Tangent:

I've noticed I write a lot different because of combative online arguments. I have a problem.

So much of my communication is directed to people who don't want to hear me or understand me. So I've become very punchy and repetitive, trying to hammer home ideas that people are either unable or unwilling to understand.

I need to find ways to talk to people who want to hear and understand me.

It's hard to find other people who actually want to hear and understand though. People have different interests, and even when people appear to be working towards the same goal, they often aren't; like a boss who just won't understand the bad news, because it's easier to ignore the problem.

One of the worst habits distinctive to online discussion-board writing (especially the sorts of places with lots and lots of people and where it's fairly hard to get permanently kicked out—like here) is too much hedging and over-specifying to try to head off shitposting by bad or bad-faith readers. It's all over forum posts, and it's poor writing, but without moderation that slaps down responses based on plain mis-reading you have to write that way, or your post will spawn all kinds of really stupid tangent strings of posts (and they still do anyway, sometimes). And, yes, the excessive and too-close-together repetitiveness you mention is part of that.

The result is that a ton of web forum/social-media posting would, in any other context, be fairly poor writing (even if it's otherwise got no problems) simply because of the the extra crap and contortions required to minimize garbage posts by poor readers who are, themselves, allowed to post to the same medium.

This is in addition to, though not wholly separate from, the tendency toward combativeness in online posting.

One thing that helps: remember that there are many people reading your response, one of them possibly being the person you replied to. Write for the audience, not specifically for the person you're responding to. It's a rare thing for someone to change their mind; it's a much more common thing for others to read your comment and gain something from it.

It might not mean much, and it won't lead to an interesting conversation, but here's one that has read your comment, and every single word resonated like a tuning fork.

I find that a little faith goes a long way here: assume that you have a higher audience and speak to them accordingly.

Don't let the loud ones confuse you: normal, reasonable people (with normal, reasonable thoughts, just like yours) might not always reply, but they also read you.

I'm guessing you mean politics, but surely this is topic, person, time, and space dependent.

For example, I abhor talking about modern politics. If it’s election season and I’m being asked to cast a vote or take some other specific civic action, then I understand it’s my civic duty to understand the situation and make a decision accordingly and I do.

But if it’s March and there’s really nothing specific I can do as a result of this particular conversation, I would probably also be in your camp of the “unwilling”. I would much rather chat about something else, or nothing at all.

I'm also assuming you're referring to in-person communication. If it's online communication, all bets are off. It's unlikely you're having a linear conversation and these days you're probably not even talking to a person.

> I need to find ways to talk to people who want to hear and understand me.

Ask more questions. It takes work when dealing with smart people who think beyond the question you asked, adding their own context, and then replying with a different question. But those are the people who are willing to engage with you. Statements without questions can be ignored, and people who engage with different questions than the ones that you asked can be safely ignored as those who don't want to engage.

The cure to a purely adversarial conversation is educated curiosity. The educated part being being able to differentiate the threads that will lead down a tribalistic path vs those that will lead down an exploratory one.

More important than all of the above, is knowing when to walk away. It's barely a majority, but that barely majority "want" to waste your time. Ignore their DOS attempt, and save your time for people who want to engage, fairly. The fairly part being the most important.

> I need to find ways to talk to people who want to hear and understand me.

I'm told blogging works for some. I don't really know how you build an audience, though, and it's hard to keep going (first-hand experience) without one.

> So much of my communication is directed to people who don't want to hear me or understand me.

If they don't want to listen, why waste the time?

> So I've become very punchy and repetitive, trying to hammer home ideas that people are either unable or unwilling to understand.

If they don't want it, why stuff it down their throats? Aren't they allowed to have their own ideas?