How to Talk to "the Other Side" on Social Media: Listen

Listen (Be Curious, Fail, and Validate)

Now that you’ve read Part 1: Prepare, and Part 2: Take Action, you’re ready to listen to the emotional perspectives of your social media “friend” on “the other side.”

Even as you write your message, imagine looking into the eyes of your interlocutor. This will instantly help you to empathize with their complex and vulnerable humanity, and to listen to them even as you talk. To see while being seen. As you share your vulnerable perspective with them, be careful about believing with certainty that you already understand their perspective. As an experienced mental health professional, I can assure you that you do not. Your certainty about them will only make them feel unsafe. Instead, be guided by curiosity and empathy.

That means frame as much of your message as possible in the form of questions: E.g., rather than shutting them down with a statement like, “You clearly hate people like me,” try to open up the conversation with questions like, “Please help me to understand why you posted that,” or, “Do you believe people like me deserve to be attacked?” or, “Can you understand why that post is threatening to me and my family?” or, “How do you justify supporting [insert name of someone who has been factually proven to be directing threats toward you and/or people you love], unequivocally, without any criticism of their behavior whatsoever, when you claim your primary intention to promote freedom and love?”

Then listen to their responses, carefully. Ideally, they’ll answer you with the same vulnerability and curiosity with which you approached them. But if they don’t—and they likely won’t—you can still listen for the vulnerable emotions beneath the surface of their responses, however defensive or avoidant they may be. Then you can try to continue speaking to that vulnerable part of them, which will inevitably involve them feeling threatened by you in some way. Your job at this point is to actively listen to them in a way that makes them feel less threatened and more open with you.

And be prepared to fail as you go. Failure is an inevitable and necessary part of effective communication. Even when we believe we’ve technically made all the “right” moves to reach someone, we still have to confront the highly specific ways we have failed to make them feel emotionally safe. And if we are willing to learn how we failed, we can better understand what they need from us emotionally before they can truly listen to us in return. So no matter how ineffective your first contact with them was, that isn’t the end of the story. The particular way in which you fail them will give you clues to what makes them feel emotionally threatened by you. And with you that new information, you can better determine how to establish a safe connection with them.

Here are some responses with which you should prepare to engage.

1. “I feel attacked.”

If they tell you this directly, congrats! They are willing to be vulnerable and direct with you without a therapist present. You now have the opportunity to ask them what exactly made them feel attacked. Then, after receiving their answer, you can genuinely apologize (whether or not it was your intention to attack them), validate their feelings, and then reword your question, keeping in mind the specific vulnerability they shared with you.

Again, as I mentioned, they’re not likely to be vulnerable and direct with you right away. However, you can still detect their feeling of being attacked underneath such defensive responses as: “So I’m a terrible person, because I love my country?,” or, “I don’t need to be lectured,” or, “You have no right to bully me,” or no response at all.

If they reply with anything along these lines, don’t react with angry defenses of your own. Instead, step away, take a breath, and use your curiosity and empathy to tune into their vulnerable feelings beneath the surface. Then, when you’re ready to re-engage, you can type something like, “I’m sorry if this came across like an attack. I trust that, like me, you want the best for the country. I’ve always known you to be a thoughtful and compassionate person [insert a true, specific example of this], and I’m sure you meant the best with your post. But, there are several inaccuracies that I’d like to discuss with you. Can you help me understand what you were trying to say with the post?”

Don’t give up right away. Even if you mess up and find yourself disparaging them unintentionally, remember, failure is not the end of the story. As one of my drama school teachers used to say, “Just because a scene starts badly doesn’t mean it has to end badly.” Each time you fail to reach them, for whatever reason, try to acknowledge your failure and re-engage. And, with each attempt to make contact, make sure your intention is to establish a safe connection and dialogue with them (which, again, requires validating their underlying feelings).

If after about three tries you’re not getting anywhere, it will start to appear that you are in fact badgering, if not “attacking,” them, and their projection onto you will become reality. So before you effectively become the aggressor, try to find a graceful exit from the exchange that leaves the door open for future safe conversations when they’re ready.

2. “I feel shame.”

It takes a brave and emotionally mature person to admit it, but shame motivates many of our defensive reactions. In fact, shame is most likely the dominant feeling getting activated when we feel “attacked” on social media. When perspectives we share are challenged, we do not tend to receive the feedback actively and openly, as if our number one priority is to be improved by another person’s point of view. Hardly. We are far more likely to feel a rush of shame, and to shield ourselves from it relentlessly with angry defenses.

So, if your would-be interlocutor comes at you with statements along the lines of, “I’m not bad, you are,” or “your 'people' are the nasty ones, not mine,” or if they rattle off a series of justifications for why you are “wrong” and they are “right,” it’s safe to imagine that your message has evoked shame and/or guilt in them, and that they are attempting to turn those feelings back on you. (To clarify: Shame is the feeling that you are “bad,” while guilt is the feeling that you’ve done something bad.)

If this is the case, do not react with a defensive comment of your own. Step away from the computer, breathe, and reflect on what happened. Try to identify what they reacted to specifically, and zero in on their unique sensitivity to shame—e.g., if they called you a name, like “idiot,” they are likely afraid of looking dumb and may feel that you have exposed them as such, or, perhaps they feel you are dismissing them, and they need more validation from you for the point they were trying to make before they can even begin to listen to you.

Next, remind yourself that this dialogue is not about “winning” and “losing.” If you go that route, everybody loses. Instead, try to think like a performer in a live improv show: you’ve got to make your scene partner look good (not just you) if you want to survive. The scene won’t work unless you are both listening and responding to one another generously, collaboratively, and creatively. (As psychoanalyst Philip Ringstrom reminds us, thinking like an improv scene partner is invaluable in any relationship that has high emotional stakes—like romantic partners, family members, friends, therapists and clients, and also fellow citizens.) With that in mind, type a message with the specific intention to reduce, if not extinguish their feelings of shame, and, make another attempt to establish safety. This may include an apology, an assurance that you are not trying to make them feel “bad” or to “win” a debate, but to make a connection. But remember, in order to truly alleviate any of their shame, you will need to genuinely validate some specific part of their perspective. For example:

“I understand what you’re saying in this particular sense [give a specific example of the part of their message you implicitly understand: There is at least some part of it, even if it’s just the desire to secure safety in the country]. And I want to keep your perspective in mind, not only in this discussion, but whenever I have a conversation about this issue, on or offline. I do not want to invalidate that specific concern of yours. Please allow me to try to explain what I’m trying to share with you more effectively.”

And then reword your original message in a way that speaks to their empathy rather than their shame, now that you have an idea of what part of your message seemed to shame them, and check in with them again.

At the same time, you still can and must ask them for accountability for the inaccuracies they have promoted about you or someone else, but do so in a way that empathizes with them and asks for empathy in return, as opposed to seeming like you are chiding them.

Also, and this is very important to remember, if you’ve tapped into their shame, you can expect them to deflect from your original point in multiple, perhaps even incoherent, directions. (Shame universally feels terrible, and there’s no telling what we might do to protect ourselves from it.) It’s crucial that you do not try to defend against or argue with every new topic they reactively bring up. Instead, step away from the computer, breathe, and when you choose to re-engage, make sure to maintain focus on one point at a time. Make sure your clear point is coming from a place of vulnerability, that it appeals to their empathy, and that you phrase it as, or accompany it with, an open-ended question.

3. “I don’t like conflict.”

You can expect this common response from someone who wants to do a social media hit-and-run (i.e., to post a provocative message and avoid its repercussions). The person may actually tell you directly that they’re conflict-averse, or they might say something general and avoidant like, “I don’t want to argue, but I wish you the best,” or, “I just want the best for the country,” or they may say nothing at all.

When you receive this kind of response, you may feel an initial tinge of guilt, as if all of the threatening feelings between you have been generated by you alone. But that is not true. Nor is it entirely true that they singlehandedly created the emotional instability between the two of you either. As with any family that has experienced traumatic ruptures, you are both caught in a polarizing, toxic system that is greater than either one of you. And the only way to heal and move forward, peacefully and respectfully, is to find a safe opportunity to hear, recognize, and acknowledge one another’s vulnerable perspectives, which are in conflict. This allows us to not only be expanded by the other person’s specific story, but these dialogues help us to recognize the systemic context into which we’ve all been born, and to which we contribute in our own ways, even without realizing it.

It’s also very important to remember that conflict is not bad. To be sure, violent conflict in which the participants seek only to “win” is destructive. But constructive conflict (especially with the assistance of a good therapist, whenever possible) is necessary for two subjective people to find ways to coexist with mutual empathy. You’ve got to let your partner know if they’re stepping on your toes, and listen if you’re doing that to them, in order to figure out how to dance together, safely and effectively. And the same is true for any relationship with emotional stakes.

(Of note: Every major model of couples therapy—Imago, EFT, Gottman, etc.—encourages both participants to face their conflicting emotional needs and to empathize with and validate one another’s perspective. This work of mutual recognition can even be healing and transformative in relationships in which there has been abuse, as psychoanalyst Virginia Goldner has illustrated in her work, as long as this work takes place within safe boundaries.)

So, with that in mind, try to stay “in the scene” with your partner, as it were. Don’t give up on them or yourself too soon. Use your next line to make them accountable for their avoidance, and illuminate for them how they are making an active choice by taking this seemingly passive approach. But, again, do so in a way that seeks to open up their empathy rather than to shut them down in shame. It will help if you use “I” statements and let them know how their avoidance affects you, how it minimizes or gaslights you and the reality of your life.

Then, reframe the exchange in a way that invites them into a safe dialogue with you. Clarify that you do not want to have a debate or a heated argument, but instead that you want to establish a safe space between you to understand one another better.

And then return to your original point by asking them, open-endedly, if they can understand how the specific insinuations of their post are threatening to you or people you care about.

Remember: avoidance works both ways so be mindful of your own avoidant or general responses to them (such as brief statements like, “I don’t wish you harm,” as if to say, “I don’t really care to make the effort to understand you”). You will actively minimize or gaslight them by default if you are not careful. But if that happens, again, just acknowledge your failure to recognize them, seek to repair the rupture, and once again, attempt to establish a safe, empathic dialogue.

Last, but certainly not least, be sure to leave the door open. The truth is you are not likely to get rewarding results from these efforts, at least not immediately. But I believe it is still worth it, and necessary, to reach across the chasm anyway. The recipient of your bid for dialogue may not give you hard evidence that you got through to them. But if you managed to share your emotional needs, with vulnerability, and made genuine efforts to understand, empathize with, and validate theirs, you have at least invited them to envision a way forward with you. And we all need to see where we’re headed before we have the confidence to make a move, especially when we feel threatened. Your invitation will live in their mind now, where there was only a projection of you before. And even if you reach an impasse this time, even if there is nowhere else to move but angry accusations or “unfriending” one another, you can at least leave them with the possibility to choose to engage with you, safely and empathically, in the future.

And right now, we all desperately need to know that possibility for mutual healing, empathy, and collaboration exists.

Copyright Mark O'Connell, LCSW-R.

Author’s Note: If you would like to share your personal experience trying out some of these suggestions, and if you feel comfortable with me using parts of your story for a follow-up post, write to me at markotherapy@gmail.com.