> I would rather spend my limited time with those I choose to.
I think his point is that you _have_ to spend time with people not of your choosing, whether you like it or not, by way of existing.
I think his point is that you _have_ to spend time with people not of your choosing, whether you like it or not, by way of existing.
On the other hand, I think the parent is correct that having to spend time with people not of our choosing does not entail having to subject ourselves to anyone's crappy behavior.
Keeping with bullying as an example, during the time the author was talking about, with boys sitting on the fence waiting to talk to someone, from what I've heard from my elders, that was a time when people who acted innappropriately enough got punched in the mouth.
Mouth punching isn't really an acceptable way to deal with most innappropriate behavior anymore, especially somewhere like school. But we should at least retain the ability to remove ourselves from the company of jerks. We shouldn't extend the definition of jerk to include everyone who isn't like us, but we also should be able to draw lines in the sand if need be.