True Friendships Involve Respect.

They say that raw intelligence is arrogant. Every once in a while you bump into individuals in your life who you think are a little arrogant and you cut them some slack because you believe that they are also really intelligent. And then as you continue talking to them once in a while the thin thread of tolerance breaks and they cross the line of arrogance. I was borderline close to making a new friend today but the person was fairly interesting but I guess the line of tolerance when it comes to arrogance was crossed.

Honestly it was a perfectly normal argument but this person used words like "Yeah, Right"  about ten times in the conversation and was constantly passing signals of a strange superiority complex. You know signals like rolling of eyes, tapping of hands on the table and other strange signals which tell you that the person is there but not quite really there. It is a strange form of communication where you cannot point your finger on anything in particular but the person is almost telling you directly that you need to give up and surrender to the attacks of insults.

I've always held a sense of pride in saying that I don't usually go ahead and end friendships. What that means is that I'll go out of my way to make a friendship (or for that matter any other form of relationship) work but life has taught me that there is a difference between going an extra mile to make a friendship or a relationship work and losing your self respect to make it work. While the earlier option almost always works the later one almost never does.

Which is why every time I sense contempt in a relationship (be it friendship or just acquaintanceship) I am very scared. I can deal with difference of opinion. I can deal with arguments. I can even deal with fights but show me a person who has lost the basic sense of respect for you and I'll show you a person you should not be friends with. So let this be the first time when I went ahead and stopped discussions with a person who could have come borderline close to being a friend. Because friendship at the price of self respect isn't usually worth it because then you just keep paying and you just keep hoping that some day things might materialize into a meaningful friendship and it almost never does.