Building Relationships Gets Harder?

While out with friends a couple nights ago, one of the conversations conveyed a thought I had trouble drawing in my head for a while.

That thought was: We tend to build relationships with who we think we are constrained to. This is particularly true through the K-12 portion of our lives when we are restricted to family friends, people on our street, then other children that were within biking distance, then by who were in our school district, or any combination of things (e.g. parent's permission). If you're lucky, you'll make lifetime friends that have similar interests and compatible personalities.

College is great because those limitations are reduced and there are endless possibilities of meeting new people that you are compatible with. There's little to no friction since most people are willing and expecting to meet new people.

But for some reason, after college we tend to lose that sense of willingness to explore and seek to meet new people with more common interests. As you grow as person, shouldn't your friends reflect that as well? While the distance factors less than it did in grade school, the mentality and enthusiasm to meet new people are critical factors that seems to affect people the most.

That's where the internet excels: bringing people with similar interests together, no matter the distance. While the internet is portrayed as a hurtful place (and rightfully so, particularly with online comments), it is also one of the best places (if not the best) to find inclusion. Though, it can be overwhelming and one can be easily overlooked in larger online communities. In addition, the anonymity can be a negative and positive in providing a community.

We should take advantage of the technology to bridge that gap between what the internet communities have done with real world interaction.

More to come about this in the near future!