Here's an interesting social conundrum that has raised its head recently:

We used to have some fairly close friends, a guy who worked in same firm as me and his wife. This friendship got to the level of sometimes going on vacations together, being invited to family events like weddings and birthdays, that sort of thing.

We had always had opposing political views, they being Chevy Chase Donks and us being Virginny Republicans, but none of us was especially political and the topic simply never got discussed. At least until 2000. When Bush got elected, my friend started tossing little jabs - sending email jokes and the like. I either ignored them altogether or responded off-handedly.

Eventually, our friends moved across country. They came back to Dee Cee every now and again and we visited with them when we could.

Things stayed at about the same level, viz a viz the politics until about 2003 and the invasion of Iraq. Suddenly, the level of political commentary from my friend changed from gentle banter to outright attack. This culminated in a full-blown rant about the Bush Administration in 2004 (and about my job), when we met for lunch one day in Dee Cee with our children in tow.

I don't have much patience for this kind of behavior, so after this outburst I simply cut contact with these people. We have (I think) traded holiday cards since then, but nothing else.

Well, the other day we got a phone message: they're moving back to Dee Cee. It seems we have several options in dealing with this and I'm not sure which one to choose. Do we:

- ignore them altogether?

- welcome them back as if nothing had happened?

- welcome them back but preemptively explain we couldn't be friends if they (he) are going to keep up the political screeding?

- welcome them back and wait to see if/when the politics start up again before issueing said explanation?

Personally, I'm rather ambivalent. I can see being friendly, but things have grown cold and I'm not going to waste energy heating them back up just to get hectored again. And given the current climate, it's quite conceivable that my friend has got even shriller in his outlook. On the other hand, I'm not even sure they completely understand why we lost contact. I mean, I didn't confront them or anything like that.

We shall see, I guess.

Posted by: Robert at 01:49 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 418 words, total size 2 kb.