As others have pointed out, “tolerance” is too subjective to have a meaningful conversation. You haven’t been specific enough. Therefore, you must be punished. Hence the following rambler. Feel free to skip to the final four words and claim that you read the whole thing.
I don’t think of it in terms of people I can tolerate, or what kind of people. If I smell cigarette smoke, I’m going to move away, never mind how I feel about the people doing it. And that works out really well anyway, because then I don’t have to tolerate smokers, regardless of what the word means.
Fat people aren’t hurting me. If my eyes hurt when I look at them, it’s not their job to lose weight; it’s my job to refrain from looking. It’s my job to take care of my own feelings and needs. Do I feel angry at them for being fat? No. Would I ever say something to them out of “kindness”? No. It’s none of my business. Well, it is, a little, because they’re forcing me to pay higher insurance premiums, but I won’t bother them personally about that; I’ll just email my congressional representatives to fix our health care and insurance crisis, and to invest more heavily in encouraging people to live healthier. Their individual personal lives are none of my business.
I do feel angry when I see fat kids. Their parents are doing them great harm. But really, we as a society are doing them great harm. We never helped the parents learn how to take care of themselves, and they went and had a kid (we really should require people to take a class or something). Out of the million reasons for them to fail their kids, at least half of the reasons are due to our failure to the parents as citizens. So I feel angry that we don’t take better care of each other.
I feel angry about people being treated badly due to their race. Jews and black people especially, given that history has conspired to oppress them the worst. But then, it’s not just racist behavior that I feel angry about; it’s any kind of bigotry-driven behavior. I don’t really care whether someone is a bigot; I only care about their behavior. If someone hates gays, or gingers, or owners of Jack Russel terriers, I don’t care, as long as they’re not hurting anyone. If they start making slurs or going on angry tirades, I’ll walk away, and again, never mind how I feel about them as a person.
There are a lot of reasons for being a racist. Not good reasons, but reasons nonetheless. I grew up in a culture where the “n-word” was just barely starting to be taboo. My grandparents both said it without apology; they never said “black person”. Were they racist? I guess we’d have to talk about what “racist” means. They had some prejudices, but that word in particular wasn’t an expression of prejudice. They certainly feared black people. My grandfather had a dim view of them, although he was perfectly happy to see his favorite sports teams winning because of them. Racism? Who knows.
So, “tolerate”. Does it mean sit and put up with bad smells and health hazards rather than walking away? No, I won’t tolerate such things; I’ll walk away. Does it mean don’t get angry? Then I’m a really intolerant person, especially with respect to the way we are sitting around while Mr Swamp-Drainer turns out to have been preparing the swamp for high-rise luxury alligator condos. Does it mean mind my own business? Yeah, I tolerate many things. Does it mean don’t judge people? Well, I don’t think anyone can suppress their immediate reactions to things; we don’t have complete control over our basic impulses. If I see two big, burly men with beards making out, I’m not going to judge them, but I’m going to be grossed out, just for a second. Is that intolerance? Oh well, sue me.