Want to talk?
We're running our pen pal program again
This week I attended a virtual event organized by Garret Bucks. I showed up late, frazzled, and bedraggled. I jumped into some honest and challenging (and warm!) conversations with strangers. I logged off feeling hopeful and inspired.
It was so good to experience an online event where I instantly felt connected to a bunch of strangers.
I’ve been hesitant to run our group chat program because zoom fatigue has become a meme. Still, it feels like time to run the program again.
It started as a pen pal program, where Jonah and I would match people one-on-one. It led to some real friendships and meaningful connections.
It was also a ton of work. People wanted, understanably, to be matched with someone they had a lot in common and instantly clicked with. There were also issues of people dropping out as they were too overloaded to offer mutual support or their lives changed.
We’ve had a couple iterations since then and last time it went pretty well. I put people in small groups of 5 or 6, matched vaguely by age and care experience. I introduced everyone by email and provided conversation starters for the first few weeks. If one person just didn’t have it in them to reply for a few days (or a week or two), there are other people to kept the conversation going and they could (and usually did) jump back in.
After a few weeks, most groups continued the conversation over email without my prompts or switched to whatever medium worked for them (group text, video chat, phone calls). Sometimes the group didn’t gel, but people within the group clicked and switched to chatting one-on-one.
For a few groups it was like little kids at the playground, who spend an hour chatting and playing and then wandered off, never to speak again. Which is totally fine, especially if you had a nice chat and feel proud of yourself for giving it a try.
The whole idea is to meet other people who get it, with a more meaningful connection than you can have in a Facebook group with thousands of members. Whatever makes you feel seen and connected is a victory.
If that sounds good to you, you can sign up here.
I found this post on Instagram beautiful. I’m so grateful for people who share their moments of everyday transcendence.
This little guy made me smile on a walk the other day.
If you’re not totally zoomed out: On January 26th, Alice Wong, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Elsa Sjunneson will be talking at the Seattle Public Library. It’s online and free, but you do need to register ahead of time.
That little snowman put a big smile on my face today!