generalizing people

i feel very strongly that we cannot generalize people based on their external attributes or belongings. of cos, one can have negative experience with people in the past, and one may want to take the necessary precautions to protect oneself, but to carry it to the extremes and to avoid/ not give people a chance to even be a friend is something i feel very strongly about.

you see, during my lunch with my dear friend thomas yesterday, he shared that he would not want to associate with people who drives a convertible. added to this, even after knowing a person, and he were to find out later that this person drives a convertible, he would keep his distance. his reason - "people who drives convertibles are full of himself, proud, showy and shallow". ok, some may not be his exact words, but well, you get the idea. i disagreed. my point was that we cannot generalize. people who are showy, proud la la la has a higher tendency to drive a convertible, but not all who drives a convertible are proud, etc.

and it would be totally unfair to the person (who drives a convertible) to be branded even before you get the chance to know him! this is simply pure discrimination. totally baseless. no? and i relate this to the analogy of being gay. as a gayman, the last thing i expect or hate people to do, was to generalize and make conclusions about my behaviour just because i am gay. and being at the recieving end, it felt really shitty. and if i were to hold the same thought and exhibit the same behaviour of generalizing, wouldn't i also be guilty of discriminating people?