I like your analogy.. if you liken the above with not wanting to hang out with a gay person, it shows how petty is really is..
obviously i don't have friends that i don't get along with, otherwise they wouldn't be friends, and there are some things i find unattractive about a persons character, no matter how good everything else is, and that will put me off them altogether, likewise some things about me will put people off me altogether, and i accept that. it may be petty, but that is the nature of people, or maybe it's the nurture. not everyone will admit it, but birds of a feather do flock together, just there are lots of different feathers.
for example: to look at me (but don't touch my ass) i am a white guy with a tan, raised in the uk, raised a jw, but i struggle to mingle with white british people, my brother is the total opposite (he has gay friends and his friends are mostly white socialite drinking, pubs etc), i just don't like being around the people he does, for me it's like culture shock, i don't drink or smoke cigarettes (though valis knows i will smoke other things, haha), and i am pretty reseved around english people i don't know, i find very little in common in the things that we do or have done in life, not always, but generally our nature is different, thought processes, and as such i don't have any white christian friends in my real life at all, not because of prejudice, just because that's the nurture of my life.
explanation: in school i was a jw, i didn't go into assembly, the muslim kids didn't go into assembly, i didn't do xmas, they didn't do xmas, my life was strict, theirs was strict, they didn't come back to school on monday at the age of 14 talking about how they'd got drunk at the weekend, neither did i, so my friendships developed with people who were getting the same deal as me, from childhood to adulthood, when the shit hit the fan in school, i saw at a young age who would run and who would stand, so i stood with those who stood and they stood with me, and though it was rockey and i have been through shit because of it, even prejudiced against by white racist people because i would stand by a non white friend over a person of the same skin colour as me, came to blows many times and worse, i can say that i have people around me, even when i am 10,000 miles away that i can trust implicity, with money, life, well being, and they trust me with the same, with their children and family, they are a different religion to me, they are a different culture, different colour, different everything, but we have that thing inside us, that even if you can't win, you still stand up, it might not look nice all the time or be perfect, but it's a sort of integrity.
in later life: the character traits of the people i became friends with were predominantly the same nationalities/religions as the ones i shared with the guys i went to school with, i never agreed with the religion, but that didn't matter because there was more to it, it's funny, for me walking into a room full of people like that, their culture, religion, everything, though i am totally the odd one out in their eyes, i am actually more comfortable there than among a group of white people in a pub. this is the a little like a black kid being raised by white parents and being more comfortable around white people. but it's only in a social environment that i feel like this, in business it makes no difference at all because that is just straight talk.
a note to add to this: is that through MY life experience i have seen that the person who accepts everything and has an 'anything goes' attitude (like generally p/c people) will get eaten alive when the shit really hits the fan, away from the safety of the western societies, such people (the ones i have seen) have no integrity when it comes to real pressure, or even just standing up and saying what you think in a room full of people who think the opposite, taking a beating, not ratting out, etc etc, but then most people will never get into those situations in life, because it's the whole deal of what we have been through, lifestyle, childhood, everything that makes us who we are, and you cannot undo that, and who would want to? we are who we are and we are all different.
-
but also as i said before, i do think the basic first contact is down to preference and if you don't have the desire to seek out gay friends, or black ones, you won't, and more importantly, you don't need to, i of all people know this, because though i am sure i will make new friends in life, of different nationalities, skin colours etc, i know that i do not need to, it is just something that will happen in due course if it is meant to.
..speaking of pettiness, capitalize you "I's"!!
i like my lower case 'i' becuase i am a low key kinda guy.