²⁴ Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person,
    do not associate with one easily angered,
²⁵ or you may learn their ways
    and get yourself ensnared.

Hot Tempered Friends

We need to reach out to people of every temperament.  However, we need to be careful who we bring in to our inner circle.  The reason is that we become like those we most closely associate with.  we adopt their values, eat their food, talk their language.  My father’s vocabulary was choice at times because he could get angry and fly off the handle.  I remember being at the other end of the golf course and heard him miss a putt.  My mother and I both had words leap to mind in difficult (an playful) situations which were profane, vulgar, or rude. 

Fear can lead to anger.  How do your friendsw deal with their fears?  Do they discuss and defuse them or do they explode?  Explosion might feel cathartic for the one unloading, but those around are wounded by the shrapnel.  It is hard for a deeply wounded household to function.  Also, those around become fearful of the next outburst and that fear creates a cycle of anger.  It may be passive aggressive (an implosion rather than an explosion), but it is still destructive.

Stop the cycle by making friends with those who curb your anger and do not feed it by their own anger.

Questions

1. With whom should the wise not make friends?
2. Why is it foolish to make friends with some people?
3. Does this mean that wise people do not talk to people who do not fit the mould?
4. Why do men have so few intimate friends?
5. Describe the character of those whom you let in the closest?