building genuine connections

i am in a quiet place right now.  the average number of people i used to interact with face to face per week was about 30 - 40. now that number has dropped to about 5. the consistent number is about 2 on a daily basis - my husband and my growing belly bump.

in the past 6 months of transition, it has been the bumping into various people after having not seen them for awhile that remind me how precious genuine connections are.


i have been giving the terms "friendship" and "connection" much thought these few days.  and i've decided to use the term "connection" because friendship, to me, carries something deeper.

having grown up in the world of facebook, friends can mean anything from one-off acquaintances to people we have deep relationships with.  some think that we "millennials" treat all our "friends" equally and can be as connected to acquaintances as we are to our best friends.  while social media does provide platforms for connections and friendships, nothing could be further from the truth.

the truth is that in real life, there is still a traditional view on friendships and it can be very clearly observed in larger social settings such as camps, parties and the likes.  save for the extreme extrovert and social butterfly, most people still  prefer to gather with those they are most familiar with.

having said that, i've come to see that genuine connections can be built with almost anyone if we let ourselves.  it's not about becoming best friends with every single person that we meet or liking them all. i'd like to think of it this way - that i've been able to have a genuine glimpse into another person's life and the person can walk away knowing the same about me.

the great thing about it is that as seasons change, we never know which of these connections might lead to deeper friendships in due time.

here are some things i've learnt:

1) understand that it's more about the other person than it is about me
connections only go as far as two people's openness to one another.  not everyone is interested in becoming a friend, but we can be a friend to all. how we do that is by understanding the other person's comfort zone (and ours as well) and not trespassing carelessly.  for example, avoiding the "Chinese New Year Auntie syndrome" and thoughtlessly asking the single person when they are getting attached.

understanding can be built by asking questions and finding out more about the other person through the conversation.  it's not difficult to tell when a person doesn't want to talk about something if we are observing, and we can leave those topics alone.

2) finding common ground and thoughtful conversations
there's always some form of context when we meet someone. it could be work, school, a hobby, family, weddings etc.  i find it easier to start building common ground from the context and expanding the conversation outwards.  sometimes they lead to surprising places!  when we are engaged in the conversation, rather than talking mindlessly, there are many good places the conversation can lead.

3) be open and be true
the word genuine obviously means to be true.  while there are areas we may not be comfortable talking about, we can still be genuine by leaving those areas untouched and moving to topics we are more comfortable with.  the same goes for the other person, hence point number 1.  we don't have to be nice or give flaky nice answers about everything just to be agreeable.  at the same time, i have learnt not to push my opinions further if i sense it will open the way for heated disagreement when we are not ready for that.

4) don't be afraid of the bad and ugly
sometimes we are caught, or we catch people at their worst.  it's always easier to pretend nothing happened but sometimes i find that it builds a gap, especially within us towards that person. either we really let it go internally or sometimes it just helps to acknowledge and treat the person with grace. everyone goes through a bad day and it's not worth burning bridges over.

5) agree to disagree
being strongly opinionated, it took me awhile to learn that i didn't have to agree with another person to have a genuine connection.  i just had to learn to be open to the other person's opinion, hear them and be okay with it.

because i have had so many genuine connections that i can't keep up with all of them, i will write. i write hopefully so that the people who care about me can continue to connect with me and so that i can also connect with them.

x