We think we have limited options. We can censor ourselves, have a superficial relationship without talking about the issues we care about, we can keep fighting, or we can sever the relationship.

I can’t tell you the number of people who have told me that the rule at their dinner table is no politics, especially at holidays. And, in fact, research shows that Thanksgiving dinners are getting shorter in length. After the 2016 election, a study found that a dinner with people who cross partisan lines was thirty to fifty minutes shorter than those who didn’t have opposing views.

Because we don’t know how to talk to each other, we leave early, which only makes it worse. The more we don’t talk to each other, the wider the divide gets. And the chances of us solving our political divide decrease.

Instead of doing the work to maintain the relationships, we substitute relationships online for the ones in real life and that makes it even worse, because much of what we see online about the “other side” are caricatures. And the more we think about the other side as only the caricatures, the angrier we get and less likely we are to do the hard work to talk to them. Recent research shows that much of what makes us angry about the other side just isn’t true.

As I mentioned earlier, the epidemic of loneliness occurring now is leading to increased depression and anxiety. Experts point to the use of social media as a substitute for in-person relationships as a cause of that loneliness. The fact that we had to socially distance during the pandemic has increased anxiety and depression levels, but maybe a silver lining is that it’s made us realize how important in-person relationships actually are. Even so, we still don’t know how to talk about political differences without fracturing the relationship.

There is another way. But it requires work and knowledge. This column is about giving you the information you need in a digestible way. Only you can do the work.