I was in high school, I did hang out with a high school drug dealer... He once asked me and my one of my friends if he could borrow some games of ours... Pokemon Emerald and Mario Galaxy, to be more precised... He never brought them back, blamed it on his "girlfriend" smashing them up, and then got arrested for drug possession and distribution "coincidentally" on the same day he said he was going to buy us new copies of the games he borrowed... And that's why I only have one trusted friend...

Other than that... uh... I can't think of any other dealbreakers other than that whole "borrow and never give back" thing... That seems to be the only one so far that I would personally call a "dealbreaker"...

 

[Zakarath]

I recently learned one of my close friends prefers the taste of margarine to butter. I... I don't think it's going to work out.

 

[Kae]

EDIT: Resolution to original story:

Okay, so the lunch happened...somewhat interesting results.

James and I were waiting at the table for John to show up, when he walks up. He sees that James is black,shoots me kind of a stare, and sits at the table a bit of trepidation, on my side of the table. Eventually, the two of them hit it off like I was hoping they would. After about 15 minutes or so, John brings race to the conversation, talking about how impressed he is that James "doesn't have his pants below his ass, and isn't doing the 'jigga jigga' ebonics nonsense". This is where I thought things would go bad, but James was expecting the absolute worst, so he was cool about it, commenting on how important he felt it was to not play into black stereotypes just for the sake of blackness or whatever.

They ended up exchanging numbers as we left, and here's where shit got uncomfortable. As we're all parting ways, John says "you know man, at first I wasn't sure that we'd be cool with each other, but it's like you're a white guy stuck in a black man's body". I...didn't have the hundreds of words required to tear that statement down, nor the time, so James gave a kind of awkward laugh with a "yeah...I guess so" and we all left.

I figured after that that John and I could still be friends, but I'd rather not hang around as much as we had been. He showed that he isn't violent or truly hateful for no reason, but the level of ignorance shown despite actually liking and trading numbers with the person is a shame compared to his relative intelligence and level of trust.

Huh that went along more or less how I expected it too, like I said it seemed like he was being truthful when he said why he was a racist, those kinds of things usually stem from ignorance so this could be an important step in him moving forward and becoming a more tolerant and therefore a better person, so regardless of you remain friends in the future I think this is good for him, sometimes good deeds go unappreciated though, also "James" is awesome, not everyone would put up with that shit but he did, that's a real friend there he didn't have to go along with this after all, man running live social experiments how cool, sounds like it'd be a lot of fun.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

It's hard to say, on one hand it can be incredibly uncomfortable hanging out with people like that, on the other, hanging out with people like you who'll help give him some experience to ferret out his ignorance is probably one of the only ways he'll change. I don't know if it'd be a dealbreaker for me, but it's definitely a huge shot against someone if I find out they're like that. Standing in an airport hearing my girlfriend's mother rant about the "Towelheads", hearing her say that you'd have to be retarded to marry an Arab, commenting on how there's too many orientals, how Tegan and Sara are just incestuous dykes in disguise, stuff that I have to just take while cringing and trying and deflect the topic away from.

Honestly, with someone like that I find that often enough it drives enough of a wedge between you that it can break up a friendship on its own. Often the subject will keep coming up, and you have the choice to either cringe and ignore it or call them out on it. If you call them out on it they'll probably blow up at you because most people with those opinions hate to hear that they're being morally judged. Hell, even if you just stay quiet a lot of people will get pissed off because they'll think you're silently judging them. Ignoring it is probably the safest bet if you want to keep the friendship going, but that might put you at odds with other friends, let them be an asshole to other friends, and at the bare minimum it will push you apart by some degree.

All the guys I know who talk racist stuff only ever seem to be racist in theory. Put them in a room with a friendly guy of a race they hate and they still seem to get along fine and them its "oh that guy isnt like the rest of them"

Which is racist in of itself. Still more born of ignorance than anything else though, which is why I said that the best thing for this guy would be to stay friends with him and try to break down some of that ignorance. If the only people who hang out with racists are other racists they're just going to get more positive feedback for their views.

 

[AgedGrunt]

Potential deal-breakers of trusted friends, so I'm going to assume I've already established a working, healthy relationship with them. If they...

>are a serious criminal offender (robbery, assault, sex offenses, etc.) or involved with such people
>are abusive in any relationships (verbal and physical)
>are involved with any kind of harmful organizations or extremist movements
>become or prove to be manipulative, untrustworthy, dishonest or unacceptably dramatic (causing or thriving in drama)
>demonstrate gross negligence and/or irresponsibility (e.g. drunk driving, child/animal neglect, reckless behavior)

Well I officially feel like I'm writing a legal document, so let's just say you'd have to be a serious criminal, maniac and/or asshole for me to cut you out.

I find it pretty inasane that there's a thread about accepting "vampires", but our culture thinks racism is "too far". Everyone has faults, and racism is one of the most basic human feelings (xenophobia), as long as the person is non violent towards non-whites you shouldn't lose sleep over this.

Certain people are hyper-inclusive and extremely anti-discriminatory. It's sort of like getting voted off the island if you don't get along with everyone. See, it's society-building, and if you're not what certain people want to see, then you shouldn't be in "their" society. The only people it's ok to not get along with are those who harm/discriminate, then you can let the hate flow through you.

There are people who cheer when victims assault and murder their abusers, or when such a person dies in a horrible accident or something, yet are totally against the death penalty. It's best not to think too hard about it.

 

[Victim of Progress]

I recently learned one of my close friends prefers the taste of margarine to butter. I... I don't think it's going to work out.

Yeah, margarine is the superior choice. I'm sorry for the loss of your friend.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

Huh that went along more or less how I expected it too, like I said it seemed like he was being truthful when he said why he was a racist, those kinds of things usually stem from ignorance so this could be an important step in him moving forward and becoming a more tolerant and therefore a better person, so regardless of you remain friends in the future I think this is good for him, sometimes good deeds go unappreciated though, also "James" is awesome, not everyone would put up with that shit but he did, that's a real friend there he didn't have to go along with this after all, man running live social experiments how cool, sounds like it'd be a lot of fun.

Yeah "James" is a really cool dude, he was really ready to expect a worst case scenario so when they got along to any degree at all he just went with it.

As far as the "live social experiment" part of it, I'm having mixed feelings about it right now. It was definitely interesting and I learned a lot about all three of us, but I'm not sure that it was right to make John something of a "racist guinea pig" in the situation. The reality is that I had lunch with a friend, and a second friend arrived with the hope that those 2 would become friends, but I feel a kind of guilt that I also could have caused a terrible situation or made John really uncomfortable. But I've been telling myself that the reality of life is that he's going to be dealing with people who aren't white everywhere he goes, it just might not be in a face-to-face social setting, so if it made him really uncomfortable or something that's kind of his problem.

As a side note, we've kind of had broken communication where we're leaving each other voice mails and not really making total contact and conversation since that day, so maybe things are working out the way they should be. I've gotten a lot closer to "James" in talking about the whole situation and getting back in touch, so I'm not upset about it.

But anyway, it might sting less in text, but that "it's like you're a white guy stuck in a black guy's body!" line really blew my head off when he said it, so yeah, kudos to James for just shrugging it off like it could have made any kind of sense.

 

[Something Amyss]

If you dislike almost anything LGBT related, then you probably don't want to be around me anyway. I tend to distance myself from such folks, being two of those letters. If you have a problem with them, then you have a problem with me. Fundamentally.

I don't really stop being friends for a lot of reasons, but several of my friends were putting things on Facebook with the Confederate flag or the General Lee that said "if this offends you, unfriend me now." Which prompted me to make a post saying "No, I won't unfriend you, but if this is really a dealbreaker for you, you might want to unfriend me. Because you're not going to like what I have to say."

It went over well.

 

[Kae]

Yeah "James" is a really cool dude, he was really ready to expect a worst case scenario so when they got along to any degree at all he just went with it.

As far as the "live social experiment" part of it, I'm having mixed feelings about it right now. It was definitely interesting and I learned a lot about all three of us, but I'm not sure that it was right to make John something of a "racist guinea pig" in the situation. The reality is that I had lunch with a friend, and a second friend arrived with the hope that those 2 would become friends, but I feel a kind of guilt that I also could have caused a terrible situation or made John really uncomfortable. But I've been telling myself that the reality of life is that he's going to be dealing with people who aren't white everywhere he goes, it just might not be in a face-to-face social setting, so if it made him really uncomfortable or something that's kind of his problem.

As a side note, we've kind of had broken communication where we're leaving each other voice mails and not really making total contact and conversation since that day, so maybe things are working out the way they should be. I've gotten a lot closer to "James" in talking about the whole situation and getting back in touch, so I'm not upset about it.

But anyway, it might sting less in text, but that "it's like you're a white guy stuck in a black guy's body!" line really blew my head off when he said it, so yeah, kudos to James for just shrugging it off like it could have made any kind of sense.

I'm not going to pretend that turning friends into guinea pigs is right[footnote]Won't deny I find the idea incredibly entertaining either.[/footnote], however as much as it was kind off a dick move you said you weren't sure you could be friends with him, if it's something that was that important to you, well you really had to find out, it's a necessary evil, so while it's ok to feel guilty over it I don't think you should be too harsh on yourself.

Anyway shame to see it did bother "John" after all but regardless I still think what you did was good for him, maybe you should try to patch things up or at least explain your point of view, after all this all began because he was quite frank about his personal feelings, not saying that's going to make it OK or anything but I'm sure it'd be better for him if he understood why this happened, after all if he expected you to accept his intolerance of non-whites you should maybe explain that you're not really comfortable with it, in any case I don't know much about you or him so perhaps I'm wrong and letting things run it's course is the best action.

An finally, yeah I'm aware of how much that line stings, as a non-white person it's condescending nature and assumption of superiority really annoys me, if he had said that to me I probably would have had some sort of violent reaction, most likely telling him to fuck himself or something but depending on the tone I might have punched him, it's the reason I was praising "James".

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I'm friends with people who're prejudiced. I do my best to avoid those topics and steer the conversations away from that stuff because our views clash, but I recognize they've got a failing somewhere in their mental makeup and either are too ingrained to learn differently, willfully ignorant or just hardwired to stupid on that account.
Are they perfectly trusted? No one falls into that category in my world. I trust people to do as their natures guide them, but sometimes people surprise me. Some bigots I know aren't as bigoted as they talk, and have proved their prejudices are mostly superficial, probably a defense mechanism from their younger years. Does this excuse the racist behavior they can exude? Or the homophobic? No, but it makes me understand them a bit better and those friends have always been honest about their feelings and opinions, however wrong they may be.
I'm tolerant of almost anyone so long as that person doesn't cross the line of holding an opinion and actively disrupting another person's life. Its quite possible to be a racist jackass and never harm anyone but oneself with it by limiting the pool of diversity one can encounter. And most xenophobes, racists or homophobes I've known are just clueless as to why they actually dislike/hate said people, mostly because they don't or can't understand those people they dislike and thus it scares them into defensive dickish mode.
Not a defense of those people, but I find their ignorance and fear mitigates most of their offensive idiocy. Like I said so long as they don't actively harm anyone else, they can continue to be idiots on their own time and I'll still call them friend... probably not inner-circle friendly though.

 

[Fractral]

I think in some cases people can go too far when dealing with people who have strong prejudices. I'm glad that the OP chose not to break off his friendship because good ones are often hard to come by; it would be a shame for something like racism to ruin that. I'm not excusing racism- I think it's a damned stupid mindset to have- but the politically correct crowd often need to exercise more tolerance when dealing with the intolerant. Lecturing a racist on his views is unlikely to make him change his ways; setting a good example and demonstrating why his views are wrong works far better.

That out of the way, I don't think there's much a good friend could do to make me actively want to end a friendship. Generally the only reason I can think of is that being around a friend was hurting me for whatever reason, such as a long time friend who began 'accidentally' insulting me most times we met. I stopped talking to him so often and we drifted apart.

I'm actually living with a pretty prejudiced person in my next year of University. She's a fundamentalist christian with some fairly old fashioned views on marriage and homosexuality (which we didn't know when we agreed to live with her). I think her opinions are wrong, but she doesn't act on them and they don't have any bearing on our relationship so I don't see any reason to break off contact because of them.