Bipartisanship and civility are two separate things. Please don’t conflate them. Bipartisanship is both sides agreeing on something, and there is a case to be made that compromise is not always what we should be shooting for (e.g. anyone want to compromise about slavery?)

Yes, I’ve seen lots of people attacked for what appeared to be innocent mistakes, but the ones who truly are cool as hell and respond with a genuine apology and seek dialogue usually get lauded afterward.

An additional strategy is to state the problem in another language. Even if you're just using Google Translate, the different cultural viewpoints inherent in languages will often subtly shift the problem statement, allowing a new perspective. It's probably better to try to restate the problem yourself, using your…

This is what I do for all of the consistent-rate bills (like rent). For the bills which are more variable (say utilities), I set them up to autopay with my credit card, making it so I only have one bill to check each month. If the credit card seems high, I can dive in and figure out what's going on, but usually, it's…

I feel like this addresses your comment much better than I can: