The Space Between

On the growing gap in human connection.

Recently, I came across an article (if you could call it that) celebrating three art-cum-performance projects in two major cities in the United States.  Among these projects was New York City’s “Date While You Wait“, which consisted of a simple decorated table pulled up on a subway platform, that allowed passersby to sit with a stranger (creator Thomas Knox) and connect over a board game (deliberately selected Connect 4) and conversation.  Another project, established in San Francisco by two psychotherapists, was “Sidewalk Talk”, a stripped down version of “Date While You Wait” that welcomed any stranger to partake in conversation with creators Lily Sloane and Traci Ruble simply by having a seat.  In both projects the creators noted a vast number of participants from all walks of life, people of varying ages, nationalities, and backgrounds, many of whom opened up about private, intimate details of their lives in the company of virtual strangers. For Knox, the intention of his project was never about love, or rather, never about romantic love, despite the name. While everyone wants to fall in love, he claimed, “Date While You Wait” was not about that. What he hoped to facilitate and re-imagine through his project was human interaction, the art and act of which seems increasingly lost to modern life.

Projects such as these, in my estimation, highlight both a need for, and a dearth in, human communication. Alongside their relative success are upstart projects, newly imagined business models commodifying human touch.  Cuddle companies, emerging in Canadian cities such as Montreal and Vancouver, have increasingly begun to proliferate across North America and, while for original creators it was never meant as a “get-rich-quick” scheme, participants have noted that cuddling-for-coin is a profitable venture.  What have we begun to miss so badly that we are now willing to pay for it?  Beyond sex, beyond physical gratification, and even beyond commodity exchange, these projects, increasingly, point to something real and tangible having gone missing from modern society. But what and why? Ironically, but perhaps unsurprisingly, real human connection has begun to die out in an era of improved communication and ease of transportation.

Deliberate acts of affection: culture ties

Cuddle company connoisseurs, while facing flack for being fronts for prostitution, are quick to point out that the nature of their business is about celebrating the human touch in non-sexual ways. Clientele, which range from “women who are tired…business people who just want to cry because they’re too proud to do it with friends and…some people in a retirement home where their kids paid for them to not be alone at Christmas time” are all basically after the same thing: support rendered via human connectivity. Men, in particular, sought the services of cuddlers, not to satisfy some sexual kink, but to attain the comfort that comes from deliberately connecting with another human being. This is critical to note since men, traditionally, have been reared into stoicism, taught not to touch (or to seek touch) for healing, emotive purposes.  Even in established relationships we have somehow managed to become so detached and untethered that we walk around emotionally dissatisfied, and this has, as one male friend recently noted in conversation, contributed to a growing crisis of masculinity. In such a crisis the entirety of our human populace suffers.

Is it cultural? Generational? Geographic in nature? Perhaps it is all of the above, or perhaps it is none at all, but something is certainly rotten in the state.

the very act of emotional connection, particularly when geographic space divides, needs to be both wilful and intentional.

Very recently I discovered that I myself have existed, rather blindly, in a space of disconnection for several years. Mistakenly I thought, or rather convinced myself, I was content. It was not until I started traveling more frequently that I finally began to realize how deliberate the act of connecting with other human beings actually needs to be. It is not enough to simply be in touch through one-off non-sequiturs via text, though that certainly does help, but the very act of emotional connection, particularly when geographic space divides, needs to be both wilful and intentional.  This was such a foreign notion to me that, at first, when friends and new acquaintances made efforts to be emotionally and physically connected, I was caught completely off-guard. One person, whom I had the pleasure of befriending while in Cuba, and who currently lives “across the pond”, calls me, without fail, every few days. I can recall, perhaps jokingly (now), arguing with him about his intensity when we met, my reaction to which cut him deeply. It was so normal for him to be in touch with the people that mattered, and so normal for him to want to act upon the desire to spend time in the company of the people he cared about. But for me, having grown up in a culture of reticence, it all screamed “too much”. What I read as intensity was him simply being intentional. It was not until later that I realized we were speaking from two very different cultural places, and it was not until much later that I realized how important it was to be intentional and how much I actually enjoyed it.  Who doesn’t want to know they matter to someone in some significant way?

My last few months in Trinidad, and the time away since then, have reflected much of the same acts of deliberate, wilful intention. The group of friends I am regularly in touch with go out of their way to connect to and with each other (and to me) in meaningful ways and I’m slowly, slowly learning to play my part. Joining them out for dinner one night early in my stay I was told to put away my cell phone. “We’re here to spend time with each other,” I was told. “First one to pick up their phone, picks up the cheque.” It was nice, in a way, to have my misbehaviour called out. I’d developed the terrible habit (sometime during a previous trip to Trinidad) of living on my cellphone, a habit that I found both off-putting and discourteous but couldn’t seem to shake. In the company of people that matter, distractions should not be a thing.  And in the company of people who matter, deliberately switching off and focusing is a clear signal of intent. It says, at least to me: I’m paying attention, I’m listening. So speak and speak from the heart because I’m here to know you.

Having recently stubbed my toe on a rock in the water that is modern dating, I went out a few times with an effervescent personality who could hold a conversation with virtually anyone in the room. While our interaction was entirely platonic, I’ll admit I was both fascinated (and happy) that on the occasions during which we hung out for hours, our phones never surfaced. In some ways, our dates became an extended version of “Date While You Wait”, a fleeting interaction with a stranger during which much was shared, both ways, about fears, hopes, dreams, and life changes.  And maybe that’s why we seek out connections with strangers in the first place.  Somewhere along the way we have forgotten how to deliberately make space in our lives for the people who matter. Somehow we have forgotten how to signal to others that yes, they’re important, that we’re listening, that we’re here to share in their lives. In an era where mental health issues are simultaneously so prevalent and yet often silenced, maybe we ought to pause a little longer to think about how we show our love, even platonic love.

Make time. Forge connections. Be genuine. Converse about things that matter.  Be open. Be attentive. Be passionate.

Cultivate love in and with those around you, platonic, romantic, or otherwise.

Be love.