The other day I was thinking about how I was going to miss a self-imposed deadline that I had told a lot of people I was going to meet. As I started thinking about how I was going to tell them I would miss it, I started thinking about what their reactions might be. In my mind, everyone except one person would say something like, “it’s ok. At least you’re making progress and moving toward something you really want.” But one person would say something like, “I knew you couldn’t do it.”
Whether these reactions are real or not, it bothered me that this one person would say something so negative. Then it dawned on me that I don’t really like this person much. They’re friendly and can hold a decent conversation for a while, but I don’t consider them anything more than an acquaintance. So why would their reaction bother me so much?
In the U.S., discussing politics is a national past time. Unfortunately, it’s getting more difficult to have any sort of discussion with someone who disagrees with you without the whole thing blowing up. This is especially true of debates over Facebook, Twitter, blog comments, etc.