Choosing Connection

Social health is now something that needs to be maintained on purpose, just like physical health

It's well known that the digital world is making it so that it is harder to connect with people in real life. Twenty years ago, most people would get too damn bored to sit around alone in their room all day, they would feel the itch to get out, go into town, grab a drink and go dancing, or to the opera, or host a dinner party, etc. But now, when somebody gets that natural feeling of loneliness, they can quell it by looking at their phone, and scratch the itch of human connection with social media.

Think about a dinner party. Everybody knows what they look like, they pop up in movies and TV shows all the time. But when was the last time you went to a real live dinner party yourself? My guess is that for most of us it's been a while. Dinner parties are becoming a concept like going to the opera, or asking someone out on a date in real life; relics from another time that everybody is familiar with but few people have actually participated in. Perhaps someday they will seem as quaint and distant as going to a drive-in theater or splitting a chocolate malt.

Everybody wants to be invited to a dinner party, but few people are willing to host a dinner party. The idea of a dinner party is just a reference point, you could swap it out with any other kind of gathering: playing pickleball, a board game night, darts, bowling, a hike, pizza and watching a movie. The basic action of groups of people getting together and hanging out has become a kind of endangered species. With everybody in agreement that people are isolated more than ever, maybe the dinner party is something to work up to for most of us. After all, you don't say to a total couch potato, "you need to run a marathon," when it is more sensible that they start by just going for a walk around the block.

We have now entered an era where if we want to connect and build community, we will have to consciously choose to do so. If we don't, that skill will wither away. We can see the effects on community ties as this has happened over the past decade and it's not been pretty. It seems pretty obvious we need to remind ourselves how to connect. I believe we as a society need to relearn how to build thriving communities. This could work just like the way that exercise has worked. People largely did not need to concern themselves with exercise when most people worked as laborers and farmers. Nobody ever came home from a hard day working with a shovel or axe and then felt the need to work out in the gym. It simply wasn’t necessary. Then, as jobs become more sedentary and cars become more prevalent, people realized they had to exercise or suffer the consequences of physical atrophy.

If you want to get into shape you have to stick to some kind of exercise schedule. This is now seen as pretty basic advice. The specifics of the schedule can be as simple or as complicated as you want. A lot of experts say you should exercise 4 or 5 times a week. Some people are proponents of daily exercise, some people have complicated schedules to balance out cardio, leg day and arm day and so on. But the basic fact that you should have some kind of schedule to aim for is one of the most foundational assumptions of fitness. Social health is now something that needs to be maintained on purpose, just like physical health. Connection and community and "having a life" are things that will flourish if we attend to them with care.

We are simply at the phase where we have not realized this yet as a collective society. When the healthy option doesn't happen of its own accord, it is time to set deliberate goals to push yourself towards what you want. Just like you might set a goal with exercise, like "I'm going to go to the gym 3x a week" or get some kind of movement in every day, we should have similar goals for spending time with friends, family and loved ones, and even just hanging out in public.

Most routines are based on repeating something, whether daily, or weekly, or monthly. The specifics of what works best for you are infinitely flexible.

The Daily Approach

A very simple approach is to reach out and try to connect with at least one person each day. It can be as simple as s text or phone call, or even better, actually set up a time to meet up in person and catch up. Grab a burrito, go for a walk, get a drink, the more informal the better. Just as you should probably move every day, whether that's just going for a walk or actually putting on your jogging shoes and running around the track, a day without movement is bad for you.

You could choose to make an effort to connect with someone every single day. That could be as simple as a quick phone call or even just texting a friend. Just like the amount of exercise you do on any given day will vary, the specifics of how you want to connect might vary a lot. For most of us, reaching out to someone on a daily basis would be an improvement in our connection muscles.

The Weekly Approach

Try to socialize 2-3 times a week. As in, you are around other people, not alone. This could mean setting a date for meeting a friend, for a drink, or lunch, or whatever, or it could even be just going and hanging out at the local bar or coffees hop. It's up to you.

I tend to do this; most weeks I make the effort to spend time with other people 2-3 times a week. This is a mix of meeting up with friends and also just doing stuff in public. For example I'm taking a weekly Spanish class this winter.

Monthly

Consider throwing a dinner party!