Most people who have known me for a few years have known about my plans to travel the world. This has been something that I have wanted to do for years, and although it took me a few more years to get started, those pre-travel years were very beneficial for preparing me for what was to come.
My travel ideology has never been focused on seeing the sites a certain destination has to offer, although this is of course part of it. I’ve always known that a big part of the adventure would be the people that I would meet, and relationships that would form. Recently, I’ve been coming to realize just how integral these relationships would be in the overall picture of what I’m looking to gain from travel.
Most people have heard of the Internet, myself included. It’s a closely guarded secret, but computers are my thing, so when I started thinking about travelling around Europe, I took to the Internet with the plan to meet some people from various places in Europe. These people could then give me some local advice on out-of-the-way places to check out, as well as possibly meeting up with them depending on if we seemed we’d get along in “real lifeâ€.
At this point, I got an invitation to a site called WhereAreYouNow.com (WAYN.com). I checked it out, and thought it was perfect to find these fellow travellers from around the world. Looking back in the year that I’ve been on WAYN, it’s mostly been crap, however there have been a few key people that it has put me in touch with and whom I have since met and are AWESOME people that I value highly.
There have been a number of people that I’ve had a number of e-mail conversations with, but two women in specific were the ones that I was communicating with regularly. The one English girl previously referred to as Apu was one of them (from here we will call her “swimming girlâ€, taking from a common naming convention utilized by my best friend Christina). The other is an Aussie girl called Skye.
There was definitely some apprehension about meeting these girls. Why? That’s a very good question, and it has been one of many things that cause me to contemplate. We had obviously built a pretty solid friendship already, and we were all looking forward to meeting. With both of them, I knew that we’d hit it off and be completely comfortable sitting and bearing our souls to each other. Why the apprehension then. It boils down to human nature, the ego. Would we really hit it off like we had expected? Would I like them, but they not like me? Would they be a complete nutter leaving me wanting to run for the hills, but unable to?
This last question was a big one, as I’ve been on “dates†that haven’t really gone well. Generally, I can keep things comfortably entertaining for a couple hours, but with the swimming girl (the first person I’ve met off the Internet) there was something more committal to our meeting as I had made a special trip to Nottingham, and we were spending the afternoon, and perhaps evening together. With Skye, it was an entire weekend without having met (built up some confidence since the first go I guess). In both cases, I knew how our meetings would go, so was frustrated to be having these other thoughts.
What has this showed me? Be VERY careful of expectations. If you don’t have any expectations of how a situation will go, or how someone will be, then you do not set yourself up for disappointment. The other side of this is about keeping an open mind and not holding back. I’ve always felt strongly about honestly representing yourself to people you meet, as starting any relationship with a falsehood is only creating a weak foundation by building it on lies. My time with people along the way is short. This is sometimes difficult, as the people that are meaningful exit just as quickly as they entered. This short timeframe however means that relationships have been much stronger. I present myself as I am, completely open to them (as much as I can at least). Essentially, put it all on the table. This generally causes them to reciprocate, and in this manner, the relationship quickly builds to proportions that could normally take years. Simply put, remove the ego and worries about what they may think, present yourself as you are, and let people accept you that way. If they choose not to, then that is their loss!
This all leads me back to the Internet and relationships, which is the topic of this post. The Internet is a great place to find things that you are looking for. In my case, it’s people. It’s the people that are truly the interesting part of the world, and anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can reach out there to like-minded people all around the world, as well as getting a mail-order bride from Russia. The list of people that I’ve met so far is quite long. Some people appearing only briefly a couple times. I’ve met many great people from various situations, and am really looking forward to all the others out there that I’ve yet to meet! To those of you that I’ve met so far: it’s been a pleasure. To those of you I have yet to find: I’m looking forward to meeting you.