Getting to know more people
Having a wider circle of acquaintance, a wider variety of people of different personalities, cultural backgrounds, expertise, careers, etc, is actively good, because it broadens your experience more than anything else, and in knowing people from a wider pool of potential friends, makes it more likely you'll meet people you get on especially well with.
Getting to know fewer people
Conversely, some people are easier to get to know than others. Like, two people who are equally interesting, equally nice and have equally much in common with you -- you will probably find it easier to get to know the one who already has a common language with you.
And less obvious differences can also be important. There are people I know I don't think it's their fault and I don't think it's my fault, I just rub them up the wrong way or they rub me up the wrong way. Or people who are perfectly pleasant and I'd be happy to share a room with, but we don't have almost anything in common to talk about or do. Or sometimes you just have incompatible communication styles.
And sometimes we've become close anyway, and got used to what each other actually mean, not the superficial problems. But also, sometimes, when I choose who to include on a more-personal posting filter, or who to hang out with, I choose people I know it's easy for me to get on with, because I only have so much "overcoming communication hurdles" energy and I want to spread it around where it will do the most good. And when I cut out active trolls from my LJ, I also accepted that it was ok if I lost people I liked but just wasn't that close to, and on balance that hopefully made it more welcoming for most people. And kept comments from people I sometimes find it difficult to get on with but are always really interesting.
Caveat
With the obvious caveat that you have to be honest about why you find it hard to get on with someone. If you just ALWAYS find it difficult to get on with anyone who disagrees with you at all, you have to recognise your perspective is going to be skewed by that, and if you have the energy to do so, it would be preferable to be more open to different people and different opinions.
This is why ever not getting to know someone wasn't obvious to me. Because I used to find it difficult to start to get on with most people, because it took me a long time to learn small talk skills, and because I was nerdy and didn't meet a lot of other nerdy people until university, etc. So if I stopped trying to socialise with someone because it was difficult, I would almost never socialise with people, and I wasn't happy with that. So I forced myself to socialise with people, which worked pretty well. But left me full of the geek fallacy "never exclude people, ever" that told me I had to get on with everyone.
Like, if someone find it hard to get on with anyone for reasons which are no fault of their own (they don't speak the most common language fluently, they have difficulty getting about, etc) that's a time you should practice "don't exclude" if you can, because else everyone will avoid them :( But if someone is just difficult, it's good to try to include them but you should accept you can't always pour an infinite amount of energy into it. And if someone is horrible, you can try to include them (but not at the expense of excluding other people). And if someone is perfectly ok but gets on badly with you it's ok to say, maybe we can have nice lives while being courteous but not close to each other.
Conclusions
I don't know if this is right, but the contrast between those two things appeared in my head in a conversation with Liv. That it's always good to try to get to know people, but it's also ok to be selective, you don't have to get on with everyone instantly in order to go on getting to know more people. And conversely, it's fine to say sometimes it's not worth pouring in a lot of effort into getting to know someone, and that can be a path to being more outgoing and welcoming, not less outgoing and welcoming.
Having a wider circle of acquaintance, a wider variety of people of different personalities, cultural backgrounds, expertise, careers, etc, is actively good, because it broadens your experience more than anything else, and in knowing people from a wider pool of potential friends, makes it more likely you'll meet people you get on especially well with.
Getting to know fewer people
Conversely, some people are easier to get to know than others. Like, two people who are equally interesting, equally nice and have equally much in common with you -- you will probably find it easier to get to know the one who already has a common language with you.
And less obvious differences can also be important. There are people I know I don't think it's their fault and I don't think it's my fault, I just rub them up the wrong way or they rub me up the wrong way. Or people who are perfectly pleasant and I'd be happy to share a room with, but we don't have almost anything in common to talk about or do. Or sometimes you just have incompatible communication styles.
And sometimes we've become close anyway, and got used to what each other actually mean, not the superficial problems. But also, sometimes, when I choose who to include on a more-personal posting filter, or who to hang out with, I choose people I know it's easy for me to get on with, because I only have so much "overcoming communication hurdles" energy and I want to spread it around where it will do the most good. And when I cut out active trolls from my LJ, I also accepted that it was ok if I lost people I liked but just wasn't that close to, and on balance that hopefully made it more welcoming for most people. And kept comments from people I sometimes find it difficult to get on with but are always really interesting.
Caveat
With the obvious caveat that you have to be honest about why you find it hard to get on with someone. If you just ALWAYS find it difficult to get on with anyone who disagrees with you at all, you have to recognise your perspective is going to be skewed by that, and if you have the energy to do so, it would be preferable to be more open to different people and different opinions.
This is why ever not getting to know someone wasn't obvious to me. Because I used to find it difficult to start to get on with most people, because it took me a long time to learn small talk skills, and because I was nerdy and didn't meet a lot of other nerdy people until university, etc. So if I stopped trying to socialise with someone because it was difficult, I would almost never socialise with people, and I wasn't happy with that. So I forced myself to socialise with people, which worked pretty well. But left me full of the geek fallacy "never exclude people, ever" that told me I had to get on with everyone.
Like, if someone find it hard to get on with anyone for reasons which are no fault of their own (they don't speak the most common language fluently, they have difficulty getting about, etc) that's a time you should practice "don't exclude" if you can, because else everyone will avoid them :( But if someone is just difficult, it's good to try to include them but you should accept you can't always pour an infinite amount of energy into it. And if someone is horrible, you can try to include them (but not at the expense of excluding other people). And if someone is perfectly ok but gets on badly with you it's ok to say, maybe we can have nice lives while being courteous but not close to each other.
Conclusions
I don't know if this is right, but the contrast between those two things appeared in my head in a conversation with Liv. That it's always good to try to get to know people, but it's also ok to be selective, you don't have to get on with everyone instantly in order to go on getting to know more people. And conversely, it's fine to say sometimes it's not worth pouring in a lot of effort into getting to know someone, and that can be a path to being more outgoing and welcoming, not less outgoing and welcoming.