bonding

i am returning from my long and tiring trip. i have been in 6 countries in 3 weeks, two of the countries i have come and gone to twice. i have spent time with friends, family, co-workers, associates and strangers and have had a wonderful time. one of the repeated themes have been the ability to bond with people simply by sitting across a table, by sharing a drink, by helping to prepare or order a meal.

in the past few weeks, i have connected with an ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, the guy who took my job when i left the US, the guys i left behind in that job and who have grown into new roles and have done a wonderful job without me. i have spent time with my ex-wife, with my kids, with friends who have left the company; and a few who have come back. i have discussed the stresses of a distant marriage that is clearly heading into danger and have talked to a friend who has a new bundle of joy coming into her life. i have met people who i may never meet again, but who i am glad i had the moments we shared together.

it’s amazing that these people come into our lives. they are friends or family of others you know and you are both invited to a party. they are working in a company you are using and are randomly assigned to you. they are simply sitting at a table in an airport you should have left many hours before, but delays have forced you into a shared meal that is easier passed while talking to the japanese tour guide who is sharing her meal with you.

relationships start, evolve and end without you even knowing it sometimes. how does spending prolonged time apart, or together, change a relationship? how does a chance to sit and talk to your teenage son for 45 minutes alter your lives? when does making that phone call, or sending that sms matter for a relationship and when is it just forgotten noise in your longer and deeper life?

when you meet a person, you find things out about them that are personal, and may just be an interesting story for your trip, how does that alter you? should the chance meetings alter you in any way at all? is it just a conversation that passes the time between planes?

i met a man of indian decent, who was born in africa, raised in britian and who has traveled the world for work and pleasure. we shared a conversation about expatriate life, travel, politics and struggles on the world stage. we both live in the same country, we shared a 3 hour delay locked on an airplane and neither of us seemed phased or concerned with that. we did not exchange cards, but i know this is a man i could be friends with. this is someone i could have dinner with, or share a drink. should i go over before the end of the flight and offer a card?

as a semi-gregarious, okay extroverted, american i am comfortable with meeting people and telling stories. i was accused by someone i love yesterday of having spent time in my life when i was unable or unwilling to socialize. i honestly do not remember it this way, but this is a rap that i feel i may carry the rest of my life. if i ever was this person, where did they go? how was i able to change so radically?

if this is not a fair assessment of my prior self, how is it that someone i was so close to, and who i gave complete trust in my life could so completely misunderstand me. how could they see me so differently than i was? as is usual, i doubt that it is a binary answer. i normally lean toward the middle ground. i was skeptical of meeting people with whom i was not able to hold a conversation that would have been interesting for at least one of us. i did not know or care about the local baseball team’s most recent game. i did not know anything about town politics, or why so and so was spending more time drinking than working.

i was unable to find a way to connect with people who did not know where prague was, who tony blair was and why it was interesting that a labour party PM would be so closely aligned to a republican president viewed world wide as a expansionist aggressor set on world domination. i also had issues sitting idly by and listening to people make statements built on a narrow world view that that did not take historical reality into account.

i have had times when i was unable to bond with people for these or other reasons. i now seem able to do it with people i completely disagree with, who grew up in cultures dramatically different than my own. it is almost as if the differences allow me to find points of connection.

there are times when i need to be careful though. sitting amongst a socialist party demonstration and incorrectly using the term communism… okay, honestly i did it for effect, was a moment when it was better not to point out that i am strongly capitalist and believe that history is quickly moving to show that the socialist days are numbered.

i think i have learned that bonding is based not on an overt action, but on the passive act of listening. we can only hear and understand what someone is trying to share with us if we sit back and allow them to make their point. maybe i should have spent more time listening and i would have found this out earlier.

but maybe those bonds were broken because both of us had lost the ability to truly listen.