My Social Circle Has Border Control (And I’m Not Proud of It)

As a devout disciple of the humanities, I am a woman of many paradoxes. Or at least, that’s what I tell myself so I can sleep easily. Truthfully, that’s just a more palatable way of admitting I’m a hypocrite: I’ll scream and shout for free speech, but simultaneously cross people off my friendship list for having the wrong political opinions.

Whoa, whoa…did she say the wrong opinions? The crowd lets out an affronted gasp! 

The irony is not lost on me: I’m in a building named after Voltaire, the patron saint of free speech, writing about how I impose ideological visa requirements on my social circle. Yet, this stems from good intentions. I deeply treasure my friendships; they’re reflections of the values I try to live by. Distancing myself from people with certain views feels like a kind of personal “deplatforming”, a refusal to legitimize beliefs I find morally reprehensible. After all, friendship is a powerful form of endorsement. 

This boundary has mostly felt intuitive. But in an increasingly polarized world, it’s hard to know whether closing doors protects my principles or reinforces the walls around us. If someone close holds dubious views, am I complicit? Or do I need the friendship to have more weight when I call them out? Cutting people off raises another question: does ostracism deepen extremism? Echo chambers are not exclusively digital: exile rarely leads to introspection; it breeds resentment. 

And here’s the other problem: the line I draw is embarrassingly wonky. My boundaries are shaped by principle- and, let’s be honest, a healthy dose of personal convenience I’m not exactly proud of. That line from Community comes to mind: “I can excuse racism, but I draw the line at animal cruelty!” Certain views feel like clear dealbreakers, while others get asterisks, footnotes, and quiet rationalizations. 

I’m hardly the only one whose values dissolve under real-life conditions. I know a PVV voter in a relationship with an international student. Some of my most fervent anti-capitalist friends? Proud members of the “+500 connections” club on LinkedIn, relentless with their “dear network-ing”. Hypocrisy, unsurprisingly, is a bipartisan indulgence. 

Observing these contradictions reveals a pattern: if this dilemma were a linear regression, the two strongest predictors would be privilege and political interest. More privilege nudges you toward cross-ideological friendships; more political investment nudges you away. But these definitions aren't consistent: for some, a legislative adjustment is a fine-print tweak; for others, it’s an existential threat. 

So, where does this leave my tendency to gerrymander my social circle? I don’t have a concrete answer. I’d love to sit on my high horse and spout flowery prose about how I’ve learned from my mistakes and now navigate the world with perfect moral clarity. Instead, I admit my boundaries will continue to shift- the best I can do is draw them with awareness. The real challenge, albeit uncomfortable, is learning to live in the tension between withholding social legitimacy and critical relational engagement: acknowledging the contradiction without pretending I’ve transcended it.

This is one of the nominated columns for the 2026 campus columnist competition. The winners will be announced on Wednesday, 14 January, at DUB's New Year's reception. The two winners (one for the Dutch page and one for the English page) will each receive the Erik Hardeman stipend (1,000 euros) and publish a column on DUB every three weeks in 2026.