I totally agree that it’s useful to hang out with a diverse set of people.
It also helps to treat people’s opinion of you as an instrumental goal. Every time I’m worried what someone thinks of me, I ask myself if this person’s opinion is important, and why—can they hurt me or help me in any way? Sometimes the answer is yes, e.g. I want to impress employers, or I need voters to like me if I’m doing politics. Often, though, the answer is that the person is not going to affect my life in any way, and so their opinion doesn’t matter. People’s opinions may also matter as an estimate of my own virtue, but if their opinion is based on a misunderstanding, or they’re confused about what’s virtue and what’s vice, then their opinion can be discarded again.
I totally agree that it’s useful to hang out with a diverse set of people.
It also helps to treat people’s opinion of you as an instrumental goal. Every time I’m worried what someone thinks of me, I ask myself if this person’s opinion is important, and why—can they hurt me or help me in any way? Sometimes the answer is yes, e.g. I want to impress employers, or I need voters to like me if I’m doing politics. Often, though, the answer is that the person is not going to affect my life in any way, and so their opinion doesn’t matter. People’s opinions may also matter as an estimate of my own virtue, but if their opinion is based on a misunderstanding, or they’re confused about what’s virtue and what’s vice, then their opinion can be discarded again.