I wonder a lot about relationships. How they work, and when
and why they don’t. It’s a topic I don’t think we spend enough time on, because
I think we want it to happen naturally, magically, without our having to think
about it, understand how it works, or “force” it in any way. We want our
relationships to bloom magically, as if they were always meant to be. We
sometimes think that analyzing the process takes the magic out of it, and hence
the sense of fate and destiny that we – magical, eternal creatures stuck in a
hopelessly time-bound and unmagical world – so desperately crave.
But there’s a serious risk to avoiding the analysis and
counting too heavily on the magic. It’s an oft-heard adage that friends are
rare and true friends rarer. I think there’s a lot of truth to this, and I also
think that life has a lot to do with it; mortality makes forming meaningful relationships
and maintaining them over time quite difficult. Yet a lot of the truth behind
the “rare friends” adage is that we humans are bad at relationships. And the reason we’re bad is partly because we
don’t always understand well how human connection works. Oh, we recognize it
when we see it; and we are right to crave it. And I’m sure each of us could deduce
the essential dynamics from our own personal experience if we gave thought to
it. But do we?
Indulge me in a quick mathy exercise real quick. Let’s say
each relationship between two people has a significance, or depth, for lack of a better word. Let’s
define the total level of connection in the world as the sum total of the depth
of all relationships in the world. A measure of how “connected” we are as a
race. I firmly believe that if we only more fully understood and embraced the
fundamental principles of how relationships form and last we could be living in
a world where the total level of human connectivity was much higher than it is.
Now, maybe you think that would be a bad thing. Maybe humans
can only handle so much connection at a time; maybe the added depth of
connection, mixed with the constraints of mortal life, would only cause more
heart break and suffering. Both valid points, and I’m sure there are others as
well. But if you believe as I do – and, I think, as just about all of us do,
deep down – that human connection is the source of happiness and relationships
are what life is really about, then it’s worth at least entertaining what I
have to say next.
So what about friendship? What about human relationships?
What determines how many (or how few) we have? What nurtures them and makes
them grow? How do they germinate? What weakens and kills them?
These are rich questions and I don’t pretend for an instant
to have all the answers. If anyone does, please send me your masterpiece when
you’ve written it. But I have discovered (and many others have confirmed my
hunch) something that I believe fundamental to all of them. Relationships deepen
and weaken on vulnerability. As Brene Brown put it, vulnerability is the
birthplace of joy, connection, and whole-hearted living.
Why vulnerability? Sounds awful, and scary. I’m not sure
exactly why. I think it’s maybe because, when we are vulnerable, we are
exposing who we really are – honestly and truly. No obfuscation, no hiding, no
holding back. So when we’ve been vulnerable with someone, and that someone
accepts us and even loves us afterward, we know for sure they love the real us.
The most awful, gnawing fear in the human heart is the fear that if others
really knew us – every dark, ugly, weird corner – they wouldn’t love us. We
fear above all else that we are not loveable. Oh sure, our surface personality may be pleasant, and our visible exterior may
garner praise and affection. But if people really knew all there is to know
about us – if they could peer behind the façade – they would recoil in horror
and shock. They wouldn’t want to have anything to do with that part of us.
And so we believe we are only partly loveable; only worth of
conditional love. We are loved incompletely, and not fully; loved according to
how well we conform to what the world
wants us to look like, act like, be like. And so we hide ourselves and only
dare connect at the surface level.
Yet we crave
connection. We yearn for unconditional love.
We want our dark corners to see the light of day – and we want to be loved
despite them. We want to know that, as a whole, with all our good and bad
lumped together in the awkward mess that is a human being, that we are still
worth loving, and connecting with; that as we are now, we are worthy of love
and connection, fellowship and friendship. A true friendship is one where each
can relax in the utmost confidence that the other knows him and accepts him as
he is, all the same.
So true friendship, then, is only possible when you have
made yourself known to another; and that
is a very vulnerable experience. The more meaningful and deep a relationship
goes, the less of yourself you can afford to hold back. Until, in the ultimate
relationship, each partner knows everything there is to know about the other. And
that is why vulnerability is absolutely essential to meaningful human
connection.
Now, I know full well that’s an ideal. It’s a theoretical
statement about relationships while we live in the real world, where the rubber
hits the road. But it can still teach us a great deal because it reveals what needs to happen if we are to experience
more and deeper connection in our lives – while leaving the how to make it happen up to each of us
individually.
Basically, the prescription can be summed up in a single
sentence: we need to embrace vulnerability as a natural part of life. Like
public speaking, most of us (including yours truly) avoid vulnerability like
the plague. We put up with it when we absolutely have to, but steer clear
otherwise. While not advocating aggressively seeking it out (in potentially
inappropriate ways), I am asserting
that we must not avoid vulnerability. We need to stop running from it, stop
stigmatizing it, and stop fearing it. How often are those who are readily
willing to share honestly about themselves ridiculed? It’s gotten to the point
where we assume any man willing to be vulnerable must be gay – no offense meant
to gays, who are in fact often more
willing to be open and honest about things other than their income level or how
much they can bench press.
Now, I know that a lot of people aren’t going to like this.
And it could well be argued that a world where everyone was willing to wade
through the vulnerability to form deeper and more meaningful connections with a
broader swath of humanity would perish, as Robert Frost said, in fire – consumed
by the depth of hurt that is the risk all take who let themselves be truly
seen, and learn to truly and deeply love as a result. But I fear our world is
heading towards the opposite extinction: dying in the cold, icy loneliness of
empty space – all because we aren’t willing to share the intimate flame that
burns within us.
