maintaining a friendship... or not

[JamesP]

He insulted you directly. When you called him on it, he doubled down. He did not apologize or back down or take a step back to be curious about why he was making such terrible accusations.

 

Why do you want somebody so callous and caustic in your life? Guard your heart.

[chedster]

I just noticed there is no mention of you communicating how what he was saying made you feel to him

 

I would use that kind of thing as a better judge of character than a difference of opinion

 

if you express how you feel and he's empathetic that's a good sign

if he's more like "well that's just because you x y or z" or "well you're just to sensitive" or "well it's the truth, deal with it"

or something like that then he either isn't an emotionally intelligent person or isn't a caring person

 

that is valuable information which will help you decide whether he is worth being friends with or not

 

I told him that his comparing how I vote (again, he knows I no longer vote) to someone who condones rape was insulting to me as a husband and as a father of a young daughter. He said he was sorry I felt that way, but that I was wrong in my understanding of what he said. His explanation wound up being an incomprehensible rambling about the evil elected officials in the GOP, something that is completely unrelated to my belief system.

 

I was tempted to remind him that his party elected a Klansman (Robert Byrd) to the Senate for 50 years, many of which included national leadership positions, but that would have just poured gas on the "my party is better than your party" nonsense.

He insulted you directly. When you called him on it, he doubled down. He did not apologize or back down or take a step back to be curious about why he was making such terrible accusations.Why do you want somebody so callous and caustic in your life? Guard your heart.

 

That's a pretty solid assessment.

 

In hindsight, I've come to view him this way. Imagine that you have a tattoo, and a friend of yours says to you that "Everyone who has a tattoo is lazy and stupid... except you - you're energetic and smart." At first, you might dismiss it as nonsensical rambling, but after you hear it a dozen times, you've had enough. He's stereotyping an entire group without knowing them personally, and he's contradicting himself by making an exception for you just because he's your friend.

 

That's what it really came down to. I am morally opposed to forcing anyone to participate in a government program; therefore, I am opposed to Obamacare. He essentially said that everyone who opposes Obamacare is willing to let uninsured sick babies die. When I asked him if he thought that about me, he said of course not. I think that was the point where he became unglued, simply because I blew a hole in his stereotype. I was going to point out to him that maybe he would think differently about the views of others if he got to "know" them as well, but he started with the GOP name-dropping and insulting comparisons.

[JamesP]

Beware of moralists who make exceptions.