Connectify: to radiate honesty and, in return, welcome intimacy with open arms; to reach out and feel close to another person

Years ago, an iconic long-distance telephone campaign was built around “reach out and touch someone.” Some of those TV commercials were incredibly emotional and just made you feel like picking up the phone and springing for that costly long distance call. These days, most of us have unlimited long-distance plans on our smart phones, and we can even make video calls to anywhere in the world with Whatsapp and Messenger and other apps, without ever giving a thought to a price tag.

Click below if you’d like to watch a vintage long-distance commercial

(this link works on a computer, not on mobile phones)

Reach out and touch here to see a vintage long distance commercial

Be prepared to have your heartstrings tugged!

Ironically, now that almost everyone has their own phone at the ready in their pocket or purse, when we’re encouraged to reach out and touch someone, more often than not it’s an urging to get your nose out of social media, stop texting, and actually see another person. In person. Or at the very least have a genuine conversation – with talking.

I was blessed that during the pandemic, my relationships with my family and oldest friends in Montreal didn’t really change much because we had worked for years on sustaining a long-distance connection.

But as grateful as I am for the tele-connections I have with my loved ones on the other side of the country, I often wish I could sit with them, face to face, across a table.

I recently had dinner with my best friend’s daughter. While I’ve known the young woman her entire life, it’s only in the last couple of years that we have embarked on a relationship independent of the ones we have with her mother.

I moved away from Montreal nearly 25 years ago, and my friend and I sustained and nurtured our friendship and each other throughout two and half decades, thanks to long-distance calling and the desire to remain in touch.

A few years ago, my friend’s daughter, Sage, moved to Vancouver and we began to get together, from time to time, on our own.

But the other evening was different. We hadn’t seen each other in several months and, when she asked how I was, I told her. I acknowledged that I’d been having a tough time, a lot of ups and downs, and that right now, things were up – that’s why I’d been able to reach out and set up a date. I talked about a few of the things I’d been dealing with, and how I was working through them. I apologized for being so direct with this caveat: “I’m not really interested in having dinner with anyone anymore if there’s not going to be honesty and intimacy.”

If you’re someone I care about, and you’re asking me how I am, I’m going to tell you. And if you’re not able to hear it, then you’re probably not someone I should be sitting down to break bread with.

While my friend’s daughter is some 30 years younger than I, she appreciated what I was saying and began to share some of what was going on in her life. And just like that, this person that I thought I had known her entire life was someone I was only just beginning to get to know - for real. I came home from dinner feeling a wonderful sense of connection with another woman. I hadn’t felt that in a long while and I was overwhelmed by good it felt and how much I had missed it.

Yes, I have closeness though tele-communication with my sisters and girlfriends in Montreal. But “tele” implies from a distance. And yes, I am also blessed to have warm and loving relationships with my extended family in Vancouver - my in-laws and my fabulous cousins, and our wonderful next-door neighbours who have become our favourite couple friends.

But I’d been missing deep intimacy with another woman, and I ended up finding it in a most surprising place. Dinner with Sage was a wonderful wake-up call: I realized I was going to have to work at finding and deepening relationships in the place where I live.

As someone who has been privileged to be healthy and have a happy marriage, a loving family, interesting work, a house, and a comfortable lifestyle in a a desirable North American city, I know I have much to be grateful for.

But the last few years have been challenging ones. The pandemic affected many things, changing both people and relationships, and every day, we are bombarded by news of further political divisions, war, human suffering, climate change and catastrophic weather events.

And then, midway through the pandemic, my beloved mother passed away. As I worked through my grief, I realized that everyone around me was going through their own thing. In many ways, I felt more alone than I ever had.

I write in a journal every morning and doing so often helps me work things out – on paper at least. As I kept writing “I’m so hurt…” “I’m so disappointed…” “I miss so and so so much…” I realized that no one else was actually letting me down.

What was disappointing me and letting me down were my expectations.

Here I was going through the hardest period of my life, just as many other people were – but how was I showing up for them? Who was I disappointing?

I realized I was expecting this person, and that one, to be somebody else. I was trying to get something from them that they were not able to give.

In my attempts to be real, I was not being realistic.

People weren’t letting me down. My expectations were letting me down.

There’s an old adage we all grew up with, it goes something like: to make a friend, you have to be a friend.

The pandemic did a number on us: we stopped going out; we stopped having people over; we stopped seeing each other. Maybe I had stopped being a friend, the kind of friend I’d like to have myself.

Making friends takes work, and it can be a little scary. The first time you ask to meet up for coffee or lunch can feel like asking someone out on a date. What if they say no?

I’ve struggled with making girlfriends in Vancouver. A lot of it’s logistics. I’m a contract employee, working on projects in an industry based on a 12-hour workday: it’s not conducive to going out for dinner or a drink after work. And after a few months of one project, it’s on to the next, often with a whole new crew.

Many friendships develop with people you work or study alongside for long periods of time and lots of women make friends with the mothers of the children their own kids play with. But those possibilities don’t reflect the reality of my life.

At a Window in the Artist's Studio, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, 1852

To make a friend, you have to be a friend.

And so, I am determined to re-socialize myself and learn how to be with people again. Thanks to that wonderful evening of connection with my friend’s daughter, I’m doing my bit to nurture some of the wonderful relationships that are already pillars of support, companionship and love in my life.

Last week I went out to dinner with an old friend I hadn’t seen in months. We’ve started to invite members of our Vancouver family over for dinner again, and we’ve even planned a few overnight weekend get-togethers – something we hadn’t done for four years.

And I’m going to keep on reaching out and striving to be honest and feel seen and heard.

Luncheon of the Boating Party, Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Without being honest, we can’t allow ourselves to be vulnerable. Trust is built on us letting ourselves be vulnerable with each other. If we can’t be honest, how can there be intimacy?

Tell it like it is!

Tell it like it is, baby. If you’re going to ask me how I am, be prepared for an earful - because I am going to tell you! And hopefully, you’ll listen, and tell me how you are, too - for real.

Reach out and touch someone!

And so to take another step towards connecting, I will no longer refer to Sage as my friend’s daughter.

From now on, she’s my friend.

Is there someone you want to reach out and re-connect with?

Connectify

Barbiefy

Shelfify