Yesterday evening we had dinner at our favourite resto in Figeac (La racine et la moelle in case you’re wondering @KarenLot ). We were supposed to be dining with two other couples, one Dutch creatives and the other their parisien maison secondaire neighbours, all of whom we’ve known for years, albeit on different levels. Unfortunately the Dutch went down with Covid, but fortunately we then invited an English friend, whose wife recently died but he invariably remains very amusing and excellent company.
We were supposed to meet the parisiens at my wife’s latest exhibition, which was closing that evening (and hoping they’d buy a painting, as her expo has already done very well). Unforunately they were running late - c’est la France profonde - so they never saw the show and we instead arranged to meet them in our café préférée (La monnaie @KarenLot !).
They’re a weird couple - he’s a sound engineer, neat and dapper, with a very good sense of humour, whereas she’s massively overweight, always badly dressed (ie. looking a mess, or too fat for her clothes) and irritable. Nevertheless, we began chatting and I made the mistake of asking her if she was looking forward to the Olympics -I misinterpreted her emphatic <Non ! > as being her not being interested in exercise or sport, but then she launched into a diatribe against Macron and Hidalgo whom she accused of being co-conspiracists!
We already knew they thought that Covid was a conspiracy, but had always assumed that they came from the left and never guessed that despite being bourgeois parisiens (and her a headmistress - scary!) they’d voted RN.
Despite the resto’s amazing food and local natural wines (the only things on which we could agree) it was a very awkward evening. I was fortunately placed at the table to be able to discuss cars and all sorts of other things with our dear English friend (deliberately in English), whereas my wife was simultaneously defending Macon against le RN without spoiling our friendship with the sound engineer (didn’t matter about the wife!).
A few weeks ago @JaneJones had posted about divergent political views in a community, but our mistake was assuming that our ‘cosmopolitan companions’ were to the left of us rather than being on the far right.
Much safer to just discuss food than social matters until one really knows the audience.
I’ve mentioned before friends with diverse political views and experiences, and I view it as bad manners to bring them up on social occasions that are meant to be friendly and light-hearted. Fine if you’ve planned and budgeted the emotional energy expenditure and it’s on the cards, but otherwise, no.
There are moments - Brexit being one of them, Ukraine being another if you’ve been friends since kindergarten, both having Polish parents - when it is absolute folly to assume one knows how the other person feels and thinks. And they probably will feel passionately that their view is the right one.
If one finds oneself in such a scenario there is absolutely no point in trying to defend one’s own point of view - much better to adopt a neutral response - how interesting, mhmm, well, well. and rapidly start commenting on how good the food is (or not!)
Thanks, I’d naively thought the Olympics would be a fairly non-controversial subject -apart from the possible moans about some aspect, but certainly hadn’t expected a Mqcron Hidalgo conspiracy!
As for my wife, she spent he r first forty years under a fascist regime and that always deflates RW arguments! She’s been there, they haven’t.
Yes, but I thought it would make for good, light pre-prandial conversation, rather than lunatic conspiracy theories about Macron and Hidalgo conspiring against the RN!
I have old friends who I know to be decent and honourable people with whom, to a degree, I disagree with politically, they are either too right or too left, but I’d never fall out with them over our decades long animated discussions. Strangers, I’d never broach political, religious or transgender issues with…
Plus, as integrated and respectful as we mght think we are, we are just blow ins. IMHO one has to have been living here from a very early age to understand. the nuances, political, linguistic and social.
Just listen and decide whether you ever want to meet them again Life’s too short to listen to dyed in the wool idiots.
Having previously spent virtually the whole of my adult life in academia, I’m used to encountering crazy people, but that was a different sort of craziness to conspiracy theories. In retrospect, I should have realised that if they were anti-vax, they’d probably gone down a few other rabbit holes too.
We’ve previously cut another couple out of our circle for similar reasons (non-existence of Covid, plus the ‘faked’ lunar landings).
Life’s too short to listen to dyed in the wool idiots.
