@MissKathleen Oldster?!? Moi?
Ignoring that unintentional slight, yes I suppose you're right.
Being young, such situations, like everything else, are more flexible and fluid. This, it seems to me, CAN be a good thing...or bad...or somewhere in between...
Like even the most basic one-on-one relationships: when young, much more easily entered into, because walls have not gone up, baggage not yet accumulated.
So depending on the luck of the draw, a person who may be reflexively shunned later, may be admitted into a circle of trust, with varying results.
If the result is positive, does that circle get larger; if negative, smaller, until hardly anyone fits inside?
Discrimination can protect one from danger, but can also screen out pleasure and happiness.
Maybe that's why 'oldsters' like us can find ourselves isolated and alone as with the passing of the years, we become fearful of a lot of well-meaning, but 'marginal,' would-be friends we never get to know.
With good reason, oftentimes! But still, it's rather sad, for as with our bones, our outlooks can become brittle and fragile, and our naturally friendly and generous natures may harden, coarsen, and sour.
I say MAY. One can deliberately preserve his or her innocence, and continue to take calculated chances, IF willing to pay the potentially harmful price.
I personally think it's worth it, if risky.
That said, I hope your friends wise up and throw the bums out.