Quote:
Originally Posted by little_tippler
At the time, my mother gave me some good advice: not all friends have to be best friends. It doesn't matter if they don't fit your expectations of a friend. If you still like them despite their flaws, and your life is better with them around, it's ok to let petty differences go.
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Sure, and I agree with that. I have very few "best" friends, for this reason. But as you said, when it comes to serious moral and ethical issues, I just can't get that intimate with friends who don't share those values. I wish I could, but I just can't hold back on what I really think when I'm around them... I like to discuss issues, all the time.
Thing is, are politics a "petty" issue, or a moral/ethical one? I used to think they were petty... but this year, I'm starting to feel like they are a much more serious issue in terms of determining how deep I can go into a friendship.
Also, Snowy mentioned class (that was honest--thank you, I had forgotten to mention that as well). Funny, for me I actually have a harder time relating to upper-class people, for example the new friends we have here who gladly admitted to spending $50,000 on their wedding day. I have had a hard time connecting with them for that reason, and more, that are related to their spending judgments. To me, the way you spend money reveals your personal values as well--and whether I realize it at the time or not, I do judge when someone has totally opposite spending values than I do. I guess I don't know if that's so much a class thing, as a saving/spending thing... I can connect with rich people who save carefully and don't flash their money around, and who do most of their own work (house, car, garden maintenance, etc), because those values are similar to my own, I guess.