And, if so, what difficulties does your different opinions cause the relationship?
I know the question seems pretty simple, but I’d like to make a a single qualification. For purposes of this discussion, parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, stepsiblings, and descendents should not be counted as friends. Okay?
You can define “deeply different” for yourself, I think.
Answering my own question: my closest friend from college and I have very different political affiliations. She’s a Republican who kind of likes Ayn Rand is is hoping Herman Cain becomes president; I’m a Democrat who volunteered for Obama in 2008 and will do so again next year. (I want Cain to be the Republican nominee, though.) Our different opinions have caused some discord in our friendship, but we’ve gotten past it. I’ll go into more detail if anyone wants to hear about it, and if the thread gets any traction.
My friends are all over the map, but I rarely talk politics with them. I have little interest in proselytizing for my views, and those of my friends who are have learned that I’m typically not going to engage with them on that level. It’s just the way I’m wired.
Certainly, I may disagree with any given friend on some constellation of issues. For me, though, respecting someone well enough to have them as my friend generally means that I respect that their views, however foolish and misguided, are coming from a good place.
My longtime best friend is a Republican, a Christian, and a stay at home mom; I am a Democrat, an agnostic, and a professional with no kids. We tend to steer away from controversial topics. As long as we avoid them, we are fine.
Well, my boyfriend is basically my best friend. He and I are pretty different politically. It really doesn’t cause any problems because we respect each other and know the other person isn’t a bad person just for seeing things differently.
One of my best friends of about 30 years - met him when we were freshmen in college - is a very liberal, leftie, very politically active guy. An opposite of me. We get along great. We even argue politics once in a while, while definitely understanding that we’re not gonna change each other’s opinions.
The woman I consider my best friend is a Republican. I am not a Democrat, because they are too conservative. We don’t talk politics much, but when we do, it’s respectful.
She’s pretty disgusted with the current Republican party.
That is the key, IMO. It seems these days fewer and fewer people can run into someone with different opinions and simply go “Huh. Interesting.” Instead most people have to completely vilify them.
I’m a tree hugging liberal agnostic/pantheist, and one of my closest friends is an Orthodox Christian Republican. There are some topics we can discuss so long as we keep it in terms of “explain to me the background behind this”.
I have a guy (off-and-on roommate) whom I met thru a mutual friend (girlfriend for me at the time)-he was pretty liberal back then, but had an epiphany of sorts while in a suicidal mood, and became an instant right-wing Bible toter. We have had a few knock-down drag outs over the years, but have now agreed to not mention certain things in each other’s presence.
As an old-school socialist, it surprises me how many of my friends are ex-public school Torys. On the whole politics doesn’t come up much, but when it does it leads to interesting and stimulating discussions. Generally though, I just find them a good laugh and intelligent company.
My closest friend of 30 years and I are polar opposites when it comes to politics.
Over the years, political discourse has, like a living relationship, gone from heated and passionate, to agreeing to disagree. Sometimes, We Just Don’t Talk About It.
Now and then we poke each other just for fun; but her right-wing proclivity remains the one thing about her that I have yet to understand.
After I got radicalized I kind of gave up on my old friends.
Because as I was getting radicalized & moving leftward I had some really heated arguments with a friend. He’s still a friend, actually, I just kind of don’t want to see him. Very mixed feelings.
None of my friends are conservative (and neither am I). I live in probably the most left-wing part of the country, so that helps in making it less likely of a situation. That said, I’ve still had some rather significant political disagreements with my left-wing friends. Which is fine.
I’m not sure how conservative of a person I’d be capable of being good friends with. I don’t think I could be friends with someone who is against gay rights. I also couldn’t be friends with a “birther”, but that falls under my no-friendships-with-idiots policy.
Funnily enough it differs per country. In the Netherlands, if my friends represented the population the Democrats (our centre, but to the US very, very left-wing) would be firmly in power, though on all other levels it is a hugely diverse group of friends (ie age, income, ethnicity, socio-economic background etc). We can still have raging discussions about politics though
In the UK the political views of my friends are a little more diverse, though it still ranges mainly Lib-Dem to Labour. The most divisive issue recently was of course the proportional representation debate. I have lots of friends who voted FPTP, which actually really surprised me. Sadly, in discussions afterwards three friends said they understood the issue better now and wished they had voted differently!
I have some Italian acquaintances who vote for Berlusconi because the pope says they should. I have a definite problem with that. It’s not really something we can discuss, because the only answer they have is “but the pope says so”. I think it might’ve been a small part of the reason we never really became friends, just stayed people who occasionally saw each other. They were nice and everything, but…
I agree with gatorslap that there are certain limits beyond which for me, we couldn’t really be friends. It would be challenging when it moves from opinion to just being factually incorrect. It’s fine to debate why you think that longer prison sentences would reduce crime, but you’ll have to come up with compelling arguments and cite real evidence. I don’t think I could be very good friends with someone who just thinks more punishment would reduce crime.
Things like gay rights, women’s rights etc, that would just be a deal breaker.
I’m a liberal, most of my friends are conservatives, including my ex-lover/best friend, and my current girlfriend.
I love talking politics with them. I’ve brought them closer to the left over the years, and they’ve brought me closer to the right, so we’re sort of balancing each other out.
Sure. My BFF of 20+ years is a proud Democrat who campaigned for Obama. I’m… kind-of a Republican, I guess, although I’d go full-on Libertarian if I thought one ever stood a chance of getting elected.
