To want friends who think like me?

[wannabehamster]

I've recently become very aware of how liberal my views are and how important that is to me. I believe in fairness to all people regardless of gender, race, sexual preference, social standing or disabilities.

The more me views solidify, the fewer people I have in my life. Friends, family and colleagues all seem to be harder to gel with if they say or do anything that flies against what I believe.

Am I being too precious, are there like minded people out there or am I fundamentally different to my immediate society? It's just so bleeding lonely and hard work.

I think you have very normal opinions but could do with a bit of self examination. It is slightly contradictory to say you don't dislike anyone based on x factors if you might dislike them individually for associated factors. For example, you might not judge someone for being a different class or less well educated but you are not willing to give allowances to how that influences their views. It is interesting you don't mention religion, I assume that is because it is a bit more complicated.

I think there is nothing exceptional about how you think, it is the same as almost everyone else I know, but you should realise you are in a position of relative privilege. I can't say how I would feel about immigration if I was in grinding poverty and was being told "they are taking my job", so have no right to be judgemental about it.

Why can't you just be friends with people you like and have fun with .

I have 2 best friends.... 1 is a £65k earner with very conservative views , the other has a hippy like outlook and often talks about her chachras (sp?) being unlined and has claimed benefits since I've known her . I'm a minimum wage full time worker with 3 kids .

We all get along famously .

wannabe - actually thinking about it I do have a couple of friends who believe in male/female stereotypes. It's annoying but they aren't actually suggesting one gender is inferior so I tend to let that go. I do find it odd though.

I think there are an astonishing number of people (in view of the opportunities we have in 2015) who lead very dull, limited lives with self imposed restraints, who think everyone, particularly women, should only ever settle down early, get married and have children, and thereafter have rather left wing views, be anti-this trendy cause and that trendy cause, and so on.

Its very boring, and very predictable. But honestly OP, you sound just like one of them!

Toofat the issue is if friend A is always banging on about how his taxes subsidise the likes of Friend B or friend B is sneering at you for working for the man.

Elke
No idea where you got that from.

""Why can't you just be friends with people you like and have fun with . ""

They tend to just be occasional mates, or drinking companions, though, not good friends.

I was becoming friends with s woman at work, then she told me how she bought a rabbit for her children, forgot about it and found it dead.

Another "friend", I met because we have disabled children, she seemed nice, but has bought into the "immigrants are bleeding the country dry and that's why disabled benefits are being cut".

I try to continually tactfully point out that I'm from an immigrant family, but these are "different" immigrants.

I couldn't be friends with people who support the Anti-child poverty measures being cut.

If I didn't enjoy make-up and wine so much, a Buddhist retreat might be the answer.

If you can't tolerate friends who think differently from you, you aren't liberal.

I really understand what you mean, wannabehamster. I enjoy hearing other people's views that are fundamentally different to mine, at work or reading things, or on TV.

But I want to be FRIENDS with someone who has horrible racist, sexist or homophobic (or otherwise hatey) views, as in, have that person round to my house, make them a cuppa etc. Why would I? I'm talking here not about people who were brought up in that kind of environment, but are willing to think differently, but about people who should know better IYSWIM. They can fuck off.

Also, it's just very tiring to constantly be having debates about fundamental subjects. I have friends with different political views and it makes for a good chat, but we have common ground as well. Being the only liberal one in the room when everyone else thinks bigoted shit is acceptable gets very boring, very quickly.

Haha, I mean I DON'T want to.

Also: "Sometimes I just want a conversation with someone who doesn't opine about the notorious dirtiness of the nearest soft play being because it's mostly used by 'the Asians' or the evils of working mothers, because I shouldn't have to provide an educational opportunity every time I open my mouth."

Ain't that the truth.

That's why sometimes I like to hang out with other feminists, because sometimes it's nice to be able to discuss things like unequal pay without someone smugly swooping in and trying to end the conversation by announcing that their brother in law is paid the minimum wage and therefore the pay gap doesn't exist.

No, you're not entirely being U.

I would find it very difficult to be friends with someone who was racist, homophobic or disablist, or definitely to be close friends with them.

But there is a very fine line as regards when an opinion is genuinely offense (as in, being racist) and when an opinion is just different from yours.

So you may be very open door on immigration, and another friend may have an issue with immigration. But if it is not a racist view, if it's not saying "I don't want any Asians in this country" but rather saying "I would like the government to look at immigration rates", that's just a difference in opinion.

I agree with others that claiming liberalism but becoming frustrated with people who hold different opinions. It's fine to try and avoid conversations. I try and avoid conversations about marriage, the death penalty, religion, abortion etc as they get heated and people can hold very radically different views. But as long as that view isn't offensive, then they should be allowed to hold it.

One million - yes please! ?

Achieve - nail on the head, more eloquently than me :)

Spartans - no, it's not a pre judge by me. I'll always judge on actions only but I can get scared that people may not think like me and I don't want to be the different one any more.

Rubgy- thank you for clarifying, you don't need your coat :) ?

Museumum- too much work and too many small children to commit time elsewhere but I'd like to. Hopefully one day soon

Butterfish - I don't want to lecture either, I don't want a friendship that takes that much energy.

Gotta- I have friends who are probably more like acquaintances but I find it hard to have anything more than a superficial friendship if they say or do things that I find offensive.

I'm still catching up...

There are many, many liberal thinking people.

But I don't think you are thinking liberally to insist that your friends only think like you.

Why not join Amnesty International or Greenpeace or similar if you want to meet likeminded people.

Runner- I am privileged. I'm white, educated (ish), (now) middle class. I get frustrated when other priveliged don't recognise it.

Fly- that sounds lovely, can I come round too? But Elke might be right, I just be boring :/

Birds, can we set up the retreat? I have a field?

Flip flop - thinking differently to me about the best way to increase the economy or to solve the national debt wouldn't mean I wouldn't be friends. But blaming the issues on 'these immigrants' would be less forgivable. Does that make sense?

Asking - yes, yes, yes. Typo's excused, but you did have me worried!

Thurlow, I agree. I haven't expressed my self brilliantly on here. Anybody can think whatever they want about anything they want, even if it's offensive. They can say those offensive things too but I won't want to be around when they do. They can say things that aren't offensive that I don't agree with and that might prompt debate, which I'd welcome. We could then find more and more common ground, who knows? But there are times when I fear the offensiveness and I will shy away from it, just to keep myself safe.

I have to agree with the first response and others that have said similar.

I don't have to hold the same views as all people I spend time with. You can avoid contentious topics, or you can challenge them. Life would be very dull if we all held the same opinions. In our family, differently held beliefs (I mean about political things for example) get gently mocked, but it doesn't mean we can't spend Christmas together or go out for a birthday meal. You can still laugh about other things. If you think what you believe is so much better, more correct or whatever than other people, then the best thing to do is to be able to challenge those views, not isolate them with others who hold the same opinions, with nobody getting them to question what they are doing.

I think some people have mistaken what the OP means. I don't think she wants EVERYONE she knows to think like her, I think she craves SOME friends at least who think like her.

OP - re that list I made, are you struggling to find people who haven't got a massive prejudice on that list?

Asking- that's pretty much it. I just want to find one or two people, maybe even couples, who I can have meaningful friendships with.

Achieve- I moved away from where I grew up but kept in contact with friends and family through FB and similar. I don't know if the distance makes me more objective but my best friend (who I many other differences with) says some pretty horrible disablist things and has proven he has quite archaic views on gender. My sister who again, I was pretty close to despite varying interests, can be racist and homophobic in some of her actions. This doesn't mean that I am having no friendship with them at all but I am struggling to maintain anything more than superficial niceties.

I have struggled to make new friends and don't really have anything in common with my colleagues, which is further worsened by their occasional casual bigotry and racism. If I were to pursue any meaningful friendship with anyone who could hold these kind of views, I'd spend my life challenging them. I don't have the energy to challenge them and feel like doing so would be agreeing with them.

Maybe this all just about my struggle to make friends anyway, and my world view is an easier thing to blame than me just being a rubbish friend/ boring person to be around.

Sorry typo, 'would feel like not challenging them would be agreeing with them'

If you can't tolerate friends who think differently from you, you aren't liberal.

What do you mean by tolerate? Not tell them they are racist/sexist? Be best buddies with them? Smile politely when in their presence but make no moves to seek them out?

I have a "friend" who lives near me and has two DC similar in age to my own. I also have a second friend with exactly those same characteristics. They both have about the same number of mutual friends with me so I meet them at joint events/people's houses/at the shops with about the same frequency.

My first friend posts things on FB about "why are all Chinese people like X". My second friend IS Chinese. I'm not sure that my first friend is aware that "people like her" would even have a friend who was Chinese.

Do I have any obligation to be nice to the first friend, at all? I don't really feel that I do.

I am struggling to maintain anything more than superficial niceties.

Yep, that's about the size of it. I wouldn't really call my first "friend" a friend but I'm not going to be actively rude to her and call her a racist in front of our mutual friends. Not because I feel any obligation to my first "friend" but because I would rather not confront her with my other friends there, and I don't see her separately.

I dunno about this one.

I think for some people, politics of that kind is a part of identity. It is who you are at a quite fundamental level, it's a commitment to a way of being in the world that is quite future-focused in the sense that it's utopian, and trying to produce change by being a certain way. I am a bit like this myself.

Others have an ability to compartmentalise, to take a less committed but also a more rounded view. So they might tolerate a bit of racism or sexism in someone because they see other redeeming qualities. I think that it tends to be a bit more preserving of the status quo on the whole, but I do think it's also more open at an interpersonal level.

I think the really brilliant way to be would be to combine both a deep love of people to be able to forgive, and a deep commitment to change and a future. I think this probably takes an enormous, verging-on-spiritual kind of humility. It is sort of my goal to get there, though I really despair sometimes at how close-minded and intolerant I can be.

So dr spouse, shove, how do you go about making new friends when you feel strongly about certain issues. Does it hold you back? Can you overcome it? Or has not been too much of a problem for you as you've found people who don't jar any of your beliefs?

What sort of things do you find offensive that these former friends are saying to you OP?

Is it really that bad, or are you maybe taking things too seriously? Maybe people say it as a (bad) joke?

Maybe you need to make a bit more effort to mix with more educated people? Or at least people who have travelled a bit more and lived in different places in their lives?

I must admit I find a lot of posters on mumsnet really intolerant of what are a very set of rather left wing views which they like to label as "liberal" but are anything but. A lot of posters seem to lack the ability to be tolerant or see an alternative to these very rigid views, and sad to say, a lot of them seem to lead quite limited lives where these views are never challenged. They tend to be very predictable - you can guarantee they will get themselves all worked up over fox-hunting, fur farming, cuts in benefits, whale slaughter in the Faroe Islands, human rights of immigrants, and so on, but never actually do anything useful to help these problems or be a higher rate taxpayer. Instead of working that higher tax rate paying job, there they are sitting on the internet, trying to tell other people what they think.

That's what springs to mind when I read posts like this I'm afraid OP. I prefer actual liberals who are not afraid to lead a slightly alternative lifestyle (I have a friend who lives in a commune for example, who gives half her salary (after tax) to that commune because she believes in that lifestyle). Or I have another friend who has spent her life working with the under-privileged, often in Africa, who is a doctor, but who has given up her chance of meeting someone to get married to and have children with. Neither of the above two are at all intolerant of alternative views and in fact welcome them, as they can discuss different viewpoints without going off in a sulk. Both however lead very liberal lifestyles in practice, much more so than for example a traditional SAHM.

I mean tolerate on a personal level. There are degrees of friendship. Not all of my closer friends think like me. Some of my more distant friends do. I tell them if I disagree with them but wouldn't call them anything-ist.

It is for your Chinese friend to tolerate (or not) the mutual "friend" who seems to be anti-Chinese.

OP "I moved away from where I grew up but kept in contact with friends and family through FB and similar. I don't know if the distance makes me more objective but my best friend (who I many other differences with) says some pretty horrible disablist things and has proven he has quite archaic views on gender. My sister who again, I was pretty close to despite varying interests, can be racist and homophobic in some of her actions. This doesn't mean that I am having no friendship with them at all but I am struggling to maintain anything more than superficial niceties.

I have struggled to make new friends and don't really have anything in common with my colleagues, which is further worsened by their occasional casual bigotry and racism"

wow, that's awful! I realise this might be too personal, but are you able to give examples of what has been said? I am also wondering whereabouts in the world you live but I realise you might not want to answer that either.