Everyone knows life’s busier than ever. I’m a mum of two small children, with a job, endless domestic chores, and a husband. My social life often falls far down the list of priorities.
I’m not antisocial; my friends would call me an extrovert. But my energy for social encounters has diminished over the past few years and I’ve found myself hiding behind small talk – you know, talking only about your children and the strange things they’re doing. It’s a way of zoning out and it happens at the nursery gates, the gym, in the doctor’s office. I feel like I’ve lost my mojo. I’m socially burned out. Perhaps you can relate. It’s easy for us Brits to keep our walls up.
The other day, when I was chatting to a friend who moved to California, she told me how she’d just been to her pharmacist’s daughter’s seventh birthday party. Her pharmacist! They’d struck up a conversation at the counter, got to know each other a bit more each visit, and eventually became friends. She said that kind of thing happens quite a lot in her adopted home and she loves it.
Making more of an effort with conversation can help you connect more deeply. Photograph: FG Trade Latin/Getty Images
I remembered how there was a time when I picked up friends wherever I went; in the women’s toilets on a night out, in the queue for a gig or sitting next to me on a long-haul flight. Perhaps it was the openness of youth, but meeting and connecting with new people was my favourite thing to do; I even learned Spanish and French to extend my capabilities – it gave me so much joy.
So in a moment of wild abandon, I committed in my head to Be More Californian and start a small-scale social experiment to reconnect me with my sociable roots. The rules would be simple: with everyone I met I had to push the conversation a little deeper than the usual “how are you?”, “yeah, fine thanks” dynamic us Brits often use as a shield to avoid intimacy.
First up was the receptionist at the GP surgery who looked like she was already burned out at 9.30am. Once she’d registered me, I lingered a bit. “How’s your day going?” I ventured. She looked a bit surprised, like this was not part of the usual script. “I’ve been having a mare,” I continued, before telling her about how my three-year-old had a meltdown on the way to nursery about whether a particular song was in Wicked part one or part two. I figured that window into my own little world may act as an invitation. I was right! We chatted until I was called in and we’ve crossed paths in the village a couple of times since and stopped to say hello.
Reconnecting with friends is one way to give you a little extra spark. Photograph: Jayme Burrows/Stocksy United
Next up was picking up the kids from nursery. Usually I’d look up from my phone just to mutter to the parent next to me: “It’s taking a while.” But on this fateful day, I asked the mother I’d never met before how she was finding the transition to two children, given she had a baby strapped to her chest. In the time it took for our kids to be brought out, we exchanged names and numbers and made a plan to get together with the kids one weekend – huzzah!
It carried on like this for a few days, and gave me the impetus to meet up with my best mate. Over a bottle of California white (how apt), we got the small talk out of the way quickly and then I dived a little deeper. I told her I’d been feeling pretty wiped out recently but I’d learned that reconnecting with the people around me had given me a little extra spark back. I left her house feeling closer to her than I had done in a long time.
I ended my experiment feeling less like a wifi receiver failing to connect with the objects in my orbit and more like I’d plugged back into the broadband. Life’s not perfect all of a sudden, and, of course, as a Brit I’m committed to not being too open about my feelings – it gets a bit cringe doesn’t it? But this was such a good reminder that if you’re feeling a little disconnected, a good place to start is to dig a little deeper with the people you come across in your day-to-day. It might turn out to be just what you need – and them too!
To learn more about sharing California wine with friends, visit discovercaliforniawines.com
