How To Connect

On friendship and fear 💌

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I am twenty-five tomorrow and there are two goals I have set myself for this next trip around the sun:

1. Bake (the goal is to complete

   Manon Lagrève
   ’s Et Voilà which is my favourite cookery book EVER)

2. Connect

I’d consider the last seven-ish years of my life to be pretty void of connection. What with a global pandemic, graduating from university and living in an area largely populated by the retired, I find myself feeling lonely more often than I’d like to. And worse? There is very little that I actually do about it.

I will quite gladly sit at home with my nose buried in the pages of a thriller for the seventh night that week, my phone turned off and tucked in a drawer, my calendar empty. At first I think I told myself that this was a way of protecting my peace, declaring that I would only spend time with people who added to my life. This is fine to an extent, but it wasn’t difficult for me to apply this reasoning to literally every social opportunity that came my way. I was isolating myself for comfort, and, well, it’s not so comfortable anymore.

My new-ish habit became all too clear to me when

Ciara ★

and I were writing our collaborative piece about friendship. There’s nothing quite like a good chat to help you reflect, is there? I have such a longing for friendship, but I’m not really doing anything to help myself. I frequently complain about how I live in a place where it’s difficult to find new friends, meanwhile I’m not putting energy into the relationships I already have. They may not be close in proximity, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

I think connection is a really hard thing to find and perfect in the modern age. It’s ironic, isn’t it, because what with smart phones and social media, we should feel closer to one another than ever. And in some ways, that’s true — we have all seen more than we ought to from one another. A Kardashian’s backside, a GRWM for work, a pop star’s leaked texts, a daily vlog — the list goes on. Equally, though, it’s the constant need for likes and digital interaction that makes online connection feel undeniably insincere. Where do we draw the line between posting something for external validation versus to share with our friends?

This was something I really struggled with in my teens. My friends were altering their bodies with FaceTune and curating their timelines to exhibit each moment of their days like a painting in a gallery. Filtered, staged, sharpened. It didn’t feel like an accurate representation of our lives, and I knew this, yet still I feel deep into the pit of comparison. If my friends are changing these things, should I be too? Instagram stories began to make me feel nauseous. Every time I clicked on one I felt like I wasn’t doing enough; I was missing out on a life that wasn’t even mine.

Nothing made me feel like more of a failure than my Instagram account. I had hundreds of followers, most of whom I didn’t even know, and every time I posted something I would brace myself for their judgement.

I deleted that account in 2019 — good riddance.

However, the effect it had on my life was complicated. It was as though by pressing the deactivate button, I had deleted half of my friendships along with it. To maintain friendships, we now had to actually talk rather than acknowledging each other with a quick double-tap.

It became apparent quickly that there are few people who can be bothered to put the effort into friendships: thinking of a conversation starter, remembering important dates, scheduling time to see each other all takes a little bit of work. It’s not as easy as posting a picture for everyone to see. A picture speaks for itself — everyone can see that you went to the Taylor Swift concert, that you graduated, that you’ve hard-launched a new boyfriend. We don’t need to talk about it if we’ve all seen it.

Eventually, this just lead to feelings of deflation all-round.

📱Doing something I said I never would

A catch up with one of my lovely, lovely friends, who is much wiser than me, pointed out the other day that I’ve sort of made myself inaccessible. Deleting all social media a while ago was an important move for the time, but now I feel distant. I don’t feel empowered by it — I feel lonely. I want to see what my friends are up to. I want the convenience of sending someone a message even if I don’t have their phone number. For some people, a quick DM is far less intimidating than asking someone for their number and sending a text.

Also, Lucy couldn’t keep sending memes to my work’s account.

I set up an account with the sole purpose of connecting with my friends. As in, the only people I follow are my closest friends. It’s not a space for strangers, or friends of friends, or that person I met at a party one time.

I can’t tell you how happy I was to see pictures of Beth’s trip to Copenhagen, or Liv’s graduation, or Lucy’s year abroad.

The curation and self-consciousness of Instagram is what made me feel uncomfortable. Having a glimpse into the lives of the people I truly care about was never the problem.

⭐️ Being a little bit braver

All in all, I think connection requires us to be a little bit braver, especially if we’ve become comfortable with feeling lonely or isolated. As exciting as it is to be reconnecting with people and making new plans, it’s equally intimidating. Ultimately, though, nothing will change if we keep doing what we always do.

💐 Buying flowers

Something else that makes my skin crawl is putting myself out there and offering my friendship to somebody new. The fear of rejection never leaves me. Ciara said “Remember when asking “do you want to be my friend?” in the playgrounds at primary school, simply did the job?”. I think it’s time I did exactly that. I’ve tried skipping around the subject and hoping people will catch on to the fact that I’m chomping at the bit to be their friend, but I fear dropping hints isn’t enough to build a friendship. Shocking, isn’t it?

My fear of failed friendship makes me a bad friend because I put myself out there and then scurry away, hiding like a little mouse in your garage. On that — I live in fear of the garage. Whenever I go in there I look behind my shoulder like I’m going to see Voldemort lurking by the bikes or something.

I need to get over that. This weekend I’m challenging myself to pick up a little posy from the florist and give them to the lovely girls who work in the local coffee shop, then ask them if they want to get pizza one night like the boy does to the girl in the romcom who just took off her glasses.

📆 Getting on with it

As previously stated, I will happily lie feeling miserable about missing my friends and not do anything about seeing them. It can take me weeks, if not months, to arrange a date. I’ve cancelled that. I’ve started sending people lists of available dates and asking them to pick. Maybe this is what everyone does, but my over-politeness tends to just go “Whenever’s best for you! X”, which typically ends in a lot of back and forth and not a lot of planning.

Dreams don’t work unless you do, ladies! Turn your can’ts into cans and your dreams into plans!

This is very much still a work-in-progress for me. Hopefully I’ll keep you updated with this saga as I go, and by being a little bit braver, I’ll find myself feeling a little less lonely than before.