Salon post:

[jenett]

Wander in, invite a friend to come along, and chat! (Not sure what's going on? Here, have a brief FAQ.) You can find previous ones in my salon tag. Please take a quick look at the reminders at the bottom of this post, too.

Today is the first day of classes at my place of work, and I'm still a little startled, somehow, about the transition from the laziness of August (when there's almost no one on campus except those of us who have 12 month contracts) to the bustle of the school year. (I have also hit my seasonal "my lungs hate September" moment, so I am not at my best, which is not exactly helping. It's been a very damp summer, and my mold allergies, they are complaining.)

Because of how I spent Saturday, I think this week, I'm going to snag an idea jjhunter brought up a month or so ago, of wanting to talk about relationships, and how to go about finding them or making the most of them.

Not just the romantic ones, but mentoring ones, friendships, teacher and student, parent and child, siblings, colleagues, and all the things that make communities and connections and the families we choose and the ones we don't and connections we make and the ones we don't.

(Why this week? Because I spent Saturday out with some awesome women, met via striking up a conversation in a restaurant in February. We all had a blast, but one of the things we've talked about a lot is how rare those kinds of friendships are in their lives. I have a *lot more* of that kind of interaction than the other four, but most of it is online and separated by distance.)

A few final notes
As noted, the basic thing here is 'leave the conversation better than you found it, or at least not worse'. The FAQ has more help with your choices for comment (DW account, OpenID account, or anonymously) if you need a hand. Or ask, and someone (likely me, but maybe not) will be along to help. We'll work everything else out as we go.

Comments

[jjhunter]

Figuring out that I don't have to be all things for someone else in a particular relationship - and that they don't have to be all things for me - has made cultivating meaningful relationships easier for me. There's less riding on any one particular relationship, more room for seeing it clearly & finding a balance that works for me.

It leaves the door open for cultivating new relationships. Investing a degree of care in someone by listening & engaging, and seeing if they reciprocate that care. Sometimes I have to have some kind of a relationship with someone I might not have been drawn to otherwise because of work or geography or mutual friends, etc., and I try to stay open to seeing what happens when I take the time to care - to notice, to appreciate, to remember - with that person too. It can be humbling, surprising, frustrating, eye-opening, rewarding, exhausting, grating, bemusing and clarifying (sometimes all with just one person!), and often (not always) worth it or more.

Cultivation of openness paired with sufficient self-awareness to cultivate & maintain good personal boundaries seem like close to magic ingredients for connecting with other people in sustained and mutually meaningful ways. What do you think?

[jenett]

With you on that.

I also - I try more and more to let my relationships with people be what they are. (I might decide that that's not where I spend my energy, or spend it often - or other stuff might get in the way) But I like myself and my life better when I'm not fighting to make the relationships fit a specific mold.

(This is, um, how I have friends I geek specific things with, and friends I IM, and friends I don't, and friends I almost never see, and friends I'll pick up with like we talked five minutes ago, even when it's been a year since we saw each other in person. And it's all good, y'know, 'cause friends.)

[calissa]

Cultivation of openness paired with sufficient self-awareness to cultivate & maintain good personal boundaries seem like close to magic ingredients for connecting with other people in sustained and mutually meaningful ways. What do you think?

This taps into something I've been thinking about in relation to my DW account. Although I have been here for a little while now, I only know a few people--mostly carried over from LJ and few that are active. I've been wanting to meet some new people on DW (which is why I clicked on your link and came over to this salon in the first place). I think one of the reasons I'm struggling a bit with it is that I'm not managing the cultivation of openness so well. I think I need to share more of myself so that others have something to respond to.

[alexseanchai]

I clicked over to your journal and you look like a fascinating person. I don't know much about you except that you read and edit, but anybody with a to-read pile that size has got to have a humongous has-read pile, right? Which in itself.

So I subscribed. No obligation to subscribe in return. And I'll keep you in mind for when the novel I'm working on has gotten past writing and draft editing into copy editing (your site is absolutely right about sometimes all you need is a fresh pair of eyeballs). Progress updates on the novel are on alexconall, if you're curious; I'm doing NaNoWriMo in September this year, though I'm giving serious thought to ratcheting down the word count goal from 50K to the much more achievable 30K and living with the fact that I won't have a draft yet when fall term starts.

[calissa]

Thank you! That's very kind :)

I love the writing masterlist on your writing page. Such a good idea. I might have to do something similar, I suspect.

I also have an interest in the Tarot so it made me smile to see you offer the occasional Tarot reading.

If you don't mind, I think I'll take a bit more of a poke around your journals. I do enjoy getting to know people.

[alexseanchai]

:) :)

[jjhunter]

It's a tricky balance, isn't it? Worth remembering too that signaling active listening online is different than offline; if I'm at a talk or a party or hanging out with someone offline, I can show the equivalent of 'I'm here, I'm listening' to another person entirely with my body (eyes focused on theirs, facing them directly, shoulders relaxed back & arms uncrossed, leaning forward slightly if seated, etc.) - openness is to some degree emotional availability, and human faces & bodies can communicate extraordinary emotional nuances without speaking vocally.

Online in places like DW & LJ? People won't see my icon (stand-in for body language) - or know I've read something / been present - unless I comment.

Thanks for sharing yours here. :o)

ETA: whoops I memed (hope this helps!): Dreamwidth Circle Meme

[kaberett]

Yes - I am making a conscious effort to comment, even if it's "This made me smile" or "I bear witness" or "Thank you!" -- because that is still something, you know?

[calissa]

Nifty meme! I'm definitely going to take a closer look at that.

I agree that it is worth remembering that signaling active listening is different online. I often feel like I have nothing to contribute by commenting, but this reminds me that just the acknowledgement that I read it and was "listening" can be enough.

Thank you for posting the link here in the first place. It has been great to see the conversations going on here.

[jenett]

Welcome! Hi!

I think sharing a bit helps - one thing I've discovered is that it doesn't need to be tons of stuff necessarily. (I talk about lots of things here, but at the same time, there's lots of stuff I don't discuss, or that only gets discussed in tighter filters, or what have you.)

And now you've got me pondering how that works for me, which is handy, thanks!

[calissa]

Hi! And thanks for the welcome. This salon is such a fabulous idea!

Glad I could get you thinking! Since posting here, I have also been considering what sorts of things I'd prefer to keep under filters and what sorts of things I'd prefer to be more open about. Some of it is clear-cut and some of it really isn't. It has also been interesting to take a closer and more conscious look at what I've already been putting under filter and why I'm doing that.