When you vet someone for whether you can be close friends with them, what's a seemingly unimpactful characteristic about someone that would instantly rule them out as a potential close friend for you?

Being "vetted" by them...

Maybe you don't like the wording, but everyone does this. Unless you know if someone will be a close friend the moment you lay eyes on them, or are friends with literally everyone you've spent time with.
- At least for me, there's never really any conscious stage of vetting people. It's just a long process of repeated interactions, and eventually some of them become friends and others don't. There's no grand registrar of friendship that I file people into for processing.
For real this seems like a major red flag.

Not being kind to people in the service industry.

lack of curiosity

That's a big one. Also lack of hobbies or passions.
- That's a sign of depression.
This is exactly what tanked a potential relationship for me a few years ago.

That they vetted me

Serious belief in pseudosciences
Conspiracy theorist
Right-wing ideology
Sex prude

Belief in nonsense, such as astrology
Celebrity worship
Excessive social media usage, especially Twitter

you're on lemmy

If they are cheap/stingy but when someone else is paying they get the more expensive things. If someone is consistently frugal in all situations I don't mind.

Define "someone else". Because there's a big difference between expensing a fancy dinner on a work account, and doing so on your friend who said "I got you for tonight"
- You're right, if someone was expensing it on a work account it would make sense to maximize your order within budget. What I mean by someone else is any situation outside of that.

Someone who identifies very closely with hustle & grind culture. Someone who claims a personal brand. Someone who kisses up and kicks down.

Who are these people who have so many choices in friends that they can afford to vet them?

Its not so much having friends to vet them.

its meeting new people that seem, for all intents and purposes, cool and mellow people.

Then you make the mistake of sending them an off-platform friend request and are quickly brought to realization that the only thing keeping them cool and mellow was the platforms rules and reporting.

I got duped like that once in a game, Kept running into eachother and playing together, so sent them an out of game friend request.. Immediately received a massive tirade about what they really thought about trans people, and gays, and other various topics. 100% unprompted, and out of the blue 0-100 in .00237 second.

The only reason I didnt immediately block them was because I was too stupified and took me a solid minute to gather myself. Ended up having to block them in game, too.. Which I think resulted in them being banned, since they sent me a huge message in game about i must be one of those liberal trans homosexuals since i blocked him after his "truth" or whatever bullshit. Reported his ass, and never saw him again.

Crazy is super good at concealing itself, until it thinks you are a compatriot.

Inability to follow instructions. Lack of problem solving skills. No common sense.

Anyone who dislikes animals.

Refusing to participate in a civil discussion, but instead resorting to ad hominem (attacking the person not the argument) or refusing to consider the other sides argument. If they do this any minor dispute will escalate to a flame war.

You probably got machine-corrected, that's ad hominem. But yes, not being able to handle an argument healthily is a big handicap in life
- Thanks!

Doesn’t speak a language I know.

Listens to pop music

I'd go with people who refuse to admit to listening to pop music and/or center their entire personality around a music genre. I like jazz, I like classical and more, but I find the weird superiority complex specifically punk/rock/metal listeners have towards pop music very, very and I mean VERY cringe. This said, fuck Swifties, the woman alone is murdering the planet with how much she flies for no apparent reason.
- Yeah, you gotta be more than a single thread carpet.
Same for any pop media. Some is fine, but if they think every current trending show or movies is "the best" than I know they don't have a system of standard.
Almost forgot this place is filled with redditors

If they treat service workers poorly, that's already a red flag for me. Even if the service is disappointing somehow, being an asshole to them is still a red flag to me.

Unimpactful trait? I'd say if they put the toilet paper the wrong way, if you have to ask which way is the right way we can't be friends. Also if they don't return the shopping cart, instant way for me to lose respect for you.

Oddly enough your rigity on this is why we could not be friends.

Gossiping about other people. Venting is fine, but when you start pointing out weird random unflattering traits from people we know just to giggled I just lose interest

If they're boring, then we can't hang

If they talk bad about other people, especially if you don’t know the would-be friend very well. If they’ll bad mouth other people to you they’re gonna bad mouth you to other people.