Avoid people who are easily offended or want to police speech in a setting with friends. These people enjoy indulging themselves in recreational outrage, blaming others for the mismanagement of their own internal sanctity.

When you talk with these people, your brain creates its own compliance department. Every thought must pass inspection before becoming speech: Will this upset them? Should I rephrase? Better not say it at all?

This mental filtering is exhausting. That quarter-second pause before speaking—where you switch from open contemplation to defensive positioning—takes you out of the moment and drains energy that could be spent actually developing ideas.

Nobody likes dealing with compliance departments in business, so why tolerate them in your friendships? Good friends will create a safe space for sharing ideas, even when they disagree. The easily offended will force you to think less, accepting nothing except current mainstream opinions. The former leads to growth through constructive friction; the latter leads to stagnation through self-censorship.