Friendship & connection
Friendship as a ‘true connection’ falls into that beautiful, but rare and vital category of connection between two consenting, non-dependent adults. Friends can also be family, lovers, colleagues or team mates, but the foundation of the connection is friendship.
I realised, in my early 50’s that I had no really close friends. This is partly because I had left my childhood friends in South Africa when I emigrated to England and partly because I had not nurtured the relationships I had fostered since I settled here. Research shows I’m far from alone in this, even if everyone’s reasons are different – I read this article when it was published and it shocked me: I’m sure, that there a lot of women in the same boat too.
I knew I had to do something about this, but I didn’t know what. Four years and a lot of research, trial and error and some amazing luck later, I think I have found some answers.
I have turned a couple of ‘acquaintances’ into ‘friends’ and I have deepened older connections, moving ‘friends’ to ‘good friends’. I also now have a ‘best friend’ and, if it bothers you to hear a middle aged man say that, you really need to read this blog!
It’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me and made me a better man.
We are capable of intimacy with many people and intimacy with one person does not preclude intimacy with another, but intimacy requires time & time is the most finite resource.
I spent many hours with many people, but I was often not really present and I most certainly did not give them a great deal of attention. I was arrogant in assuming I didn’t need friends, that I was self-sufficient – I mistook this for strength – imagine the connection I might have created if I had known then what I know now. I’m writing this so you can bypass my pain and make vital true connections part of your journey towards a more fulfilling, wholehearted life.
“True connection arises from belonging. Fitting in is when you pretend to be a certain person in order to be accepted by another person or group – something I spent most of my adult life doing. To belong, our authentic self needs to show up and be accepted.”
The hardest lesson in my journey towards greater intimacy was learning that ‘fitting in’ can never deliver true connection.
We have been conditioned for centuries to fit in – to live in a certain way that benefits society, or at least that part of society that benefits from our compliance with the system that has evolved to maintain the status quo. Do the relationships that arise from your efforts to fit in really serve you? Do they make you happy? Are they satisfying? Are they intimate and offering you true connection?
My journey had to start with discovering who I really was. I had complied with what I thought the right way to be was for so long that I had only the vaguest idea of my authentic self.
That journey of self-discovery and empowerment will be the subject of many blogs and vlogs as Kezra and I work through this vital process with you, but for the purposes of this post, I will assume you are familiar with who you really are; that you live your truth and are unashamed. That you are, like me, a work in progress choosing love, trying to be a better person every day and believing in your imperfect perfectness.
You can’t make old friends, as the saying goes, but you can use certain techniques to deepen your connection with those around you and make the most of the time you have with them. After all, in any relationship, time is the most precious element. I don’t just mean time in each other’s presence, but time with each person being truly present.
Renowned philosopher, Simone Weil, said “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity”. Being present for someone – paying attention to them or having attention paid to you - is a gift, a very generous gift. It should be appreciated as such.
If you knew you only had £1000 left in your whole life, would you give £500 of it to Love Island? Would you give £100 to Facebook? If you knew you had a week to live, would you spend 5 minutes of that week taking pictures of your coffee, searching for the right filter and adding a few emoji’s, posting it on Instagram and then waiting for likes to flow in?
Would that create the sort of connection you need, or would you more likely seek out your friends and family and try to convey to them, in the most profound way possible, how much you love them and how much their love means to you? Wouldn’t your last days be spent deepening core connections?
So what is intimacy and how do we cultivate it? How do we connect? Understanding the true nature of intimacy is the first step.
1) Work on yourself first: Determine to be your authentic self – live your truth and be unashamed – be a work in progress choosing love, trying to be a better person every day and believing in your imperfect perfectness
2) Stop trying to fit in and know that you belong – to yourself at the very least.
3) Choose carefully who is worthy of your time and attention.
4) Take deliberate steps towards them – make yourself vulnerable – be brave.
5) Establish clear boundaries and honour theirs.
6) Tell the truth in love (or at least don’t lie)
7) In your quest to form intimate connections make sure you listen fully – be present – and earn the other person’s trust.
8) Give time and honour the time you are given – appreciate it for the gift it is.
9) Be compassionate and as non-judgmental as your boundaries will allow.
10) If a relationship is not working for you, move on – time is finite, but there is always time to begin again.
Increase your intimacy quotient.
Even in a close group of friends, the quality of the intimacy between you and each member of the group will be different.
On the surface intimacy is about shared insights & experience. Things you’ve revealed about yourself - confessions, honest opinions, secrets, personal details.
I believe there is an “intimacy quotient” and it rises the more someone knows about you.
If someone knows what makes you laugh or cry, the intimacy quotient with that person is higher than if someone knows you go to the gym every lunchtime. The intimacy quotient increases exponentially if what someone knows about you has the potential to embarrass or expose you to ridicule. In other words, intimacy rises exponentially in conjunction with vulnerability.
Intimacy is a two-way street, not a monologue - not a stream of ‘intimate’ confessions that are not reciprocated. Some celebrity’s tearful public confession of an indiscretion is not intimacy – it may be a misplaced cry for intimacy, for connection, but is more likely to be the use of faux vulnerability to create a connection they can exploit – they are selling you something.
Trust is a vital element of intimacy.
This doesn’t mean there should be no boundaries between friends. In fact, quite the opposite. It requires both knowing where your boundaries are and communicating that clearly and honouring your friends’ boundaries. Again, this is worthy of a post on its own, but suffice it to say that intimacy does not require blanket acceptance of every word and action from a friend. You are allowed to be discerning.
Trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback.
I’ve found that intimacy requires trust and vulnerability. This takes time to grow and is nurtured by conversation and experience:
Transformational author and poet, Dezarae Starnes, writes; " I have observed with my heart and seen clearly that every action we take is either an expression of love or a cry for love."
“We reveal more of ourselves revelation by revelation and become increasingly vulnerable. This takes courage, so, if you want intimacy, you need to be brave.”
Conversation.
This is especially true of conversation.
Conversation is a two way street, revealing things about yourself and, just as important, receiving information – listening to the other person. Reciprocal revelation, getting deeper & wider & more personal. This relies on trust and non or shared judgement.
Trust arises from mutually assured destruction and is easily maintained, but also very easily broken. Trust develops in increments and is earned. As each revelation is made and its confidentiality honoured, trust grows. No-one in their right mind jumps straight to their biggest secret with a new acquaintance.
You also need to be trustworthy and not just trusting. This loops us back to the reciprocal nature of intimacy. Telling someone all your secrets does not create true connection unless they do the same..
You can have trusting relationships – a connection of sorts to be sure – that are not intimate. Even if the other person knows your most intimate secrets if you don’t know things about them, you don’t have true connection because only you are vulnerable.
Telling your truth can be scary – it makes us vulnerable, but, if we don’t do it, if we hold back, connection doesn’t deepen and we lose out. Choosing safety, guarding our hearts, letting fear silence us destroys intimacy and stunts connection.
Be brave in your conversation.
This is not a licence to be an asshole. Tell the truth with love, not as a weapon. Conversation is not a points scoring game – that’s what arguments are for and, being the lawyer that I am, I will definitely write a whole separate blog on that! If you want an easy and sustainable way of improving your life and being a slightly better person tomorrow than you are today, pay attention, be present, turn up fully!
Experience.
This isn’t just the stuff we do together, it’s the extent to which we relate that experience to who we shared it with.
A key element of meaningful shared experience is being present. Being there and being present are not the same thing. If you’re with someone, but texting or scrolling through social media or you are just zoned out thinking about the past or the future, then connection is not growing – intimacy is absent and the value of the time together is diminished.
It is as much about quality of time together as it is about quantity. If you want an easy and sustainable way of improving your life and being a slightly better person tomorrow than you are today, pay attention, be present, turn up fully!
Both conversations and shared experiences take time and, so, we loop back to the finite nature of time and the importance of well-made choices. Find the people who feed your spirit, not those who drain it. Stop hanging out with losers.
Stop spending time with spirit vampires, energy drainers, oxygen thieves, people with no desire or ability to connect with you, people who do not give you the gift of their attention.
Spend time with people who see your authentic self, value your truth, pay attention to you, make you feel good and are present when they’re with you. Make sure you do the same for them. Treat your and their time like the precious commodity it is.
