Yeah I think I know what you mean, for example when I lived with my friends I began doing and liking a lot of the stuff that they liked while they also got into stuff from me, he started talking in a dethklok accent around us and now I talk to him that way too sometimes <w>

So it's somewhat true I guess

You can only judge some of the times. Other times can lead to deception and often hate. It's really a 70 30 ratio, but yes. You can and in some cases can't figure out someone by their company

Sometimes this is the case, but not always.

I've had friends who were really nice to me but hung out with complete assholes. Sometimes those aforementioned assholes would deliberately hurt me, and my original friend wouldn't want to "get involved", which I felt was a bit of betrayal that they couldn't even try to cheer me up or stick up for me. Apparently I was the one who was "too sensitive" or something. In that case, yes, if someone hangs out with jerks and doesn't care about their other friends' feelings, they become quite the jerk themselves.

Other times, a friend will have their head on their shoulders and not get involved either way. They'll defend each friend from the other in cases of drama, but won't directly take a side. Fortunately I don't have friends who are at war with each other, at least as far as I know!

Yes

I haven't experienced many situations where this is completely true. In some cases I'd say that you can twist the phrase to "You can judge a person's true colors by the way they behave around the company they keep." If your friend acts one way toward you, but when you see him/her acting very differently around others, to the point of hypocrisy, that can show you this person is not genuine in some or all of their actions.

One of my best friends placed a heavy emphasis on amassing a large number of friends. It was, by his own admission, a way of measuring how successful of a person he was. If he got along with more people, that meant he was a better person and, by virtue of being exposed to so many different people, more knowledgeable and open-minded. Trouble is, he wasn't really open-minded or knowledgeable. More often than not, he acted with disinterest toward his friends' personal lives and things that interested them. The more time I spent with him, the more confused I became by his behavior until I realized that he was really using his wide circle of friends as a crutch. Instead of learning from them, he'd just use their knowledge and assistance to help himself.

I'm not gonna say he was a total jerk, because when he tried to put effort into a friendship, he was genuine and took some very big steps, but most of the time, it was his way and his way only. It wasn't by observing his friends that I discovered this about him; it was by his actions toward his friends.

I don't think you can judge someone by judging their friends.


Because of where I live, a lot of my older friends have massive problems with substance abuse, and by association; a good number of their friends are hardcore urban trash. They're Substance abusers, Hobos, people who have given their lives away for something stupid. I would see my friends going down to the bay or into the casbah with a bunch of punks, and asked myself what I ever saw in them. The next day, I looked over to the desk to the left, and they would have better grades than me, be reading some deep book, taking notes, etc.

If I were to go by who they hung out with, I would avoid them. It would be a gigantic mistake.


And then there are other people who seem decent, and are absolute assholes. People who subvert and trip others up just because they can. They're jealous and greedy, and they hang out with the nicest and prettiest people.


I don't even think you can judge a person by how they act. You have to dig a lot deeper to find out what's on the inside.