You Don’t Have to Go ‘All In’ to Keep Friends
The ante is your only obligation
In most poker games, there’s an ante — a required “buy-in” to play each hand. In Texas Hold ’em, it’s called a blind, and just two players of each hand have to cough it up. After the initial buy, what each player does — play, call, bid, or fold — is up to them. Going “all in” is never a requirement. One could easily just fold the hand.
There’s a reason I haven’t been posting on mainstream social media nearly as much as I used to. I’m tired of the “all or nothing” expectation regarding anything from the type of foods we eat to politics.
I’m a marketer. Plenty of my day is spent analyzing news reports, websites, and platforms. On social media, I’ve had to learn to not read most of what appears at the top of my feeds, lest I get sucked down a rabbit hole of finger-pointing and name-calling. I often avoid joining most conversations in my feed because I know what comes next: “you’re part of the problem.”
You’re white, you’re privileged, so you’ll never understand. You’re a woman, so if you don’t immediately show support of the trending issues supposedly affecting the lives of your fellow females, you’re out of touch. If you voted for Biden, you’re deluded. If you voted for Trump, you don’t care about the future of America. No real conservative is gay. No liberal cares about free speech.
And especially:
Agree with me on all points…or else.
These are all simple, firm demands. But they’re made as if the subject at hand isn’t complex.
The all-or-nothing expectation plaguing today’s society is a form of modern-day peer pressure. It’s a command that people firmly take a side “on all counts” or stay out of the game entirely. The requirement is often accompanied by threats of banishment.
In extreme cases, of which the number is growing, the oft-used “final nail” is hammered with a comparison to Hitler. Invoking Godwin’s Law typically yields one of two outcomes: defense mechanisms catapult the fight into a full-on tirade, or the conversation stops.
If you like pineapple on your pizza… you can’t be my friend.
