I want to get to know you. Not the labels attached to you that you or someone else put there, and not the views that separate us. Those things have their place but they are not you. Identifying with things outside of ourselves is what causes so much drama and so many problems in the world.
I don’t particularly care for small talk and I’m not very good at it. I’d rather talk to someone I’ve known for a good while than someone I just met because we can bypass the small talk and go right to the important stuff in the former scenario. The most fulfilling relationships I have are with people who have opened up and let me see who they truly are. I feel like I can relax and be myself to a greater degree around these people than anyone else. Whether we end up talking about our ideas or about ourselves, there’s a sense of peace and understanding that just feels right.
I think what stops me from being able to do this with everyone I meet is fear. Fear that someone may reject me if I open up to them or that they won’t open up in return. That’s why it takes me a long time to share my heart with someone after I meet them. Once I’m comfortable that they’ll accept me, I open up and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve regretted doing so; it’s gone well in the vast majority of times I’ve done it.
Other people may be hesitant to open up to others because they’ve been hurt in the past. It takes a lot of trust to share your hear with another person and if they betray that trust, you’ll wonder if someone else will do the same. The time it takes to trust someone enough to open up depends on the size of the past betrayal(s), which is why some people take years to get to know someone before they’re comfortable enough to open up to them.
I’ve seen a lot of people longing for deeper conversations and real connections. Some say that social media is making us more disconnected, but I think it’s a matter of how it’s used. While there are many ways it can be used to distance us from each other, there are also many ways it can be used to bring us closer together. It can be used to facilitate communication over great distances between friends, act as an ice breaker early in friendships, create places where people can discuss shared interests when they don’t have the ability to do so in person, and so on. Social media is simply a tool that can be used in a number of ways, and many people use it to grow closer to the people they know. Regardless of how anyone forms and maintains connections with others, I’m always glad to see it happen and be part of it when I can.