So last night I accepted the friend request of a guy I've known for about a month now meeting him through college chapel. He's a history student, but basically the only thing we've talked about on the couple of occasions we've actually spoken were church-related and I have definitely enjoyed my conversations with him.
Then after I accepted the request I went and had a scroll of his profile and discovered that not only was he a Conservative Anglo- or possibly even Roman-Catholic of the Rees-Mogg inclination (even going so far as to refer to Theresa May as "that dreadful woman" in one post), and thus expressing opposition to things like Abortion and gay marriage, but that also last year he had given a talk at the annual conference of the
Property and Freedom Society in Turkey, which is somehow even worse than it sounds, propounding as it does the doctrine of "paleo-libertarianism", which combines cultural conservatism and economic libertarianism and a dash of white-nationalism into one giant unholy abomination seemingly perfectly designed to drive me off. (Incidentally I'm surprised I hadn't heard the term "paleolibertarian" before this, since this appears to have been the political position of the Republican Party in the US for decades now).
But at the same time I'm perfectly OK with keeping him on my friends list. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, it will be good for me to see "how the other side thinks" as it were with regards to political and social issues like this, and will help to stimulate my political faculties through meditating on stuff he posts, however I do not think my debating skills nor background knowledge is yet good enough for me to be able to win a debate with him or others like him.
Secondly, as a fellow member of the college (and more importantly the chapel) it's actually fairly important that I continue to be as friendly as possible in order to avoid unnecessary strife, which is part of what being a "broad church" as the CofE likes to describe itself is kind of all about really (and as I've said above if I did try and confront him I'm certain I would come off the worse).
Finally there is one additional factor, and that is the lack of shock I had at these revalations. The first time I saw the guy, before I even heard him speak, I could immediately tell he was unlikely to be anything other than a Tory, and thus in that sense there was no illusion to be shattered, and that I kind of knew what I was getting into by accepting his request anyway.
Thus he stays on my friends list out of pure pragmatism.