Valuable Connections, How close you need to be?

An interesting topic I got into after matching with a girl from Tinder, who lives in the US. But let me get there step be step. It starts with a normal match. I think it was Mexico, but at the end it doesn’t matter. She was not at the place anymore. I was writing her, that I don’t see a lot of sense in writing, because she lives far away, but she insists to write a bit and explained why distance doesn’t really matter for her.

What means being close to someone?

In my opinion we need to separate here two things. Being close in the sense of distance and being close emotionally. The rest is kind of self explaining. You can be far away from someone but still close emotionally. A good example for that is a long term relationship (LTR). That is a concept, which works for some people. Often you are close to people, you are close (distance) with. I would say family, neighbors, school/college/university friends and work colleges. As more time you spend someone or seeing someone regular as closer you may get?!

Why we got used to be close to people we see often?

Well, I am not a psychologist, but people are lazy. We are also social beings. If you put two people on a lonely island, they probably end up working together. But my point is somewhere else. For a strong bond you need to spend time with another person. Talking reveals how the person thinks. We decide for our own if we can relate to that or not. Of course we don’t need to agree everything. Getting to the point. It is much easier to build up a emotional connection with someone if we see that person more often.

If you think about it, it makes sense… You are very close to your family with whom you spend a significant amount of time. Same counts for school friends or college. Your best teenager friend, you meet up tons of time and experience the world. The first long relationships you could never erase from your head.

How to create a valuable connection?

Lets get back to my Tinder match I mentioned at the beginning. I do agree that you don’t need to life close by the person. There are 8 billion people out there. There are probably couple of soulmates out there and dozens of people you would connect with. The problem is how to find them and how to communicate. If you find a person, who resonates with you, why not building up this connections? If it comes to social relationships it is about quality and not quantity, right?

The only thing you need is to invest time and later on probably money. Genuine interest, communication and time. How much time do you have to connect to new people? Make new friends? I think a lot of people rather invest the time in friends they already have. For a good reason. This are the people who make us happy. But consciously investing time for new people… Well the question is up to you.

Why I struggle to make this valuable Connections

First of all I totally agree with the fact that you should spend time to connect to someone, who may not live around. It is about quality! And so often you have meaningless conversation with people you meet. Tinder or other Dating Sites are no different. So why not stick to people, who are on your page. The problem is the time you invest. Doesn’t matter how long it last nearly all of friends I made online and never meet are fading away after a while. I never meet a good friend online.

I meet my 2nd best friend on a online dating site. We spend a quality time together and after I left my country we still regular chat and check on each other. My point is that you need to ensure you will meet. Better sooner than later, because just in the real word you build up memories. Emotions for someone online are in my opinion fake. A trick of your brain, where you start to love what you imagine. This is not real. I would always prefer to meet someone in real life and keep contact with them online than the other way around. I do meet most of the people online first, but I try to meet as fast as possible to avoid wasting much time.

Why online matches often doesn’t work in real life?

I start to explain above. What we do, when we write with someone online is to create this person in our imagination. We through all information in and mix it with our own feelings and interpretation. So often it is different in the real world. Voice, body language, smell and much more play an important role if we meet new people. Also our own expectation. That maybe even more important, but also plays in that we create something in our head rather meet and see.