Growing Into Strangers

I thought "sonder" meant looking for the hidden depths in strangers.

But the truth I didn’t want to face was that I’d stopped looking for them at home. I had lost connection with the person I thought I knew best - my partner of more than seven years.

That realization hit even harder after reading How To Really Know a Person by David Brooks. (Quick shoutout to Tris Burns' Bad Ass Bookshelf for putting it on my radar.)

Brooks shares a statistic that stopped me in my tracks: strangers can accurately guess what we are thinking about 20% of the time. For close friends and family, that number only rises to 35%.

Think about that.

The people we spend our lives with still misunderstand us most of the time.

Maybe that shouldn’t shock me…I know nobody sees the world exactly as I do. But what did surprise me was when Brooks stated that the longer couples stay together, the lower that number tends to go.

This suggest that over time, we don’t grow closer to our partners. Instead (a lot of the times), we quietly drift into unfamiliarity, becoming strangers once again, in each other’s lives.

We hold onto old versions of each other. We assume we already know. And in that assumption, our curiosity fades like fog dissolving into the morning before we even notice it’s gone.

Looking at my own relationship, I can see it clearly. Slowly, we shifted from active to passive. The questions disappeared. The leaning-in stopped.

This led to the inevitable conversation…

• What are we doing?

• Do we even remember why we are doing?

• Do you feel seen?

• Are you happy?

• ...Is this over...?

Those questions are never easy (obviously).

But what cut deepest was the contradiction I found myself walking straight into.

Here I was, preparing to step out into the world and dive into the intricacies of strangers’ lives…all while overlooking the story right in front of me.

I asked myself… 

• When did we stop asking each other questions…?

• When did we stop wanting to know the secrets…?

• When did we start believing there was nothing left to learn…?

Typing this feels raw and vulnerable...

But I guess that’s the unexpected gift of this project. It’s not just teaching me to notice Sonder in strangers…it’s forcing me to notice it in my own home, in my relationship, in my heart.

After that conversation, we went out to dinner. I brought along some of the questions I’d been saving for strangers and asked them to her instead.

At first, it felt clunky. Shouldn’t I already know these things?

But question by question, the walls began to fall.

I learned she didn’t ride a bike until she was ten, because her parents worried about the handful of cars that occasionally rolled down their street.

I learned her greatest fear is being trapped in a body that no longer works while her mind stays fully aware.

I learned that the legacy she hopes to leave is kindness…a legacy she’s already living every single day, whether she realizes it or not. (I’ve literally never met a more thoughtful human.)

And I learned so much more.

That night, my curiosity (the curiosity I’d been reserving for strangers) reignited in my relationship. It felt like a pilot light, quiet and waiting, finally catching flame again.

This project is teaching me something I didn’t expect…Defining Sonder can’t just be about the strangers out in the world. It has to include the people closest to me too…the ones I think I already know.

And for that lesson, I am deeply grateful. (And also wildly vulnerable.)

So thanks for being here. Don’t judge too hard.... (please and thank you.)

With love,

Dre

P.S. Just to be really clear here...we can’t read the minds of strangers OR the people we love. So please... don't ever stop being curious. Ask the hard questions. The silly ones. The ones that feel too obvious. Ask again. Ask differently. Just don’t stop… That’s the lesson I've learned so far.