Hostile territory

The company that I work for is, almost by necessity, a haven for the politically conservative. Obviously, as with any random sample, our population still varies from the Ultra conservative to left of liberal, but, in hopes of reducing conflicts with co-workers, most of us keep it to ourselves, unless we are talking about it with a person who either shares our views or is very open minded. Its just a smart way to be, but it can make for some interesting judgements. Usually, we find ourselves friendly with people because of a common interest, or because we have spent many hours locked in a lab together, or our working styles really complement each other. Whatever the reason, politics really doesn't enter into the equation. Taken out of context, it seems incredibly strange that the friendships that we build can be well developed and really quite close, considering how intertwined our core value structure and our own personal politics usually are.

Its not as though I have a scorecard with which to score new acquaintances in the "outside world" but it seems to me that it is rather rare to create a relationship without getting some sense of what the person feels personally, and, by extension, their politics. I would like to think that I don't immediately sort people into different boxes; liberal... Good, conservative... Bad, but in building the friendships that I have at work, I can't help but wonder if I have been doing exactly that all my life, without even realizing it. If I look at my friendships, I see a trend... my close friends are either outspokenly liberal, at least socially, or they avoid politics like the plague. Those people in my next circle out are still, by and large, at least moderate. The furthest out circle, acquaintances who I enjoy talking with, but who I do not tend to seek out are usually the only conservatively minded people in my life, and most of them are only fiscal conservatives, and choose to pretty much stay out of social issues. So I have to wonder: What comes first, the politics, or the friendship? Is it even possible to build a really great, fulfilling friendship with someone when your politics oppose one another?

In the forced vacuum of my work life, none of these concerns really ever come up. We become friends because we both like a certain restaurant, or because we share a similar sense of humor. We feel akin to one another because we see a problem that no one else has caught, and we are the ones who fix it. This leads to a unique way of knowing someone, and can make for some surprising experiences later on down the line, but does the lack of understanding of each other's core values mean that these are artificial friendships? Are these relationships like black holes; theoretically there, real and tangible, but impossible to see without the right lens?