Civilised but spirited disagreements are the life blood of any get-together. Good on you Mrrzy

I think music is a good analogy. If you're playing tunes in a session, you don't want a cautious sustained unison in which you are all paying the same notes at the same time - what you want is to have a sort of dispute going on between the different instruments, and the different variations on the tune they are playing, or even about what tune that should be at any time. But underlying this there is an agreement about what the rules of the game are. And when that breaks down, it's the death of a session.

And it isn't just that music is a good analogy - I think that the fact that most of us have had that kind of experience is a major reason why we can get along as well as we do, on the whole.

And the basic rule here has to be respect for each other, together with a resistance to interpreting what anyone else says in a hostile way. And the second rule, is keep your sense of humour and refuse to be easily offended.