Mutual unfriendings of minor people in my life on facebook, not that many. I need to start posting more inflammatory stuff lol.

I don't know if I can say "lost", because I don't know if I had him on my "side" to begin with.

He's a good guy. Too good. A soft serve liberal, an almost perfect representation of the "consoomer" meme. The type of guy who'd identify as a feminist, but without the ulterior motive of obtaining sex. We bonded in high school over nerdy shit. And we still keep in contact to this day. But it's not the same.

We've never fought over politics or anything like that. But there's always this layer of discomfort beneath every conversation we have. I suspect he knows I'm not like them, his set of university friends. I don't care about the cause de jour, about "LGBT/minority/feminist" representation. I don't pay heed to mainstream news. I don't believe in the myth of free sex or hookup culture. And I certainly don't believe transgenders are anything but mentally ill. I wish I knew how they could be helped, that psychologists could be allowed to investigate forms of treatment that don't involve validating their fantasies. But it looks like that won't be happening for a long time, if ever.

Yesterday we were texting, and he referred to one of our mutual acquaintances as "they" for the first time.

"They". It stuck out plain as day. One of many signs that our political and social views are at stark contrast to one another. And I'm not angry, at all. I'm just sad.

He's the kind of guy who'd tweet #blacklivesmatter, but he wouldn't say it around me. Because he knows I'm not going to parrot it back to him. And I know I'll never be able to speak my mind honestly around him, for fear of losing him as a friend forever.

Our friendship is dying a slow death. But he has the comfort of being on the "right side" of history, and the solidarity of his leftist friends. So I'm sure I won't be missed when we go our separate ways for good.

I'm a veteran and I lost one of the people in thought I would know for life over politics from my time in Navy. Once "everything" became politics we only argued.

I'm Pagan. In the late 90s I became more involved in the community and started going to local festivals and rituals. I even started to work on an MDiv. Everyone was so accepting and sweet. I thought I had found a home. The times I was able to see these folks were wonderful, healing, and joyous. Even before social media, I knew how very liberal they were for the most part. What I did not realize is how politically intolerant they were. I thought we could talk about ANYTHING. I was wrong.

I thought it would be nice to speak up and see if there were any others who shared my libertarian political views. (I was raised liberal, but being chronically curious about any opposing view point, I moved more toward the center after listening to Rush Limbaugh and marrying a guy with more conservative views) In fact the person who introuced me to libertarinaism was a Pagan. But it was not nice. I'm reasonably articulate with words, so I never swore or made generalizations, and did not leave such comments sitting on my social media feed, so no one blatently unfriended me at that point. But my views on firearms (I'm a NRA safety instructor) ran very counter to most of thier views and after Sandy Hook (I work in Newtown CT) I don't think any of them looked at me the same way.

After 2008, things started to go slowly down hill. I was not singing the praises of the president as if he were some sort of acended master. No bashing because I don't do that. But it got old. I wanted to talk about policy not personality. And when Trump got elected... I did not vote for him, but damn...

This covid thing has sent me over the edge. The faith that so many people I know have in their elected officials is - stressful. 18 months ago I left my MDiv program, along with volunteering at the school I was attending and recently unfriended a whole pile of people on FB. If there is a shot of me ever liking them again, I need to not know every indignant thought going through thier minds. I'm not convinced at this point that I will ever like them again at all.

I live in a very, very liberal area, and there seems to be no escaping these views. I've largely gone back to solitary practice. I have a few friends I hang out with locally, but I'm not sure I'll get back to any festivals. Thinking about it gives me an unhappy feeling in my stomach.

It's an interesting question.

It goes to the root of the issue. When you follow the Left's lead, everything is political---every...single...thing.

Is that the worldview you want? Is it the worldview that your friends have? There is a difference between settling for vacuous conversations vs. not having politics burden your every encounter. The need to put politics at the forefront of everything is not healthy for anyone, regardless of what those politics are.

I live in an area that has always had to deal with high water---the Ohio River, creeks, etc. The history of the area is heavy industrial, coal, steel. The Northern Panhandle of WV suffers from particular disdain by our state capitol for a number of reasons beyond its geography. In a word, we remain a world apart from the rest of the state. Not all of that is a negative. In our locale, no one cares what your politics are when the creeks rise, and they do rise...fast.

It's a regional thing, actually. Rural western PA, the northern Panhandle, eastern OH. We get it. Many of the industries are gone or transformed. Opioid use is crazy. Yet, people still come to this area to rear their children and make a life. Fracking has been a Godsend. There are reasons for these seeming contradictions which are beyond the scope of this brief missive. We are not the "land of the ignorant." We're simply not willing, most of time, to put politics---no matter how contentious--- at the center of our lives.

Looking after our neighbors would make hypocrites out of all of us if that were the case.

As to FB, IDW and their like, they are a "screen," yes? It may be worthwhile to consider that word in all its
connotations.

Best to all. T

It's amazing how you think you know someone and then find out they're not even close to what they seemed.