After a General Election the one thing you can guarantee is knee-jerk reaction and hysterical responses by supporters of whichever parties lost.
And so we have seen following the surprise Conservative victory in the 2015 General Election.
None more so than the assertion by philosopher Rebecca Roache that Labour supporters should unfriend any Tory friends on social media.
Quite aside from the sweeping generalisations about people who support the Conservative party, Ms Roache’s suggestion will only serve to cement the problem that existed on social throughout the whole election campaign: namely that we surround ourselves with people who think the same as we do.
The shock to many (in which I include myself) on Friday was that we couldn’t believe anyone could vote any differently to us.
And here is where we fall into Nigel Farage’s oft-quoted ‘liberal metropolitan elite’. We don’t hear the opposing voices, or at least we dismiss them.
What we all – no matter of your political leaning – need to do is to spend more time listening to each other and understanding our concerns, hopes and fears.
We need to debate and discuss and talk through what each other thinks. Let’s actively seek out those with differing views.
Each of us may not manage to persuade the other to change opinions, but at least we’ll be less surprised by the outcome.
