For some people, politics is a way of life. They talk "shop" the majority of the time and you know exactly where they stand on every single issue because they let you know. There are others who only reveal their leanings on certain, major issues and still others who quietly vote their conscience and never get pulled into the fracas at all. Once upon a time, you knew how to avoid the people in column A, especially if you sat firmly in the "no comment" section for most of your life. But, now, thanks to social media and our super connected world, the opinions of our friends, our crazy Aunt Betty and a veritable melting pot of strangers are streamed with up to the minute updating into our lives. So, how does a person not get drawn into the more contentious battles, whether they are for county dog catcher all the way to President of the United States?

Trying to ignore the rumble of the political machine by avoiding social media is likely to be ineffective for the most part. Not only is it all over Facebook and Twitter but other social media sites are getting into the act as well. And, you are going to be inundated in your email inbox, on your television and the radio. It is everywhere. If you know that you have hot button topics, steer clear of discussions about those. For instance, you can use your status to announce that you will no longer be discussing X or Y for any reason. If you need to hide posts from certain friends, then do so. The more drastic step is to unfriend or block those people because they are unable to comply with your requests. Stop following people on Twitter for the same reasons.

If you are interested in debating your friends, remember that they are your friends. If the conversation veers from the friendly disagreement and into the name calling territory, it is time to back away. If you know that you are not one to be magnanimous in defeat, then don't bother with the debate at all. If you are okay with losing a friend over your stand on a political issue, you go right ahead.

We all have people that will set us off- famous people that we loathe with a passion. We have people in our personal lives that we feel much the same way about. And, there are people that we love, even when they are not agreeing with us. The trick is to talk about the people we loathe with the people that we love without making them change categories.