Stay Open to Connection
Human beings want to be around other human beings — it’s in our nature. Or at least, it was in our nature before ~the sickening~ spread across our fair planet in 2020 and changed the way we interact. At this point, we’re back in the flow of hanging out in-person again, but many of us at Week of the Website have found ourselves with residual social starvation. Lucky for us, we’ve found a few extra pockets of community where we least expected…
I, for starters, have been a solo runner for as long as I can remember. Partly because I never took my running seriously enough to feel that I belonged in a team environment, and partly because I can get just a liiittle bit competitive. In 2021, tired of listening to my own voice bounce around my skull, I decided to join a running group — and it has not only fueled my running, but my hunger for human contact as well! Every other week, I get to flop around the Chicago streets with a bunch of fellow floppers, making new connections to my city as well as the people in it.
Similarly, Anna recommends we all reach for “beautiful, life-giving” community in an unexpected but totally logical place: friends of friends! Her once-tangential relationships have evolved into weekly get-togethers, book clubs, “kiddo sleepovers,” dinners and overnight “grownup” trips that fortify an ouroboros of relationship.
For Alex and Alaina, they’re stuffing their faces with the communal joy of physically coming into the office — namely, the workspace of Week of the Website. After a “season of reclusion (intentional or not),” Alex has been enjoying fostering in-person relationships with the team, building connections with familiar faces that were previously trapped in little squares on her screen. Similar to Alex, Alaina’s mood has changed “tremendously” now that she physically comes into the workplace, and she also notes that in an “anti-office” world, you’re definitely missing out if you’ve removed workplaces from your “sense of community.” That’s right, readers — COMING INTO THE OFFICE IS FUN, especially when you love your team.
Where will you find your new surprise community? You tell me! Maybe it’s in group running. Maybe it’s by being in-person with coworkers or extending the boundaries of your social circle. Maybe it’s through meeting other people that have sites built by Week of the Website ;)! All I know is that in this still-bountiful world, you’ve got countless opportunities to satisfy your cravings for connection.
