Is it wrong to judge someone by who are friends with?

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I used to be friends with someone who had a friend that was a real jerk. Whenever I was around the friend, I did not feel comfortable being around him solely because of his friendship with the jerk, who I did not get along with. I stopped being friends with the person.

Do people usually not judge others by the people they hang out with? Should I have conitnued my friendship even though I did not like his other friend?

What is strange is, the guy who was my friend is the nicest person.

Maybe I should not have tried to make sense of things, and continued to be friends with the person.

I believe neurotypicals are often friends with a person, even if that person is friends with an enemy.

Last edited by KevinLA on 08 Nov 2009, 7:49 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I suppose it depends on how often the 'jerk' hung around you guys and whether his behaviour influenced your friend's.

I think perhaps it depends on degree, both of your relationship with the person and the person's relationship with the bad person.
Who a person associates with really does say a lot about them. Like if this jerk is always nasty and gossiping and saying horrible things about people, for somebody else to enjoy spending time with a person like that indicates that the person likes to at least hear nasty things about people. Or that the nasty person controls the other person well, which may end up being more or less the same thing.
Someone isn't necessarily "just like" their friends, but most people are friends with people that they like.

My folks drilled into me growing up the adage "Actions speak louder than words", meaning that you could assess what is actually in another person's heart and character far more accurately by watching their behavior than by listening to what they said they would do, or claimed to have done. Words can lie. Actions are what they are.

I think the same holds true for the people they choose to spend their time with. If they hang out with jerks (or criminals or addicts) they are implicitly condoning that bad behavior (unless they're doing religious missionary work), and if they're okay with that, you can pretty much predict they're going to be okay with a lot of other stuff you may not approve of, or at least don't want to be involved with.

That's not to mean you should waste time or mental energy judging them, but if you're not comfortable with a person's choice of friends, then there are almost certainly things about that person you're not going to be comfortable with, even if takes a while for those undesirable qualities to show.

Also, in my experience, people who hang out with jerks and bullies will do nothing to defend or assist you if that jerk or bully starts attacking you. In fact, they will often join in and start picking on you themselves.

I do find it creepy when people like someone who is a jerk or is friends with someone. You just never know they might turn against you. I turned away someone who liked me because he was mean to my friend and I didn't want to betray him. I think he wanted to be my friend but I didn't want him. I usually stay away from people who like jerks meaning I don't be friends with them. I think being with people resembles the kind of person you are. But I know it's possible that someone can like someone and not even realize that person is a jerk. Hey I liked my ex's. My aunt was also married to a jerk because she didn't even know he was one. I didn't know he was one either. I was a kid then so things he did I didn't even realize were wrong such as wanting his kids to stay in one spot. He didn't want them moving around from one side of the room to the other side. They were both babies then.

I heard people are with people they like so stupid people tend to hang out with other stupid people I've heard so I bet jerks tend to hang out with other jerks. But of course sometimes nice people hang out with the wrong people. My brothers did that. They had two friends who were not nice. One of them even tried to get them to be mean to me because "I'm a girl." This kid was mean to girls because he thought men were more superior than girls so you had to treat them low. He was even mean to his little sister.

Is it wrong to judge someone by who are friends with?

...or the websites they frequent?

...............Probably not.

I haven't been friends with jerks but I have often been friends with someone others would turn their nose up at.

Those who hang around jerks a lot will often act "two-faced" when they are around them.

No, I find it usually reflects that person very well.

I'm sitting in the middle of the fence on this issue.

No it's not wrong. People associate with others who are similar to em.

If someone is friends with a jerk I would definitely question their judgment.

Judge not yet you be judged

I agree. Really the only judgement to be made is about the interactions with the other person/people - there are those I can cope with and there are those who I can't cope with. Their behaviour might be fine and dandy from somebody else's viewpoint, but it's the interaction with me that has to be judged. It's really none of my business whether another person is lowlife scum or not, in fact the whole notion of bad people depends as much on the personality of the judge as it does on the "bad person." So a "bad person" in my parlance would be a person who is (currently) bad for me .

But it often amounts to the same thing as judging the individual. I'm still going to avoid or defend myself just as avidly from anybody who seems bad for me, however carefully I refrain from describing their personality in absolute terms. If there's a consensus then everybody says "that guy's a jerk" which is really shorthand for "we're all agreed that he's bad for all of us, we don't want to change, so he's going to have to, or we'll exclude him." Nobody's right or wrong - but if I see myself as having the only correct way of behaving embodied in me, then I'll see anybody not conforming to my standards as incorrect. Of course the more angry I become about another person's behaviour, the more my gut reaction is to just let fly with judgements and descriptions of their personality. And if somebody makes my friend angry, I probably won't get thanked for trying to correct any irrational judgements they happen to pass. I always have difficulty in responding to things like that.

It's very sad when a friend brings in another person to whom I can't relate. I suppose different people just have different views about what's important in a friend....e.g. some folks like others to challenge their ideas, while others prefer people to be more diplomatic and polite. Some people don't mind noisy or bubbly people, others do. All you can do is to explain the situation - "I like being with you but I can't stand that guy you hang out with, so let's just meet when he's not around." You don't need to convince them the other person is a jerk - that would be a hard sell if they just don't see it the same way - you just need to point out the incompatibility of the current arrangement and ask for a solution. Of course, you're still essentially saying "either he goes or I go," so if your friend prefers the other guy, he might choose to stop hanging out with you.

But sometimes it's possible to identify and highlight (e.g.) underhand and selfish behaviour in the one you can't get along with, and it might turn out to be a reasonable complaint that would earn sympathy from most people. As long as you do it fairly objectively (rather than just demonising them via half-truths and refusing to see any good in them or look for less exclusionistic remedies), then that might convince the friend that you're not being unreasonable to take a dislike to the newcomer. What seems to be missing in the original post is the details of the behaviour that led to the anger and the assumption that the guy's a jerk.

Some people don't mind a certain amount of dishonesty and selfishness in others.....it's up to you to decide how high your standards for friendship are to be. Too high, and nobody will understand why you keep away from them. Too low, and people will walk all over you. Personally I'm sure I'm alone a lot because of my picky nature, but I guess I must prefer the loneliness of that to the alternative, which really isn't a cure for loneliness anyway.

At my old school, I had a wide range of friends and acquaintances, a lot of whom were less than reputable characters. Many of them were just friends-of-friends. Just because I knew people who smoked and sold drugs and robbed shops doesn't mean that I did those things, or thought those things were right. I guess I am naturally quite non-judgmental in some ways when it comes to people I hang around with. Sure, a lot of them acted like morons on a number of levels, but I just didn't mind.

As for people who are just "jerks", as opposed to "criminally insane", I'm not really sure. Some jerks do tend to gravitate towards each other, but on the other hand, sometimes nice people can be friends with jerks because they don't KNOW that they're jerks. I have met some people who are nice to most other people, but are jerks to me.