What we can learn from conversations with people we love
Mónica Guzmán’s book, I Never Thought of It That Way, is a guide for having curious conversations in divided times. Part of her inspiration for exploring how to communicate with people on the other side of the political spectrum stems from her own experience as the liberal daughter of conservative Mexican immigrants.
As you can imagine, the past few election cycles have been hard on her family, and though the conversations aren’t always productive, she’s still speaking to her parents, still trying to understand how their experiences have been different from hers and how they’ve led to different decisions.
It’s easy to give people you love the benefit of the doubt, to assume that they’re willing to offer you the same. It’s a leap of faith with a stranger. But Guzmán stresses the role of curiosity in getting past the surface level of agitation: “When you want to explore why they’re wrong, explore instead what you’re missing.”
While Julia and I are largely aligned on the big things, like any relationship, there are plenty of opportunities for disagreement, and more importantly, “I never thought of it that way” moments. On the surface, we’re of similar backgrounds, but we’ve lived different lives — she being a woman and me being a man, for starters — and bring different perspectives to our conversations.
What allows us to come back together after putting our opinions out there and getting a little flustered is a mutual trust and respect. Many a conversation has started with, “I wouldn’t say this to anyone but you…” and that space to make mistakes and get feedback on why something might rub other people the wrong way is what helps us move forward with more empathy and understanding.
The lesson here isn’t to go out and have a conversation every day with someone who thinks you shouldn’t exist, but to go out and have a conversation with another human and think about why they feel the way they do. Because if you can acknowledge their humanity and their lived experience, and turn that leap of faith into more of a reaching halfway across, you have a better chance of getting along - as neighbors, as coworkers, as people - and maybe you can work past more than that as well.