Rule: People who are difficult to talk with are almost always not worth the effort.
I was raised to believe that we should be nice to everyone. I was later educated to believe that we can learn something from everyone. I guess if you put these together what you get is that everyone has something useful and interesting inside them, and even if it is difficult, we should tease it out. We should give everyone the opportunity to demonstrate their inner worthiness. Think about the crusty academic who never really mastered social skills, but is brilliant in his field.
Do those people exist? Absolutely. I have met plenty of people like this, and yes, learned something from them.
But at some point I realized that never really mastered social skills was not some benign little flaw. The sort of shortcoming that should be overlooked because of their brilliance. If they have not mastered basic social skills it is because they do not care about basic social skills. And that almost always means they do not care about...you.
And of course, that is absolutely fine if they are Albert Einstein. But what if they're not? What if they are some mediocre academic? Or your roommate? Your neighbor? I mean, how many people are Albert Einstein? If you live next to Steve Jobs, and he's a jerk, it's understandable, even forgivable. But if you live next to Fred Smith? That is something altogether different. And let's be honest, most of us are Fred Smith.
So if someone is difficult to talk with, you have a cost-benefit analysis to run in your head. Ask yourself, what are the odds that this person is worth the effort to overcome his or her rudeness to discover their inner light? If you are the generous type, you might also ask yourself, what are the odds that this brilliant (or charming) person is just having a bad day? Because of course we all do on occasion.
So will you sometimes answer the question incorrectly? No doubt. Sometimes you will ignore a rude brilliant person. And hopefully less often, you will engage with a rude mediocre person.
We only have so much time. Personally, I'd rather risk making the first error.