Do you think I'm prejudiced?

[Anonymous]

When I meet someone, I am convinced of the type of person that person is, the appearance and facial expression of that person also directs my thoughts and I stay away from people I understand to be bad as much as possible. When I tell my friends, they say I'm prejudiced and they start to condemn. Then they try to make me friends with that person. Am I as prejudiced as they exaggerate?

[OlderAndWiser]

You are talking about making quick judgments of people?

[Asker]

Not really, even if I spend a long time with them, these thoughts do not go away.

[OlderAndWiser]

After spending some time with a person, you are justified in in making assessments about their physical and mental capacities and, more importantly, about their character. And you are then justified in making decisions about how you want that person to interact with you, if at all, based on those judgments.

That is what most of us do, but some young people think that constitutes prejudice (an extreme misuse of the word) and they will deny that they themselves do that.