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The past several months have changed the ways in which we engage with and benefit from our social support systems. We have had to limit our face-to-face interactions with friends and family, and change our work and leisure pursuits. We haven't had opportunities for casual interactions and chance meet-ups. Connecting with others has been achieved through technology-mediated channels and many of us have had to grow our understanding and tolerance of “remote intimacy.”
Remote Intimacy
Intimacy shows up in a variety of ways, depending on the relationship being described. It can be used to describe close family members, including the ones that would typically be gathered around the hospital bed when someone was gravely ill. Due to the ease of transmission of coronavirus, even intimate family members were unable to be present when a person was gravely ill or dying. These moments only could be shared through technology-mediated intimacy; this hardship left many feeling a sense of guilt for being unable to be present and feelings of heartache at the absence of that sense of closure that we feel being present during the last moments of a person’s death provides. Intimacy is often marked by shared moments we consider sacred, such as birth and death, and families had to make do with virtual presence when safety concerns prohibited our physical presence.
Intimacy can refer to close friends who have developed a deep, open, and trusting relationship. While many close friends treasure the opportunity to spend time together, close intimate friendships thrive and often deepen when communication relies on phone or video calls, even when thousands of miles separate the friends. Intimacy between romantic or sexual partners takes a different form that typically refers to the sexual component of the relationship. Couples who were separated due to the stay-at-home orders might have begun to engage in virtual lovemaking for the first time in their relationships, if that was a new way to connect. While there are multiple forms of intimacy, the value of these close relationships is evident.
Happenstance Connections & Aristotle’s “Utility Friends”
Recently, there was an online BBC news story exploring the value of our “not-so-intimate” friendships, such as our casual friends, work friends, or commuting and fitness class friends. While these might not be the people we turn to when we’re in deep need of comfort or consolation, they play an important role in helping us make it through life as easily and pleasantly as possible. They can offer us instrumental support, rather than emotional support, and that is it can take the shape of insider info on the workplace, tips on happenings in the community, advice on dealing with issues that others in your intimate circle may not have dealt with themselves, or just suggestions for new television shows or movies to watch.
While the content of the conversations with our “happenstance” or “circumstance” friends may not hold the emotional weight of intimate relationships, their presence in our everyday lives matters a great deal to our psychological well-being. Before the pandemic shut down the majority of our casual interactions with others, the everydayness of our casual interactions with others provided a sense of connection, belonging, and even mattering to others. We crave connection and it nourishes us even if it is just the “watercooler conversations,” idle gossip with co-workers, chitchat with the checkout clerk, or the chatter with others in the fitness center or with other parents waiting for their kids’ music lesson or T-ball practice to be over. Many find themselves looking forward to these daily or weekly casual meet-ups. And while these happenstance friends may never become a part of our intimate circle, we might mention to a partner if you don’t run across this friend where you’d expect to see them, “Guess what, Mindy or Michael or Max wasn’t at Zumba today—I was hoping to ask for more information about that new restaurant that’s just opened up on their block.” They don’t join your closer circle of connections, but they still can influence your life in a variety of ways.
The BBC news article was highlighting the fact that so many of these rewarding connections had suffered with the lockdowns that rolled across the nation. We may have mastered Zoom meetings, but they don’t provide the opportunity for casual conversations. We don’t get to chat with a co-worker on the walk to the meeting room or hold “whispered sidebar chats” unnoticed during the meeting. If we want to catch up with individuals, we have to schedule the call, which may cause it to lose some of its casual feel and may actually feel awkward if your interactions are always based around a more formal engagement.
No One Person Can be “Everything” for Another
However, when you’re locked in tight with your partner or close family members, that’s probably when we need our more casual connections the most, according to the BBC article. When we’re sharing virtually every waking hour, every meal, and work and leisure space with a finite group, we lose out on the novelty and innovative ideas that we’d typically gain from interacting with less familiar others. Scheduling non-work focused Zoom calls or chatting through masks with the grocery store clerk or the delivery driver or neighbors you see on your walks in your neighborhood are important to our mental health.
We need to make the effort to seek those connections that provide inspiration, new information, and that sense of belonging that makes us feel that we matter. Not only do we need to proactively engage—safely—with others with whom we cross paths in our daily lives, but we should also empathize more strongly now with those whose lives are chronically isolating. Reaching out to connect with those who live in care facilities or just those who live alone allows you to do something positive for others that is equally rewarding for yourself.
Whether they’re called “happenstance friends,” “utility friends,” “work friends,” “gym friends,” or “dance or band parents,” these are the folks who nourish our need for social connection, provide us with gossip that guides our actions or merely entertains, and bring us innovative ideas and news that our intimate circle does not. Make sure your web of support stretches from the hearth to the larger community if you want to ensure your sense of connection, mattering, and belonging.
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