Personally, I go to great lengths (but not quite to the point of "any means necessary") to avoid arguments. I have a hard time telling the difference between a friendly debate and a real argument, and I loathe the latter - especially in person where I usually just get shouted over. However, I do have a tendency to get pretty defensive about some things.
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Yet in my new wildness and freedom I almost welcome the bitterness of alienage. For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.
-H. P. Lovecraft, "The Outsider"