Why do we enjoy people less? Part two

Part Two: Why Aren't We Connected?

By Ed Vasicek

You can't believe everything you hear because fact and faction can be mixed. For example, it is true that my beard is pretty thick. But no, it's not true that I have to kiss my wife through a straw!

Greetings and welcome to another installment in my current series, "Connecting and Making Friends." In my last article, I began answering the question, "Why are we not as connected to others as were our forefathers?"  But, unlike my attempt at comedy above, you can reasonably believe what I am writing because much of it is well documented in respected books, like "Bowling Alone" and "Margin."

In yet another book, "Still Bored in a Culture of Entertainment," psychiatrist and author Richard Winter documents that disconnected people are often bored people (but often do not recognize their boredom). He writes: "They may recognize that they are frustrated, depressed or irritable, but they probably have not recognized that they are bored." Winter goes on to document that the more technologically oriented we become, the more bored we become. He argues that modern Americans are more likely to be bored than their forefathers.

In my last article, I mentioned that many individuals have replaced people with technology (as well as listing other reasons for our contemporary problem of disconnection). Today I would like to add to the list.

We are more prone to be socially disconnected nowadays because we do not allow enough margin (extra space) in the realm of time, money, and energy. It takes time to build and maintain friendships. Folks who live within their credit limit rather than their means have to work more than forty hours a week to pay their bills. This displaces the time they could invest in relating to others.

The contemporary growth in extreme behavior (workaholism, perfectionism, etc.) robs folks of the emotional energy required to associate with others. To put it clearly, out of balance living takes it toll in the realm of relationship. Since having a social life (even simply schmoozing around with friends) has been repeatedly demonstrated to be a key factor in personal happiness, folks who live on the edge are the real losers.

When it comes to "success," we must qualify the term by asking, "success in what arenas?" Many people succeed in business but fail in nurturing their families, for example. I prefer to aim for success in LIFE.

Yet another reason we tend not to connect as well as did our forefathers is that the habit of participating seems foreign and threatening. Many of us have adopted that old Burger King motto: "Have it your way."  Now, when it comes to hamburgers, I agree (I have preferred Burger King since early childhood - I dislike ketchup and absolutely detest mustard!). But when it comes to connecting to others, many of us are unwilling to practice the give and take required for team players. So we create our own little worlds where we are in control, and connecting to others feels like a threat to our neat little system.

This leads us to another reason why we do not connect, namely, that we are obsessed with control. We cannot really or completely control others, so we focus on what we can control: things. Our house might be immaculate, our instruments perfectly pitched, our computers downloaded with the newest software, our physiques ideally conditioned, our deportment flawlessly coordinated. It is not coincidence that the first disconnected generation (the Baby-boomers) is also the most perfectionistic. And perfectionism is all about control.

Another reason (second, in my book, to television/computers) is that we do not have adequate social skills. Many of us, for example, do not really know how to hold a good conversation. Some of us are so aware of our inability to converse well that we suffer from all kinds of anxiety syndromes. A lot of psychology here, much of it from lack of confidence in the realm of our social skills.

Still another reason we do not connect is because we are into the status thing.  If you are into status, you view others as superior, inferior, or competitors. I can feel sympathy for those with poor social skills. I try to encourage folks who sit in front of the boob tube to arise and socialize. But the status crowd - I find it hard to feel sorry for them. I do not exactly know why. In a sense, their situation is the most pitiful because they use their prestigious trinkets to mask the lack of depth in their lives.

As you can see, I am suggesting that there are many reasons for this mass downsizing in the realm of relating to others and developing meaningful social lives. Diagnosis is over. Next week, we'll begin looking at the treatment.