I read of a woman recently who expressed difficulty making friends. The 27-year-old declared she always treats people kindly and sweetly but no one ever reaches out to get together. Like many millennials, she has a number of Facebook friends, but always finds herself initiating contact. While there may be some kind of issues interfering with her ability to connect, what struck me is the ability for people to collect digital friends while having very few IRL (in real life).
I find myself in a similar situation. My sweetheart, Amanda, is my closest friend. If I’m doing anything or going anywhere, chances are it’s with her. Otherwise, I have no problem going to a movie she wouldn’t like by myself. Moving has separated me from my close friends. Three I had from high school and college I left when I relocated to Florida from Arizona. Another I lost when he went back to school to Canada and then worked for Google for a time. Yet all these people I can still contact through Facebook. I would rather have this connection than not, but it is so sadly weak.
Did anyone foresee the strange ways in which we as a people would interact in the future? I don’t presume the whole world operates like this, certainly not. The internet is not as pervasive in other countries and cultures, but it is growing. As the internet becomes more like a resource to do anything in the world, so I believe our interpersonal connections dwindle. We’ve all but lost chance encounters. Fewer opportunities exist to accidentally meet someone or require we reach out to a stranger. We pay bills, send mail online, look up information, rent movies, order food, apply for jobs, and even go to work online. I recently ran into a contact for my lacrosse stories going to Hungry Howie’s to pick up lunch. We remarked on the coincidence as he was elected by his percussion group at his school to pick up lunch. Granted, this isn’t the best example since ordering online didn’t keep me from meeting this person, but any choice I make eliminating the need to interact with people reduces the chances of positive human connections like this one.
How strange it is we have the option to choose to have face to face communication. Being a shut-in is more than possible these days. A character in a recent Ben Stiller movie, While We’re Young, challenged others to be content to not know something rather than look up a piece of information. Comedian Pete Holmes remarked how “there’s no time for mystery or wonder…The time between not knowing and knowing is so brief that knowing feels exactly like not knowing.” So my challenge is to choose to interact in the mundane. Now, full disclosure, I did have to use the internet to remember Pete Holmes’ name, so there’s a time and a place. I have deadlines after all.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Choosing to connect