Connectedness

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When I'm out in public these days, I can't help but observe that the masses are connected. Wondering down the streets, I see boisterous gangs of guys, spunky droves of damsels, courteous couples, and affable amalgamations of men and women shaped by shows like Friends (apologies for the afore-stated alliteration). The group behaviour is nothing new - what is new (relatively new) lies in the individual behaviour.

Individuals are no longer alone. In all likelihood she will be accompanied with a hand-held computer device transmitting messages over a cellular network. If she's not speaking, she'll be thumbing. Whether she's lounging, standing, walking or driving, chances are, she'll be talking. The end of one propagation of words is the beginning of the next. She'll fill her digital ecosystem with contacts, because every long gap between communications that emerges is an unpleasant purgatory of desolation.

Individuals are popular. Enormous plethoras of phone contacts, Facebook friends and chat buddies are lined up for his social indulgence. As he casually answers the phone, he accumulates status points. People want to talk to him beacuse he's important, likeable and interesting. He's cool.

According to the populous measure of self-worth, I'm uncool. There are no queues of people dying to talk with me. When you see me on my smart phone, there's a good chance I'm reading news or playing games like chess against the computer, not chatting it up or planning a night out with friends. Honestly, I would get really annoyed having to constantly juggle a multitude of conversations but, from time-to-time, I do feel a twinge of jealousy for those who are connected.

I do know what it's like to sail the seas of connectedness. During my single days, I occupied most of my personal space with dates and potential dates. Despite being socially-crippled in group situations, one-on-one conversation was a skill I became confident in. I had a rather excessive set of contacts, all of the female gender. I could quence all the silent gaps in my life with on-demand conversations. Eventually, all this socializing had to fizzle out - I got into a serious relationship and, not long after that, got married.

Marriage has been wonderful on many levels although, understandably, it can't fill all social niches. I certainly have no illusions about satisfing all my wife's social needs. Despite needing a reasonable degree of space, herself, she has a gregarious personality that attracts so many friends, she often has to fend off conversations and other social activities. I, on the other hand, most likely have Aspergers Syndrome and that makes me kind of awkward and off-putting to conventional people.

My wife and I occassionally engage in social gatherings. Of course, the people involved in such events are always friends and coworkers of my wife. While, on a superficial level, I do contribute, it's never at level where others are comfortable being friends with me outside of the association with my wife. I think people notice that I'm kind of strange and, out of respect for my wife, they just try to be polite. As such, there is a wide polarity between my connectedness with others and that of my spouse.

Is connectedness really that important? I've always demanded more space than others but I've also always needed some measure of connectedness (maybe at a deeper level). I guess I have a need to be able to express myself to others. I need to be heard and understood. I see all these people in their cliques, with their buddies, on their phones and never far from their networks. To me, such human-dependence seems almost like a disease yet its prevalence is so compelling that I often wish to acquire it.

Destidude you are a good writer. Your writing has a natural flow and the expanded vocabulary doesn't feel forced. Please tell me you are an English major because it will depress me if you just came upon this talent naturally.

I have the same relationship with my wife, so you are not alone.

The masses are definitely connected. If you haven't already check out the work of Edward Bernays. He was Freud's nephew and his observations on herd instinct and crowd psychology influence public relations and marketing to this day.

And to be totally nitpicky, the correct writing is either Asperger syndrome or Asperger's syndrome. The psych community uses the apostrophe, the medical community says he doesn't own it, but in either case syndrome isn't capitalized. I thought someone with your command of grammar would care to know.

While I have no antipathy towards affable amalgamations my husband has about double the number of friends that I have. Like you and your wife, I often ride on the coattails of his socializing. But that's ok. We balance each other out as you and your wife balance each other. I think the important thing is for people to find the level of connectedness that makes them comfortable. The social needs of introverts and extroverts are very different.

It looks like you have found a good way to have just the right amount of connectedness. You dabble in your wife's connectedness which allows you to have enough socializing to not get lonely but not so much as to get overwhelmed. It's a good balance. It sounds like it works for your wife too. Had she married somebody with the same number of social connections as her she might find herself overwhelmed by too many parties and activities. My husband and I have struck a similar balance.