What is this?
Do you feel like there's too much name calling in political discussions? Do you find the words and actions from the other side of the aisle alienating? We pair nice people across the political divide to talk like neighbors. Not to convince, but to understand.
If this sounds like you, sign up here or follow our newsletter. Once we find a match, we'll shoot you two an email introducing you for a one-on-one conversation.
Praise
“[Hi From The Other Side is] sweet. It’s worth an effort to try to get a dialog going. Some of these people, they’ve never met a Trump supporter. They have no idea who these people are. Yes, actually, they’re normal people, they just want a different thing than you want.”
“Try the app. Have that coffee... Civilization may depend on it.”
“I want to reiterate how grateful I am for this program. It was a great experience learning about each other’s lives and dreams, talking civilly about where we diverge, and finding surprising amounts of common ground.”
“We had a great hour and a half conversation. We both respected each others position. I would like to have more conversations with others from the ‘other side.’”
Won't this just end in a shouting match?
Maybe. But we’re hopeful there are people who really want to engage in a civil conversation. It's been encouraging so far.
We also deliberately ask some more human questions in our sign-up to try to screen for people who seem nice.
Finally, when we match you, we also provide a conversation guide to help you get off on the right foot. We put the guide together with input from conflict negotiators and experienced facilitators, and we’d love to hear your thoughts on making it better.
Are the conversations anonymous?
We send you and your match an email introducing you to each other, so your match would have your and email. We get that you may want to be completely anonymous, but we think that the anonymous nature of the internet has caused many of the problems we're trying to solve. Having a live conversation on the phone, on video chat, or in person will be most productive.
Why do you require facebook authentication?
Facebook authentication helps us make sure that real people are signing up. We know it's not perfect, and we're working on other ways. We only request your name, email, and username from Facebook, so we can't see any other information you have on your Facebook.
Are there other ways to get involved?
You can start by subscribing to our newsletter to get updates and stories from those who have been matched.
WHO'S BEHIND THIS? Is it non-partisan?
Hi From The Other Side was started in 2016 by Henry while he was a grad student in Boston. His friends David and Yasyf are in charge of the technical things. We're a non-partisan organization – this wasn't an initiative from a political organization or anything, just people who care about being better listeners.
Questions? Shoot us an email at contact@hifromtheotherside.com.