“I’m willing to believe that you’re human, or that I am. But I don’t see how both of us could be, and so persistently misunderstand each other.” Not a comfortable impasse to reach in an argument, and not the sort of impasse promising friendship rather than enmity. And yet, around here, it still does. Not always, but it can.

I remember saying the above to fellow Ricochet member @titustechera when we first were getting to know each other. Because the way we chose to first get to know each other was to have blazing rows. Every. Single. Flippin’. Time. It did not seem possible for one of us to comment on the other without provoking some sort of deep, even existential, dispute, which you’d think would be kind of hard to do on a website where members pay to join an online conversation with at least somewhat like-minded people. They were at least civil rows — constrained as we both were by the Code of Conduct. Nonetheless, that it was even possible for two people with anything in common to disagree so thoroughly courted absurdity. How could we?

I got to know fellow members @mikerapkoch and @balldiamondball in basically the same way. I suspect there were more first impressions of shrill pomposity all round than any of us would prefer to recall now. As I remember it, I was the crazy libertarian crank; they, like Titus, were among the “conservatives who hate libertarians because…”

So when they first saw me coming, they’d think, “Here comes one of those frivolous, soulless libertarians, overeducated in abstractions and understanding nothing else.” And when I first saw them coming, I’d think, “Oh, those conservatives, the ones who argue as if the sum of human knowledge began and ended with the Ancient Greeks,” or “This guy reminds me of why I hated the guys on my high school debate team. He gives a bad imitation of deductive logic, then says it ‘proves’ him right.”

Even so, we had an obligation to keep it civil, and, at some level, I realized, we must have at least found each other interesting. Else why, on a site with thousands of members, did we repeatedly pick on each other to tussle with?

We found each other interesting.

I, at least, couldn’t help but find my curiosity piqued by these weirdos, and I’m weird enough myself that there’s no reason they shouldn’t have thought the same of me. Well, if you keep your curiosity piqued long enough, odds are good you’ll find something in common.

Maybe just little things, or things that seem little at the time. Some offhand remark, a joke, even, about luck, or love, or suffering – most of us are fortunately incapable of laughing along strict factional lines. Or maybe you learn one “minor” detail about the other guy that casts new light on your previous sense of him. This happened with me and Ball. Somehow the rather nerdly topic of Bayesian inference came up and he mentioned, yep, that was his kind of inference – and then I knew that he knew he wasn’t claiming airtight deduction when he got all “debatey,” he wasn’t trying to “prove” a false sense of certitude. Maybe he wasn’t even the “debatey” type at all. Well, that’s a relief!

Bad puns, a “favorite” pet peeve, some hilariously awful meme in the Member Feed… it doesn’t take much, necessarily, to see the guy you once thought of as simply “opponent” in a friendlier light. As far as it’s possible to befriend those you’ve never met in person, I’m glad to say I’ve befriended Mike and Titus. Despite our differing, even antagonistic, ideological affiliations, we’ve discovered the kind of understanding that’s better than mere agreement. Ball Diamond Ball and I, we’re more like frenemies, but in the good sense of the term – the kind of friendly opponent you end up appreciating, maybe in spite of yourself (Ball is one of our feistier members, and Moderating does oblige me to give excess feisting the hairy eyeball).

Some members come here for the ideas and stay for the people. I came here for the people – this wondrous group of folks in an Internet comments section of all things who were lighthearted, funny, and civil – and stayed for the people. This election season has proven exceptionally stormy, making enmity easier and friendship harder, even among the good-natured and good-humored. But guys like Titus, Mike, and Ball are living proof to me that, even on the internet, it’s possible to befriend the opponents who try your patience, even the ones who thoroughly frustrate – perhaps even embarrass – you with their insistence on what you’re sure just has to be the wrong kind of thinking!

Or, at least, it’s possible on Ricochet.

We want you to become a member, and the number one reason is the friends you will make here. We want to meet you. Join today and the first month is on us!