DMP Audio Interview

 

1. What does connection with people mean to you?*

2. When is an experience when you’ve been vulnerable in a relationship? What was the result?

3. When was a time you were brave (in order to connect) with or in front of someone else / other people?*

4. Have you ever connected with someone despite a barrier between you (distance, age, language, etc.)?*

5. What is your favorite memory with your best friend?

6. When is a time shared passion has connected you with others?

7. What do you love most about or learned from your mother/father?

8. How have you lost a relationship and did you try to revive it? Why or why not?

9. What caused a relationship to end that you have regrets about? 

10. How have your connections with others shaped your identity?

Extra question: What do you think causes disconnect between people who have already formed a connection?*

*Questions I asked in my interview

Sam: Age 23. Fourth child of 7 kids. Born in Hawaiii but moved to Michigan when he was 3.  At 15 his family moved back to Hawaii where he spent his sophmore-senior years of high school.  He served an LDS mission in Milan, Italy and studies political science at BYU.  He got married in December of last year and works as a custodian at Wymount and an RA for his favorite professor.

Audio recording of interview

 

KEY MOMENTS (with time stamps)

When was a time you were brave in order to connect with someone?

(3:34-4:00)

...and so I was like, “oh yeah, I’ll--I play Super Smash Brothers” and I really, REALLY invited myself--to their house--like, I don’t know--how--I mean I think that’s kinda the survival mode maybe you go into when you’re in a new place, but, I said, like, you know, when I said just like “can I come?” like “alright, what time is it?” you know, “I’ll be there,”  you know, and--so I went and, uh, ended up pretty much hanging out at that house every Friday for the rest of my days, so...

Have you ever connected with someone despite a barrier between you? (Distance)

(7:13-9:10)

It’s interesting that it was good at--once it was long distance, you know what I mean?...Yeah the physical element where we weren’t together was less complicated...You feel like when you’re with them and it’s just that physical element, you’re like, “well maybe this is keeping me drunk,” you know, “is this keeping me--my judgement--clouding my judgement so that I--don’t know really who I wanna be with”, or something.  But then being apart...it kinda isolated the factor of--this human person who you talk to, like--you know, sexual attraction aside, is this someone that you like spending time with and someone who you--who you really like.  And I think that it was able to confirm it for me without that clouded judgement, a little bit.

What do you think causes disconnect between people who have already formed a connection?

(11:05-12:40)

...living together as well--like I think of mission companions that inevitably, like, no matter how much I love them, or we were similar or whatever, there’d be tension at some point because just living next to each other.  And, you know, obviously if you have some kind of cathartic conversation with them it restores the relationship.  But if you don’t have conversations like that, where you’re like, really utilizing each other as friends, in terms of like communication or, you know, you’re not--doing anything for each other and you’re not, um, like actively--I’d say actively--you know, showing love for one another.  It’s--yeah.  It just forms in silence, but spent next to each other.  Because it--I think people--not all people--but maybe most people--assume--it’s really assume that negative things are being assumed about them.  Um, like, it’s not necessarily assuming the worst in someone else, it starts maybe more like assuming that they assume the worst in you.  Um, for me it works that way and I think for a lot of people it works that way.  Um, but either way, tension can be sensed by either party and then just build unless there’s some kind of cathartic communication like that.  So I think--like proximate silence.

 

(12:49-14:24)

And then I suppose there’s also communication like we see in social media, where you could be friends with someone in real life, but then for so many years, or months or whatever, you only see their posts that are contrary to your political belief--suddenly they don’t have to be a real person to you anymore, they’re just--some--entity out there, you think, “oh, they are not who I thought they were when I knew them” it’s like, well, their life consists probably more of, like, doing classes or work like they were doing when you knew them.  It’s only this, like, vague theoretical part that they’re posting on social media that makes you not like them.  And yet, that ruins your whole relationship, I think that can happen at times.  And that’s evidence by people, like, you know, saying “unfriend me if you believe such and such.” it’s like--wh--you really don’t wanna be my friend anymore?  Is this more important to you than just us being able to coexist, like, ‘cause we did that fine before it was political social media. 

But anyways, I think that’s another way.  Those are kinda opposites in a way, it’s like distal *laughs* communication or proximate lack of communication.  Because I think if you just don’t talk to somebody, usually when you see ‘em again and they didn’t expect that you were gonna talk to them it’s like, “hey! Sweet! Good to see you.” And if you're there and you talk to ‘em often, you know, it’s like, yeah--like, we’re friends, you know.  That’s good friends, you know. But either if you’re like, close together and not talking, or if you’re far apart and seeing what they say all the time, I think it’s easy to dehumanize them in both of those circumstances.