Recently we had a dinner party and our friends came over and my wonderful wife cooked a wonderful meal – a culinary delight.

I felt connected and I don’t even know what that means. The company wasn’t hard. It wasn’t boring as our friends are smart and engage in witty and intellectually conversation. There was no competition or jealously, not spike or venom. Sarcasm was clever and reciprocated.

Conversations weren’t all safe and debates from different standpoints were flashed across the table.  Just to clarify, debates aren’t arguments – and there is nothing more enlightening than watching people ponder the comments of their foe and seeing that cock of the head when listening, and answering with the hesitation of an new understanding that perhaps they never had before.  During this evening this occurred sometimes, but if not, the opinions were thoughtful, unspiteful and genuine.

I sat at the head of the table and listen to more stories than I told (well I think I did) and if this is true it is a first.

Our friends left in a single wave and good buys had genuine hugs and firm handshakes – it was all punctuated with enthusiasm and firm arrangements for the future.

It was a good time and I felt connected. And I still don’t know what that means.

Maybe it is that friends are not about winning, losing, power or position; well not true friends anyway. Maybe it is that I didn’t have to try to feel as if I belonged. Maybe it is because friends come to a home, not a house or a restaurant, and they feel at home. Maybe it is because friends at dinner parties ask questions because they are interested in hearing the answers, because they are interested in you. Maybe it is because connection is about food and fellowship and laughter and friends and family and home.

Maybe it is about noticing the love of other couples, that makes you happy, because you know the love in your life makes you happy.

Maybe connection is about wanting to be with people because you want to know more about them; how they think; how they feel; how they see the world; and perhaps, having a little better understanding of yourself by accepting that others may thing differently to you; and that’s okay.

I felt connected because I felt safe;

Safe to be me
(I love, I hurt, I want to make a difference, I want to do the right thing, I fail, I don’t understand, I am interested, I feel okay to laugh)
Safe to talk
(Safe to tell my stories, use my language, also okay not to talk, silences that are okay, taking time to listen – really listen – and wanting to listen more than talk, time to understand, time to think before I speak)
Safe to be liked
(Not to prove, not to justify, not to be judged)
Safe to love
(Expressing love for wife, life and family, seeing how love lives in their lives – and accepting)

Tonight was interesting because it was with a group of relatively new friends. Considering my age anyone I have known for less that 10 years is a relatively new friend. So why is this a moment where I notice connection.

I don’t think it is something I noticed. I think it is something I felt.

I didn’t have to think about being a better man because I was in the company of better men and women.  Maybe I often don’t feel connected because there is nothing to be connected with.  Maybe tonight, in our home, we didn’t necessarily connect but found ourselves, in others; and perhaps we also found some of the things that we don’t have in ourselves, in them – and they gave it to us willingly and without obligation.

Connection is sometimes about friendship, lives shared and experienced together.

Connection is also sometimes about discovering the values and ideals that are important to you in new friends, or even old friends or even in people I have not yet met.  I look forward to those days, as even now the glow of our friends at our home, for a ‘normal’ dinner party, will remain as a made memory where due to everything, and perhaps nothing, I was a better man, and a lot of it lingers.