I have some friends and family in my life and it’s really hard to broach topics like climate change, COVID, and Gaza and what my government’s response means for our lives presently and in the future.
I talk about the unusual weather and it’s too early in the morning to bring up climate change. Can’t talk about surges in COVID infections after dinner because it would ruin the evening.
I’m trying to make plans and take preventative care for safety, but it feels like nobody around me wants to deal with the reality happening around me.
I think I’m holding out hope that these people in my life will take these things seriously if they’ll just see reason, but deep down I know they don’t want to engage with these things either because they’re scared or in denial, or still insulated from the worst of it.
It’s scary. It feels unsafe being around them, and not just for the material reasons like not taking the same precautions with COVID. It’s like how can I trust them to see danger if they can’t even reckon with the current things happening? How can I have a relationship with people who are this indifferent.
I get trying to cope and trying to find enjoyment where there is little to have, but it’s incredibly lonely knowing that this site is like the only space I have to voice my concerns.
If you have made progress in getting people in your life to see reason, what worked? Does just sitting down and laying out these things as a personal concern help?
If you haven’t been able to reach people who are this resistant to real conversation, how did you cope with it? What did you do about it?
I’m not in a level of community that I thought I was and I could use some advice on how to move forward.
Generally, I bring up those uncomfortable topics with the people who I know are willing to discuss them in my life, though if someone mentions any trigger phrases such as “unseasonal weather” or “golly gee everyone seems to be getting sick, I wonder what it is”, I go all-in.
I have yet to be fired, cut out of a will, or to lose a friend over this. I’m lucky in that most of the people I talk to about these things are “progressive” at worst, which means they’ll usually agree with most of what I say, though they tend to balk at eg killing all landlords. Frankly the majority of people in my life are uninformed and seem to get engaged in those conversations because they learn something and it gets them thinking. The ones who don’t tend to disengage and let me rant for a while, which is fine by me because it’s quite cathartic.
All that said I don’t have any relationships I’d really classify as “deep” so this probably won’t work for everyone.