Reconnecting on Valentine’s Day

Valentine's Day is coming and everyone will be looking for that special something for their special someone. It's a big holiday for greeting card makers especially. “The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year, behind Christmas.”

But where did the holiday came from? There are those who say that long before the establishment of Valentine's Day as we know it, the Romans practiced a pagan celebration in mid-February that commemorated a young man's rite of passage to the god Lupercus. Of course in those days you didn't send a valentine card to your lover. Instead, you raffled off teenage girls to the male participants. “The girl assigned to each young man in that manner would be his sexual companion during the remaining year.”

Now, what was good for the Romans certainly was not okay for the normal Christian. That's why the Pope had to do something about it. So, after hundreds of years, around 490 A.D., Pope Gelasius made a very small change to the holiday. His great idea was that the lottery would now draw the names of saints instead of beautiful young prepubescent girls. While the change may have upset some young Roman men, through the centuries the new Christian holiday has become the time to exchange love messages and celebrate St. Valentine as the patron saint of lovers. “Lovers' quarrels come under his jurisdiction and, naturally, he is the patron saint of engaged couples and of anyone wishing to marry.”

On this day of finding mates and special friends, we think most especially of absent friends.

For many of us, absent friends are apparently the norm. "We are isolated more than ever before." A 2006 study by the American Sociological Review says that the number of confidantes Americans feel comfortable discussing important matters with has shrunk by a third.  20% of the respondents in the survey said they had only one person they feel comfortable discussing important matters with. Worse, 25% of the study's respondents said they had no one to talk to and that's more than double the percentage of the people who felt that way 20 years ago. "The greatest drop in confidants occurred in non-familial relations. Or in other words, our friends."

Valentine’s Day, then, is a great time to consider reconnecting with old friends. Reconnecting has never been more popular, mostly because it's become so easy. With the growth of the Internet, and the now ubiquitous presence of computers, it was probably inevitable that at some point some type of social connection would happen. According to Sarah Radwanick, marketing communications analyst at COMscore, Inc., more than 127 million Americans visit social networking websites each and every month.

Of course there's no guarantee that the long-lost friend you call in the middle of the night after you’ve screwed up your courage will welcome your call. And even if you do establish a friendship, it may consist of just the occasional chat on the phone or an occasional status update on Facebook, or maybe seeing each other for coffee once in a while. And maybe that's all it's meant to be.

And not every reconnection will bring only happy memories. "I guess my point is, reconnecting with old friends has put me in somewhat of a melancholy mood, wondering what would've happened had our roads not parted when they did."

Some of us will find that as we look back into our past to seek those long-lost friends, we won't see any people. "I started to reach further back in my past, to my school days, and had to face the damning realization that my most fervent and treasured companions of those days were the books I read."

But for those brave enough to embrace this new world of technology, there are a wealth of resources available. Though there are many websites on the Internet dedicated to reconnecting people from all walks of life, one site in particular seems to be rising above all the rest. "Facebook has been adopted by such a broad audience, and it accomplishes what sites like reunion.com and classmates.com failed to do."

Once you've decided to brave the world of technology and you picked the old friend that you want to try and reconnect with, how do you know they want to talk to you? Mercedes Smith offers her suggestions for reconnecting with old friends. Among other things, she suggests that when you establish communication, begin slowly. She suggests sending a casual e-mail and then waiting to see if they respond, then try meeting for coffee. One thing she emphasizes is that once you've gotten the relationship back on track be sure to keep the lines of communication open. "Make yourself available when they ask for Saturday brunches or the weekend barbecue."

And lest you think maintaining close friendships is just for girls, Bret and Kate McKay are convinced that reconnecting and establishing friendships has a long and cherished tradition, and makes you a better man. They cite the manly tradition of Abraham Lincoln and his friendship with Joshua Speed, and especially the friendship between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams who though apart from each other for 14 years “kept their friendship alive by writing 158 letters to each other.”

Letter writing has a long tradition. And these days with Twitter and Facebook and e-mail and voicemail, writing an actual letter on actual paper with an actual pen and your actual hand may seem something of a throwback to the dark ages. But if you want to make someone feel special, there's no better way to do it than to send them a handwritten note on nice paper.
I know it sounds hokey. But I also know that there is no better way to guarantee a response than to send a carefully composed hand-written note on beautiful cotton bond paper, and in my opinion, written with a fountain pen.

No matter what your preference, whether it's by letter, or by phone, or even by e-mail, it’s time to contact that friend. You've waited long enough. You know that friend out there you've missed, and about whom you've wondered. How do you know that he or she hasn't been missing you too, hasn't been wondering what you've been doing and just hasn't gotten around to making that phone call or sending an e-mail to you?

It's Valentine's Day! Even if you have a special person in your life, after you've given that person candy and taken him or her out to dinner – spend an hour composing an e-mail or letter to long-lost friend whose life you will enrich by reconnecting. It will enrich your life too.

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