I voted Tuesday. I watched the election results unfold on television. I read the news today. And I saw my friends’ angry, elated, jubilant and irrational posts on Facebook.

After taking in all the evidence I’ve decided that we are not a country that is distinctly divided they\ way many have been espousing and feeling today.

We have too many points of view and too much in common to be divided into two groups.

It is an illusion that I fit neatly in a camp with those who voted on my half. It is a farce that I am diametrically opposed to those who voted for the other candidate. We are far to culturally rich and diverse a nation to buy into the lie that we are a people cut in half.

We are not.

What we are is a nation with too few options.

When every key belief on budgets, civil rights, the lives of unborn children, the funding of public broadcasting, the plight of undocumented workers, our pursuit of terrorists and our relationship with China has to fit together in one of two boxes as though each issue can be neatly connected to the others in a logical jigsaw puzzle we are forced to unfairly choose one of only two sides. All too often that results in scorn for those on the other side.

That leads to the belief that you are one or the other. You are like me or you’re not. You are with me or you are against me.

Bullshit.

Where was that divided nation on Sept. 12, 2001. Less than a year removed from our most divisive election in modern history. We united around horrific tragedy as one nation.

Where were the stark divisions when Hurricane Sandy tore through the northeast last week and people around the nation responded with millions of dollars in donations.

Where was that bright line between us last February when 177 million people tuned in to the Super Bowl to watch the exact same thing at the exact same time throughout every size of home in every corner of this Great Nation.

It wasn’t there because it doesn’t exist. It’s a false premise.

We aren’t neat. We rarely have consensus. But it is impossible for me to believe that half of us want the country to go off a cliff and the other half doesn’t.

If you put two orange juice and Dr. Pepper on a table then half are grabbing OJ and the other half will go for the Dr. Maybe the OJ clan will scorn the soda fans for all the sugar they’re drinking. Maybe the Dr. Pepper drinkers will laugh at how boring the juice guzzlers are.

Add in some guava juice, maybe some Pellegrino, grape juice, Sunny D, water, champagne and Guinness and it’s a much different experience. People have options, there are more camps and fewer rivals – maybe someone even makes mimosas.

When you have two sides, you pick one. It doesn’t mean your story ends there. It doesn’t mean we are hopelessly divided.

It means I have more options when it comes to ESPNs than political parties.

I’m not going to call my neighbor evil for watching ESPNews and I’m sure as hell not going to believe those who voted differently than me are all terrible people who share nothing with me.

I’ve got 800 channels. If someone on the other side came over I know we’d find something to watch. If not we could find a YouTube video of someone getting hit in the nuts. We all love that.

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Here’s Malcolm Gladwell talking about how many choices Americans like to have in their spaghetti sauce.