When Having a Fleeting Relationship is a Great Idea
Having a fleeting relationship can be a great idea.
What?
I’ll explain.
We live in a world where if you don’t know someone, you generally aren’t talking to them. In fact, you likely aren’t even looking at the person. You’re looking down, at your phone. The person’s somewhere in your periphery and you’re vaguely aware of his presence, but that’s it. This is a problematic way for a society to operate. And it’s a terrible way to foster community.
In the end, it stinks even for your own soul.
Enter the fleeing relationship.
It’s a term used by Catherine Price in her excellent book, How to Break Up with Your Phone. About it she says:
“A fleeting relationship is a brief interaction, often with a stranger, that creates a sense of connection. For example: a pleasant exchange with a waiter, a group cheer at a sports bar, or one of those oddly personal chats that seem to occur between strangers on a plane. You wouldn’t think that these interactions would mean much, but they actually can have a surprisingly dramatic effect on how connected we feel to society at large.”
Don’t you think that’s true? You feel more connected when you talk, even casually, to the people around you… because you are more connected. Eye contact and exchanged words are two things that connect.
Consider the silly joke the clerk tells at the post office window while he’s ringing your packages or the story the lady behind you in line tells about her granddaughter, bonding over the brand of yoghurt she sees in your cart. These exchanges seem like nothing, but when a culture loses them it’s not nothing, it’s everything. A slow ebbing away of civility and hospitality between humans, or even the desire for those things, is a big deal indeed.
Presence is the birthplace for relationship, of any kind, and it turns out it’s also the foundation of love.
Trouble is, we pull out our phones by default in waiting moments like these in the marketplace. I know I often do. It starts innocent - we’re checking the address for the package recipient, double checking our grocery list… and once we’re there, we’re off to the races. Exiting the space for something more interesting, filling the moment, alleviating “boredom.”
Human relationship matters, even with total strangers, even in small snippets. Casual interactions with others are actually interesting, more interesting (from a whole person perspective) than what’s happening on our phones; we see this when we start engaging in them.
Also? These exchanges often end up being uplifting. “Make a point of having at least one fleeting relationship,” Price says. “Notice if it makes a difference on your mood.”
What a great charge. Let’s do it today.
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Processing things “in real time in the company of strangers”? Bad idea