Talking Politics On A First Date

Politics comes up on first dates whether or not anybody planned it. What it is doing there is rarely persuasion; it is a compatibility check running under a different name.

The question underneath is about daily life

People are usually not asking how somebody votes for its own sake. They are asking what a shared life would look like and where the friction would sit.

That includes concrete things: how a family would be raised, which relatives would be at the table, what topics would be permanently tense.

Asking about the consequences directly produces better information than asking about the label, because labels compress a great deal and different people compress differently.

Positions and intensity are separate variables

Two people can hold the same view with completely different weight. For one it is a background preference and for the other it organizes their week.

Mismatch in intensity causes more trouble than mismatch in position, because it determines how much of a life gets shaped around the subject.

Noticing which one you are dealing with takes a follow-up question rather than a longer answer, and the follow-up is usually about how the person spends their time.

A first date is a poor venue for persuasion

Nobody's view changes over one drink with a stranger. Attempting it converts a conversation into a contest with an audience of two.

The realistic goal is information: whether the disagreement is one you could live beside, and whether the other person can disagree without needing to win.

How somebody handles being disagreed with is frequently more predictive than the content of the disagreement, and it shows up within a couple of exchanges.

Some disagreements are about a person's own life

Where a political position bears directly on your rights, your family or your safety, it is not an abstract difference and does not need to be treated as one.

Deciding in advance which subjects are dealbreakers means the decision is not being made late in an evening by somebody trying to be agreeable.

Most people find the list is shorter than they assumed, and that having it settled makes the rest of the conversation easier rather than more tense.

Changing the subject is available

A first date is not obliged to resolve anything. Noting a difference and moving on is a legitimate outcome and leaves the question open for a later conversation.

What is worth avoiding is the pretense of agreement, since it produces a second date built on a position you will have to walk back.

Saying that you would rather not spend the evening on it is also an answer. How that request is received tells you as much as the subject would have.