On Friendships

A reason, a season or a lifetime, friendships flow through our lives and come in all shapes and sizes and timeframes, and outside of our family are the true meaningful foundation of our lives. This picture is from my 40th birthday, where I invited a group of fabulous women. These everyday heroes have truly positively impacted my life and I was so happy to celebrate with and because of each of them. While I don't get to see any of them enough, I know that when I next see them, we will pick up exactly where we left off, and the conversations will always be natural.

In the event industry, we have a job that is more of a lifestyle due to the intense nature of the work, the shared passion for a successful project to take place, often multiple days spent working in close quarters, and it won't take long to determine if you are on the same playing field as the others, and to quickly determine who you would spend more time with outside of the work environment.  Anyone reading this who works in our industry knows exactly of what I write - and many of you have become friends we travel to visit, who I have created games with and written articles with and dream-wrangled events with, and who we have invited to break bread with us in our home. 

But now our friendships often begin less organically. Where we used to meet at school or work, at conferences or through friends or because you are neighbors we now are meeting on-line, through social media, or forum groups, attending hybrid / virtual conferences often long before we meet IRL (in real life). When we meet without facial expressions, without inflection, without pheromones or visual first impressions, how does this change the conversation?  These conversations will generally begin based on mutual interest - in work or a hobby - and from there will grow as any conversation does, in small steps, and when we do meet f2f, it is always a joy.  

For those of you who have become part of the fabric of my life over the years, in any of these scenarios, thank you for all the enrichment you have brought, and I can't wait to see you again!