Recently I made friends with someone new, Rachel. This happens
less and less as I get older, most of the people I met now are activity
partners (people to do stuff with), romantic partners or co-workers.
There is a purpose to these interactions and each of us play our role.
But with Rachel it was different. We’re drawn to each other in a natural
way that seems to foster an interpersonal synergy that fuels thought
and positive action.
As a result of spending time with her I’ve become more aware of what I
look for in friends. First off, while I do activities with my friends,
they serve a social function and are not the purpose of our visits. For
example, I don’t have any close friends who I ride with. I really like
the guys on my cycling team, but we know each other BECAUSE we ride
together. A couple of my friends snow board and a few of them work out,
but by in large, other than the bike races, I do my activities by
myself. It’s hours a week on the road, the trails or the gym by myself
because that is what I like to do.
When I’m with my friends, the activity is just a back drop on which
to have an experience. Most of the time we just talk in the kitchen
while making dinner or have a couple of drinks. As an outsider watching
these interactions, I can’t imagine them seeming like they are very
purposeful but I have no doubt that they would see that we’re having a
good time and that there is a high level of engagement. The
conversations vary from talking nonsense (humor type improve about
whatever comes up), to information exchange to idea exchange. The
information exchange type conversations do not get my full attention.
I’m not sure why, but I tend not to pay much attention to this stuff. I
place a much lower value on this type of information, likely because
these are the types of conversations that I have with activity partners
and co-worker. These are just the details you need to get by and I find
most of them pretty uninspiring.
The nonsense talking gets us laughing which is fun and feels good
(all of my friends have either a good sense of humor or a great ability
to laugh). It also helps to consolidate ideas or turn thought fragments
into ideas. Given that I do not feel any judgement from my friends, I am
completely free to say whatever I feel like. Sometimes I just need to
say things out loud to make them more real in order for me to think
about them clearly. My friends are often the first and only people to
hear article ideas, workout programs, training tips and jokes. However,
the biggest benefit of nonsense talking is its ability to open the mind
through a sort of mental lubrication. Whenever you are engaging someone
with the pure intent of having a good conversation, you open yourself up
to all the possible directions that the conversation may take. A lot of
the time we don’t stay on topic and will hop all over the place in a
seemingly random fashion. The only pattern is that we are open to
whatever the other is saying. It’s like good improv, it may not go the
direction that you think should, but it goes somewhere and if you let
it, it keeps on going.
As some point, the conversation will usually drift back to a more
purposeful interaction that is focused on a single idea or point. It
will still have the same sort of freestyle stream of thoughts to it, but
they will all be related in some way to a key idea. These are the best
conversations because they are free flowing, spontaneous and
enlightening. There is a interpersonal synergy generated that allows
each of us to consider topics in ways that are different from the norm.
Patterns and the interconnected nature of ideas become evident were only
randomness existed before. I find these conversations to be
invigorating and I leave them feeling uplifted and with my head
spinning.
I have some friends where all of our conversations are like this. We
rarely discuss details about life or if we do, it is just to get the
conversation going as to why things are that particular way. It is
pretty amazing because I discuss certain topics with certain friends but
regardless of what we talk about, the experience is the same and I
leave the conversation feeling great and thinking that I’m a little
better off because of it.
It wasn’t until I met Rachel that I realized that I was this way with
my friends. I had often wondered if I was too serious all the time
because of my passion for training and the intensity at which I seek out
information that I am interested in, but I now realize that too serious
and not serious enough are basically the same thing to two different
people. I am the way I am and some people are going to be drawn to that
while others will be repelled. It is not uncommon for someone to tell my
that talking to me is draining, that they feel I am analyzing them and
that they need to be on their guard. They are sort of right, I am trying
to figure out why they do the things they do, but it’s only to get the
conversation going. It isn’t judgement, it’s just how I talk to people.
What it comes down to now is that I’ll most likely go right for the
guts of the matter and alienate people as I go. I’ve found that if they
don’t get what I say, they don’t get me. If they think I’m judging them,
it kills the conversation immediately. There is no changing this. The
connection is either there or it isn’t. And no matter what the intention
or desires of each one of us, there really isn’t any point in existing
as a friend around someone who you don’t gel with. It isn’t anything
personal to me or them, it’s just the way the world works. If you want
to be happy, you need to engage the people who make you feel happy and
for me that means the people who I feel an interpersonal synergy with.