One would think it would be easy for people to connect with one another. After all, regardless of language, culture, appearance-we are all humans. The same species. It should be extremely simple to form a connection with one another.
But no.
It appears it’s easier for us to bond with a dog, cat, gerbil, water skiing squirrel or turtle than it is someone of our own species. And for the longest time i wondered why; I spent sleepless nights analyzing my inability to fully connect with someone, the lack in skill of holding a genuine, socially acceptable conversation with someone else and on nights where I was really lacking in better things to do, would ultimately wind up staring at my ceiling flipping through all of the failed relationships and dating blunders wondering at what point things went wrong and who was ultimately at fault.
And as with most things, I ended up with a lot of theories and hypotheses but no hard proof to validate any one of them.
The overarching theory as to why these connections are so difficult to not only make, but maintain, in my mind is this: because we are all people, we reflect one another in certain ways. People can often reflect back to us the great things about us-that’s what sparks the bond.
The trouble comes when those connections force us to come face to face with our flaws. Because at one point or another-those connections remind us of what we are lacking, what our integral, deepest flaws are. And instead of believing the other person will accept them, we think because they are people, they’ll react how we do and want to attack and eradicate them, or worse pretend they don’t exist until one day they come bubbling to the surface and we are finally faced with a sweet, sweet apocalyptic mental and emotional breakdown.
Connections often fail because we never fully trust another person to keep the bond going. We expect the second a flaw comes into the reflection that it’ll break and end.
We refuse to be vulnerable, we avoid being honest and in the end we wind up being unable to connect because connections can not be made without vulnerability or honesty.
We say connecting with people is impossible and that these connections never last when truth be told-we never had them anyway.
Again-this is just a theory.
For the longest time, I found myself stuck in hamster wheel, marathon thought circles, losing sleep, appetite and time trying to figure out just what the fuck was wrong with me. I couldn’t date, I couldn’t make a relationship last and I was flinging myself at people unavailable to me in just about every sense a person can be unavailable.
And I kept coming back to the why.
Until a friend finally asked the most simple question of all-
Why not ask these people who I had failed relationships, no second dates and no real connections with exactly what the issue was.
The question was so simple, so obvious and for a split second I couldn’t believe I never thought of it before.
It seemed so easy to answer, right?
Only one way to find out.
Dundermifflinthisislauren 