CLOVER. 🍀

Four leaf clovers are fucking rare. The last time I found one was in 5th grade while playing outfield in peewee baseball. Much to my coach’s dismay, I didn’t catch a single fly ball that season because I was too busy touching grass. Moral of the story: It was absolutely worth it because how else would I have this perfect segway into a conversation about how similarly difficult it can be to find human connection?

Now that I’m in my late twenties, I’ve had increasingly more time to myself. While this is typical for someone my age, I have also noticed that I’ve felt more lonely than usual. I say this, but then if somebody sent out an open invite to stay out late for drinks, I’d subconsciously decide that I would rather stay home and finish the other half of the Trader Joe’s cheesecake from last week. But only a few hours after eating said cheesecake, I’d inevitably find myself twiddling my thumbs on the couch, wishing I could summon forth a meaningful conversation.

For now, my only excuses for this behavior is that I’m currently in medical school, I tend to isolate myself when I’m stressed, and cheesecake is really good. Thankfully, I was still lucky enough to have a few recent moments of genuine human connection, and I wanted to talk about them here because it felt like each interaction highlighted an important aspect of interpersonal relationships worth mentioning.

Firstly, a new acquaintance of mine invited me to a small kickback at their place. My initial reaction, as always, was hesitance. However, something my best friend once told me was that “the first invitation is the most important invitation”. His point being that when someone turns down a first invitation, it’s establishes a precedent in the host’s mind to not invite them the next time, irregardless of the validity of the reason for absence. So, despite being drained from an exam earlier that day, I chose to pick up a few beers and head over to “at least say hello to be polite”. But to my surprise, I ended up spending the whole night playing board games and making new connections that filled me with vitality. As much as I prefer the security of an established friend group, I was grateful to be reminded of the excitement that can be found in the anticipation of unknown potential friendships when starting a new school, club, or activity.

A significant portion of our lives are spent building relationships with the people around us. In varying proportions, we alternate between being the pursuer and the pursued. Strangely, we often identify with the narrative of the pursuer because by nature of reaching out, we expose our ego to the risk of rejection. With this greater risk/reward ratio, our mind lends to it greater salience. So then, if we often consider ourselves the pursuer, we’d expect that our familiarity with the fear of rejection would create empathy for those who pursue us. However, this is not always so. Somehow, when we are pursued, that person’s availability and vulnerability decreases their worth in our eyes. Why is this the case? My first guess is that since we typically identify as a pursuer (as stated earlier), we believe that a relationship borne from our own desire is more valuable given that it had to be “earned”. My second guess is that, deep down, there is a sense of disbelief that we are truly worth being pursued. Our insecurity pushes us to reject any evidence that would suggest otherwise since it’s easier to maintain the status quo of believing we are undesirable rather than putting in the work to reevaluate our self worth. In other words, it may not be our pride that pushes people away, but our own insecurities. Regardless of the reason, it’s toxic to undervalue those who make an active effort to get to know us. We should feel honored that someone would want to get to know us better and enthusiastically embrace the privilege of being in a position to reciprocate those efforts.

Another moment which stood out to me as of late was showing up to host a painting event for my medical school’s art club. Similar to my previous anecdote, I initially didn’t want to show up. I asked myself, “How much would I really miss anyways? Nobody shows up to these events”. Even so, I made the effort to be there and was immensely surprised by the turnout. I met so many of my classmates who I enjoyed being around but never had the time or opportunity to get to know on a deeper level. Floating around, chatting, and joking with lots of different people I liked and felt safe with was so much more fulfilling than I expected. This experience prompted me to want to continue to organize and participate in community building activities beyond medical school. I wasted a lot of time in my younger years looking for the people that were “cool enough” or “insightful enough”, and I always weighed the superficial value of people before I chose to associate with them. I realize now how short-minded that was. While the perfect friend group will always be out there in the world of fantasy, the people we can actually build relationships with will always be right in front of us.

Lastly, I wanted to talk about a friend who I met on Instagram due to our shared passion for photography. He happened to be in the area and decided to stop by for an impromptu photoshoot. While hanging out, we talked about friendships borne of proximity versus those borne of shared soul speak. While I still stand by making the most of the immediate relationships in our nearby vicinity, I also think it’s important to strive for those connections that satisfy all of our different selves. I guess this may sound contrary to the takeaway from my previous anecdote, but it felt necessary to highlight that these two pieces of advice are not mutually exclusive. We have to strike a balance between the crowd and the individuals in that crowd. It’s strange to me how I felt more conversational flow with this friend than with people I’ve lived with for years. Sometimes, there is an innate friendship chemistry that is difficult to reproduce with time and effort. I don’t have many other friendships like this one - a complete stranger met through happenstance who I’d now be willing to keep a part of my foreseeable future. Most friends I have are from a school, summer experience, job, or club but to truly make a great friend “out in the wild” is a beautiful feeling.

Broad and narrow, shallow and deep, I think that every form of human connection exists to satisfy different parts of our need to know and feel known by others. I’ve been neglecting this desire within myself for the past while, but I can feel it speaking its own truth regardless of my efforts to keep to myself. Relationships with people are typically a natural consequence of new places but never due to conscious effort. As I am entering the next chapter of adulthood where people are naturally more and more closed off to strangers, I realize the only way to make sure I feel happy with the connections in my life is to give them due diligence in the same way I work to maintain other aspects of my life.