I Miss Conversations That Make You Forget to Check Your Phone

Three years ago, I went on my first Bumble date, and something about that evening has stayed with me ever since.

It wasn't a bad date. In fact, what happened was fairly ordinary.

He nervously asked me to take a seat at the table and immediately picked up the menu, and ordered himself a beer. Nothing unusual there — until he explained why.

He told me he couldn’t really talk to me until he’d had a drink and relaxed his system :)

At the time, I laughed it off. I didn't think too deeply about it.

But years later, I find myself returning to that moment.

Not because of him, or even because of that particular date, but because I increasingly notice how uncomfortable we seem to have become with simply sitting across from another human being and talking.

Really talking.

We live in a world where our attention is constantly being pulled somewhere else. A notification arrives. A reel begins. A message needs answering.

We scroll while waiting for our food, check our phones during pauses in conversation, and sometimes seem almost frightened of a few seconds of silence.

And somewhere in all of that, I wonder if we’re slowly losing the art of making a deep conversation.

I crave the kind of conversation where you forget where your phone is.

The kind where one question leads to another, and suddenly you’re trying to understand not just what somebody does, but who they are.

Where did they come from?

What shaped them?

What scares them?

What makes them feel alive?

What experiences changed the way they see the world?

How do they behave when life doesn’t go according to plan?

To me, these conversations are one of the most fascinating ways of understanding human beings.

Every person carries years of experiences, disappointments, relationships, mistakes, beliefs, fears and memories inside them. If we stay curious long enough, there is almost always something to learn.

I sometimes think of people as walking, talking autobiographies.

Sometimes you just need to sit across from someone, ask a thoughtful question, and actually listen to the answer.

And by listening, I don’t mean waiting for your turn to speak.

I mean becoming genuinely interested.

Following the thought.

Asking, “Why?”

Allowing somebody’s answer to surprise you.

Perhaps deep conversations haven’t disappeared altogether. Maybe we’ve simply become less comfortable giving them the time and attention they require.

And maybe that’s why they feel so special when they happen.

There is something beautiful about meeting another person’s inner world for a while — and sometimes walking away for a while to understand your own a little better too.

Although, to be fair to my Bumble date, there is still another possible explanation for that evening.

Maybe I was simply such a terrifying first date that the poor man needed a beer just to bear with me. 😅