One of the casualties of the last election cycle was a near forty year friendship that blew up rather spectacularly a few months before November. Insults were given (I held my temper and only received), and when I tried to resolve it a few months later, I was rebuffed.
At some point, I began the mourning process, but underneath the grief was also ANGER. I had told myself that when tempers cooled, we could work things through.
It’s now been almost a year. I’ve written several emails that I never sent, and finally tonight picked up the phone.
I very politely explained our friendship hadn’t ended over politics, but over the insults. I was asked why I had waited to bring this up all of these months later, and I pointed out I had tried to resolve it with a “we need to talk” email that had been responded to once with “not now” and never brought up again.
My friend tried to focus on political concerns. I returned the conversation to the insults and attacks on my character. My friend said he didn’t want to talk anymore, and I ended the conversation with “and that is why we aren’t friends anymore” as I hung up the phone.
I feel so much better. It’s like a weight has been lifted. Having someone attack my character in order to minimize my credibility is not what friends do, and while I believe in the value of forgiveness, I don’t need to subject myself to that level of abuse.
Loyalty is important; attacking my integrity is not the actions of a loyal friend.
Cutting the ties that bind should not have been that simple. I wonder why I waited so long to do it?
To me this sounds like your friend is experiencing cognitive dissonance.
Your friend drank the Kool aid, and he's all in on what the TV told him is true. Then he sees you believing something else. Clearly you're an accomplished individual, and I'd even bet that your friend sees you as intelligent and accomplished (even if he won't admit to that right now).
Everyone experiences life as if they're watching a movie, and they are the star character. Most see themselves as having the best qualities like kindness, rationality, intelligence, etc. regardless of the objective truth. Only the truly humble can see their own faults (Jesus said to remove the log from your own eye, before you remove the speck from your brother's eye.)
Enter cognitive dissonance.
Your friend believes 1) he's smart and rational. That's reinforced by seeing other people believe and behave the same way he does, even if he only sees it on TV. Your friend also believes 2) that you are smart, rational, and accomplished, but you believe and behave differently. Those two beliefs (1 and 2) are in conflict and your friend sees the conflict.
So when you present facts and arguments counter to the way he's been living his life, it doesn't matter if you presented a 100% perfectly logical argument completely devoid of emotion and personal attacks. Your friend is experiencing a challenge to how he sees himself as smart and intelligent. He's presented with the possibility that he's a fool and that he's been deceived. So he experiences it as a personal attack.
There's only 2 ways to respond. If he has humility, he'll entertain the idea that he was wrong and that he's been deceived. Most people don't have humility. The other response is to dig in his heels and say that you are the one who is wrong.
So when he says that you don't know how elections are counted and that you don't believe in science, he's not trying to convince you, he's trying to convince himself to preserve his own self-image.
You're certainly free to cancel your friendship with this man. But 40 years is a long time. I would advise to just wait for your friend to catch up with reality. If we are right about elections and the pandemic, then the truth will be undeniable for everyone eventually, and at that point your friend will be forced to see that he was wrong, and once he accepts that, your friendship may be able to go back to how it was before.
Great post Beerman. I can relate.
Wow, one of the best comments I've seen on this site