Oh what an ass have I been:

Last night a friend helped open my eyes a bit to how much of a close-minded, judgemental person I have allowed myself to become. I used to be worse than now, but I got much, much better over the years and, I guess, considered myself "cured" at some point and began to let my guard down. I mean, in the politiclal sense, I'm as open-minded as they come -- not holding a person's skin color, sexual orientation, gender, or ethnicity against them -- but somewhere my heart let itself close up to people as individuals. That's really shitty, and I am very ashamed to admit that I have done that, but I guess that first step of realizing that you have a problem is the biggest one. And I owe it all to my friend, my wonderfully open and honest friend that told me this about me even though it couldn't have been comfortable for her to do so...God, I love having friends like that -- ones that will slap you in the face when you need a wake-up and not hold the fact that you said or did something that brought them to slapping you against you.

But, anyway, over the next few weeks I am going to force myself to re-examine things, especially my impressions of several people and try to figure out if my unwillingness to have anything to do with them (and therefore my friends while they are hanging out with them) is for real, or just this sort of cocky dismissal thing that I've had going on. We'll see.