Watching Cloverfield the first time, I watched it with a friend who loves to riff on movies: we didn’t take it seriously, but we had a lot of fun tossing out jokes and ripping it apart even further afterwards. The second time I watched it, it was with someone who got really immersed and was quivering with fear, and I was holding her tight and letting myself be drawn in. Two totally different experiences, because I was sharing something different with each of them.

Thank you for this; this helps me clarify some of the goal-setting I need to do to improve my social life. :)

@Green: *nods* I know what you mean. I stopped hanging out with my DDR arcade friends when I stopped playing DDR in the arcade. The best solution I’ve found is to forge deeper connections while the common interest is still shared. That way, the good ones persist and the shallow-only ones can fade away without paranoia. And that is a pretty neat way of acquiring new interests. It’s always more fun when you have someone to share your new interest with.

@Oliver: I know exactly what you mean about sharing space while each doing your own thing. We call that “talone” time. I hear what you’re saying about avoiding interacting with people. I also hear what you’re saying about not liking shallow connections, and I totally agree, it’s just that I’ve had a similar experience with deep connections. A connection forms because of a happenstance alignment in heart- or soulspace, we happen to be processing the same big things at the same time, we align, and then we move on. Did the person really like me? Sure. But is that kind of connection intrinsically more valuable than a shallow one? Not in the long run.

I was JUST THINKING ABOUT THIS EXACT THING TODAY. I was doing a survey for a friend’s class project on reading, and one of the questions was about reading with friends. I sometimes really enjoy activities with friends like just sitting around and reading in the same space, because I get to spend time with my friend and be around another human being without pressure to interact with them. Like, they know I’m there, I know they’re there, it’s comforting to have another person just THERE, to know that if I wanted to say something about the book I’m reading or the movie we’re watching or the stars we’re gazing at, there’d be someone to say it TO.

I’ve been not really enjoying watching movies much lately for totally unrelated reasons, but I was thinking about that because it’s basically the same idea, and it used to be one of my favorite activities to do with another person until I realized that I was mostly choosing to do that with people to avoid actually interacting with them. When I realized this (and…then broke up with the person I was dating, having realized that I really didn’t want to interact with them all that much…), I got a really negative opinion about that activity for awhile. Then, I found that it really is a good way to just be with people without having to interact with them…it just isn’t a healthy basis for an entire relationship if I’m using it to avoid interacting with the person.

On the other hand, over the weekend I accepted an invitation to go to the movies with a new friend who I actually really want to have depth-interaction with because we keep saying “oh, we should hang out sometime!” and then we never really do, and figured “well, this is better than nothing, right?” But she didn’t even call me, and by the time it was too late for me to expect that she would call I didn’t even really want to go out at all.

Another reason I don’t like the shallow connections is that I don’t actually have a sense that the person I’m having those connections with even really likes me. The shallow connection only tells me that we’re occupying the same space — like my classmates, we might have a good conversation because we’re sitting in the same room 15 hours a week, but most of them don’t seem to have any interest in connecting with me without us happening to show up in that room. To me, the deep connection happens when people actually have to make an effort to have the connection…it doesn’t just happen to occur because we both showed up and habitually entertain ourselves by engaging other people who also show up in conversation. Does that make sense? That’s why the internet bugs me so much lately…I don’t feel like the connection is as valuable if it only happens because of an alignment in internet habits (signing into IM clients at the same time, reading each other’s LJs on our friends page, etc.).

* (like how the school project you helped me with not only gave me an excuse to talk to you and become better friends, but also opened my eyes to new and awesome things I was unfamiliar with!)

I sort of.. involve myself? Volunteer, comment, try to find ways to be important. I feel like being an important part or a common association with something is a way of getting over the awkward of “Hey you’re cool please be my friend please?”. So I usually end up being “Green from English class who will help with homework” or “Green from Theatre who knows where to find things in the prop closet”. I desperately strive to be useful and knowledgeable.

The down side of that is that when that common interest is out of the picture, I get pretty paranoid I’m going to lose the friend: end of semester, I’m no longer ‘Green from English.’