Years ago, when I lived in Princeton, NJ, I was sitting in Small World Coffee on Nassau Street writing in my journal when a neighbor stopped at my table to chat. I didn’t really want to talk; I had only so much time before I had to leave for work and I’d intended to use it to do my daily journaling.
I was tempted to engage in the conversation half-heartedly, gently signaling that I wanted to wrap it up quickly. I’m sure I’d done that before. But I suddenly had a thought that I should put my journal aside and give this conversation my undivided attention for as long as this person wanted to talk, or at least until I was obliged to take my leave and go to work. So I did.
I guess this would make a better story if I could say that the conversation turned out to be life-altering in some unexpected way, but it wasn’t. It was just one of those neighborly, “how are you, how’s it going” exchanges. But I was left with a conviction that I had done something important. I made a decision then that when someone wanted to talk with me, I would have the conversation, and I would do it generously and committedly.
To this day, if I’m reading and my wife starts to relate something that happened while she was out running errands, I put the book down and engage. If I’m walking the dog and cross paths with a neighbor who seems to want to talk, I stop and talk. None of this comes naturally to me. I’m not a multitasker, so I usually experience some mental inertia when I pull my attention away from one thing and give it to something else. I’m also a bit of an introvert. But I’ve never had second thoughts about my “If someone wants to talk, we talk” rule. It just feels right.
Now, the semi-isolation imposed by the coronavirus seems to be teaching us a lesson about how important other people are. It has also made me realize that at a time when there are no chance encounters in public places, like my local coffee shop, my commitment to being available for conversations initiated by others may be insufficient. If I want to connect with people, I’m going to need to be the initiator.
It’s interesting how disinclined I am to do that. Prior to the pandemic I could always be depended on to invite friends to get together in person — meeting for lunch or for cocktails — but I seldom picked up the phone to just talk, and of course I never texted someone to schedule a Zoom call. Now that my go-to ways of connecting are no longer available, I haven’t quite shifted gears and adopted new approaches. I resolved a couple of weeks ago to email someone every day, but most days go by without my having done that.
So this is a blog post with no punch line. I’m in the middle of thinking about all this. When the pandemic is over, how will I feel about how I used all this socially-distanced time? And what should I be doing now to ensure I end up having no regrets?