Vin Brocki: Blogging

Friendship is easy when it’s effortless. When you’re laughing at the same jokes, binge-watching the same Netflix series, and agreeing that the designated hitter in baseball is a sign of moral decay, it feels natural. Seamless. Fun.

But what about when it’s not easy? What about when the person you’ve known for years—someone who once helped you move a futon in July—starts saying things that make you wonder if they’ve been replaced by a very polite conspiracy theorist.

That’s when it gets interesting. And uncomfortable. Because real friendship eventually wades into tricky territory. Not just politics, but how people parent, pray, protest, spend, get their news, or define “truth” at all. You don’t have to like it. But if you want a friendship with any kind of mileage, you’ll have to learn to live with it.

This isn’t about tolerating hate or giving airtime to nonsense. It’s about grappling with a very grown-up reality: sometimes, the people we love aren't fully aligned with us. And they never were—we just didn’t notice until life got louder.

And wow, has it gotten louder. Politics used to be something you argued about during election season, then moved on from. Now it’s in everything, and it is unavoidable.

So where does that leave friendship in this politically charged culture?

It leaves it in a place of negotiation. Of choosing to keep a relationship ongoing because it seems the right thing to do. It means being able to say, “I completely disagree with you on . . . , but I still want to hear how your dog’s surgery went.” It means resisting the urge to cut and run the moment a conversation gets itchy.

Sometimes friendship is not easy, or effortless.

Because the point isn’t to win. It’s to keep the door, and the friendship, still open.

Vin Brocki, Erie, PA, USA

May 1, 2025