What’s cooking ? There is only one way to find out...

I have 1,152 friends according to Facebook. One of them, let’s call him Charlie had a birthday last week and FB was kind enough to remind me. So I sent him a wish. It could have ended there, with the ‘like’ or ‘thanks for your good wishes’ or the one size fits all ‘thanks to all my friends for making my day awesome’. 

Charlie cooked me the most amazing dinner. From start to finish, all prepared by him. An exquisite pandi curry with akki roti. I did not know he had become somewhat of a self-taught MasterChef. It is what gives him joy. He has spent the last year honing this new found passion. 

He told me his mom was unwell and shared how he was caring for her. How it was now his turn to look after her. I did not know she now lived with him. 

He told me about his business. His travels across countries. A major health scare that he had survived. I did not knowthe highs and lows he had been through.

I did not know much of anything that was going on in his life. All I had seen were pictures and posts on his FB feed. Four hours later and we had begun to fill in the blanks. 

A scary reminder of how poorly many of us are connected with many of our friends. Social media gives us a false sense of being in touch.

Charlie and I got lucky. Thanks to the birthday wish a WhatsApp chat got sparked. Which then turned into an invitation for dinner when I travelled to his city next. As if by magic an unplanned trip emerged and I found myself at his home after a gap of 10 years.

The years fell away. Many old forgotten stories resurfaced. Friends  from the ‘good old days’ were phoned. Shared memories are such a powerful bond. If we don’t keep making new memories with our friends then the bond weakens.

I came very close to canceling our get together. The temptation to turn in early and get that much needed extra few hours of sleep. Not to make the 1 hour drive on a working night to meet Charlie was very real. I am so glad that I did. Make the drive. Rekindle the connection. 

The last two weeks has been a reminder to me about the importance of finding the time to connect. The easy comfort of a dinner with old friends who I had not met for a month was relaxing. 

A breakfast catch up on Sunday with another couple was the solution to not finding time to meet for a month, in spite of trying really hard. If our evenings are not free our mornings can open up the channels of communication.

A coffee with a friend of a friend who has launched a new and interesting offering in the PR space was energizing. Interestingly in this case, it was a tweet that brought us together and our entire meeting was fixed on Twitter. So the online opens up possibilities. The offline is where we connect the dots.

I am friends with all these folks on FB, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or some other social media platform. I think I am well connected. Till I meet them and figure out that I don’t have a clue as to what’s really cooking in their lives. Social media is glossy. It’s easy to gloss over the not so good stuff. Find the right filters. Or crop the picture to cut out the parts that don’t look good.

Lives are messy. Lives are tough. Lives are filled with moments of tears and laughter. Lives are filled with shared cups of coffee and slow cooked food. Let’s face it, there is nothing better than some good old fashioned ‘face time’. Not a new idea. Just a renewed resolve to stay plugged-in and stay connected in a real way.