Reader,

One of our You Were Made for This listeners once told me, “I really enjoy hearing feedback from other listeners to the podcast.”

I’ve have some for you today.

An episode from a few weeks ago, no. 210 – “Word of the Year for 2024: Curious” referred to another show on the same topic, no 063, “Six Reasons Why We’re not More Curious About People.”​

Episode 063 was from a few years back, and a listener by the name of Amy recently listened to it and left this comment:

I bookmarked this because it really resonated with me. I’ve been feeling rather alone and unseen lately in some of my friendships and now I realize why. I’m the only one asking questions or seeking to truly understand others and people seem to mainly enjoy talking about themselves.
When I share things about my life it doesn’t bring me the connected feeling I hoped for because they don’t seem very interested or seem to really misunderstand me. This article really helps me to not take it as personally, and to try to have more patience (and lower expectations).

What’s your reaction to Amy’s feedback?

Have you had a similar experience with some of your friendships? If so, how did you deal with it?

It’s interesting that Amy sometimes feels alone and unseen not with strangers, but rather with her friends. We expect to feel unseen with people we don’t know, but not with our friends.

Her comments make me wonder how many times I’ve been guilty of not showing interest or understanding of my friends because I wanted to talk more about myself.

Amy also has a relationally intelligent insight to realize that talking about ourselves rarely helps us connect with people. Yet many of us still use this ineffective method of relating with others.

I so appreciate Amy’s attitude of trying to have more patience and lowering her expectations of people. It’s hard to do this when you long to connect with someone, but it goes nowhere.

Finally, all this makes me question what can I do to be more of an inviting person that people will want to connect with.

I really am curious (remember – it's our 2024 word of the year) what your thoughts are about this topic. Please send them my way.

Until next week when episode 212 goes live, I wish you all the joy that you can wish.*

John Certalic

You Were Made for This is the podcast sponsored by Caring for Others, a missionary care ministry. Please consider making a donation so we can continue the podcast and other services we provide missionaries around the world. You can make an online contribution to Caring for Others when you click here.

* The Merchant of Venice, Act III, scene 2