I often found myself dreading activities that could pop up a ‘you met someone new, yay’ dialogue box. For instance, walking in the park, or going jogging. Often the ‘new friend’ would be someone irritable, dishonest, or pessimistic, traits that I didn’t particularly want to deal with. Worst of all were the Irritable/Extroverted ones. Lessee, they want to be in large gatherings, but their presence in large gatherings becomes a wart that drags down everyone’s enjoyment.
Thus I propose that in situations where you would potentially add someone to your circle of direct friends, you should have the option to see their personality and then potentially decline them. As much as the Jerk with a Heart of Gold makes for a great story character, they make for sucky friends, especially when their basic jerkiness rubs off on you. When a pessimistic person is a friend-of-a-friend I just have to grin and bear it, but that doesn’t mean I have to add them to my Short List of People I Care About. All this goes double for random Joe Jogger who happens to cross routes with me.
On the contrary to this, perhaps a random event should be added that’s similar to the one where you meet new people, that has you meet someone new - and get in an argument with them. This would cause stress for you, and should be more likely if certain of your personality metrics were low, most of all the Optimism and Charisma ones, but others too. (Persuasion might have another impact. On the other hand, it seems impossible to get persuasion above 5%, so maybe it should be left out of this.)