What does connection mean to you? For me, connection with any human being means understanding. Understanding of yourself, and understanding of the other person. When people meet and understand each other on a deeper level, it will lead to a connection. In my opinion, for any kind of relationship to work, there needs to be a connection, which will lead to a deeper bond. I’ve struggled with connection for years. In dating women, and even being around friends I’ve known for years, the question “why doesn’t anyone understand me?” always came up for me, and still occasionally does today.
I’m sure most of you have been asking yourself this question most of your life, and I know from experience that it can be one of the most frustrating things to deal with as a human being. This was true especially for me in my formative years growing up and dealing with the feeling of being judged by those around me. I feared talking about what I truly wanted to discuss. When we do that we aren’t being vulnerable, and we aren’t being true to ourselves and our surroundings. This happened to me early on and instead of trying to connect with others I resorted to mostly anger and held everything in, which has definitely affected my relationships with women and friends.
I lashed out because I feared being seen. Most of my struggles when it comes to connecting with others is saying what I want to say and have that being reflective of who I am as a person. Growing up, I constantly thought of what people were thinking and saying about me. I had bad acne in high school, well at least I thought it was bad. Many people would say it wasn’t that bad, and to stop worrying about it. It definitely affected the way I talked to people, and my approach towards forming new relationships and especially trying to date women. For the most part, really connecting with other people was at a pretty low for me. College, came around, my face cleared up and it completely changed my life. You’re probably reading this and thinking it was senseless to stress over something such as pimples on your face, but I think growing up that will affect anyone. I was a new person or so to think. But, I still wasn’t feeling connected. What to do? How can I relate to people on a deeper emotional level? It came down to one simple thing. Finding myself, and in order to do that I needed to be alone. When you get to a point in your life, and you can have fun with yourself and be happy with being alone, you know you’ve made it.
Be happy with being alone, and it will lead you to connection. You’ll connect with others, but most importantly you’ll connect with yourself.