Building Authentic Connections

The path to authentic connection isn't always easy, but it's infinitely rewarding. By creating connections, we are building a community around us.

This is the fourth in a series of articles about ten qualities of a good human - dimensions of character to cultivate over a lifetime.

There’s something uniquely human about our hunger for connection. Not just acquaintanceship, not just polite conversation — but real, unvarnished, you-see-me-and-I-see-you connection. For many of us, that need is especially urgent in midlife, when the noise of career, family, and obligations can drown out the simple pleasure of feeling truly known.

I’ve written before about how I emerged from school and university and multiple relationships with no actual friends. I had hundreds of professional connections I could reach out to, but not a single personal one. I failed the ‘pub test’, three friends I could call on a Saturday and ask if they’d like to go for a beer. Genuine connection can feel elusive. We often have hundreds of ‘friends’ on social media - ‘friends’ being the biggest misnomer around. Yet as research and statistics constantly demonstrate, we are lonelier than ever. We have numerous ways to communicate, but few ways to connect.

All too often, we are not taught to connect. I know I wasn’t. Relationships were generally portrayed as transactional. Even today, the one person I have come into contact with who did Year 12 at the same time and at the same school as me is a professional connection, the CEO of another company in the same industry vertical as my business. Turns out we both finished at Geelong Grammar in the same year, and we don’t remember each other. Not surprisingly, given that there are something like 1,000 students on the same campus.

This whole myth of two strangers’ eyes locking across a crowded bar is bullshit. You could be in a room full of people and feel alone. Real connection occurs through ongoing and transparent conversations. Connections do not just come naturally; they take effort and ongoing maintenance.

Emotional Intelligence: The Cornerstone of Authentic Relationships

Brené Brown says:

"I define connection as the energy between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued."

For those of us navigating life solo, whether by choice or circumstance, the challenge of building authentic connections takes on particular significance. We can't rely on the built-in intimacy of long-term partnerships or the natural bonding that comes with raising children together. Instead, we must actively cultivate the skills and courage needed to forge meaningful relationships across all areas of our lives.

It’s not just about finding someone who ‘gets me’. You need to be equipped and develop emotional intelligence to understand yourself and the people you associate with, ensuring you can navigate the differing experiences and perspectives. These differences may include beliefs, cultural backgrounds, generational differences, or ideologies.

A friend and I were out watching a band play in a pub the other night. We wound up sharing a table with three young women. They were all in their early twenties. We are both 50-something. We struck up a conversation and soon found commonalities - academia, relationship types. The three of them were all exceptionally intelligent and diverse, studying advanced mathematics, history, and teaching. It was heartening to listen and laugh with this younger generation. Perhaps a transient connection, but fueled by curiosity on all sides, and openness to chat through all manner of sometimes quite personal topics.

Building bridges across differences requires curiosity, humility, and a willingness to learn and grow. It’s about asking questions, actively listening to understand and embracing the discomfort that sometimes comes with growth.

Vulnerability: The Risk and Reward of Being Real

So often, we are performative in social settings with new people. How many of us have been on a first date and truly, honestly shown our authentic selves? Being emotionally intelligent doesn’t mean being emotionally perfect. It means being aware of your own reactions, triggers, and insecurities so you don’t hijack a conversation.

To connect, we need to feel safe enough to be seen. This doesn’t mean oversharing with strangers - one must be cautious about this after several Guinnesses outside an Irish pub in Melbourne - but it does mean building environments where honesty is welcome and judgments are few.

Genuine connection can flourish in small, ordinary moments: a friend asking how you're really doing; a colleague admitting they’re overwhelmed; a family member opening up about a long-held fear. It’s in these moments that we build trust, and where trust lives, connection blooms.

Therapist Esther Perel observes, "The quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life."

Before we can build authentic connections, we need to acknowledge the walls we've constructed around ourselves. These barriers often feel protective, but they're keeping us from the very thing we crave most: genuine human connection. I know I have struggled with this; I’ve been the one-man band for so long. I have long suffered from impostor syndrome, and cowed by images of perfection, super-charged by today’s carefully curated social media. Alex Cook, writing on FStoppers, says:

“Despite unprecedented opportunities for connection through photo sharing, social media photography may increase loneliness by replacing authentic relationship building with performative display. The very tools designed to bring people together can create barriers to genuine intimacy when they prioritize audience performance over personal vulnerability.”

We curate our lives like museum exhibitions, showing only the polished pieces whilst hiding anything that might be considered flawed or messy. It has taken me a long time and much therapy to understand that vulnerability involves exposing my imperfections. It’s that sharing of my imperfections, struggles, and failures that allows us to withhold judgment of others and permits others to share the same. Understandably, we fear being judged or rejected, but it’s a mutual vulnerability that opens the door to authentic connection.

Carl Jung summed it up:

"Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people."

How We Build — and Protect — Authentic Connections

We should be seeking common ground. We need to remember that underneath the surface, most people want the same things: to be heard, to feel valued, to know they matter.

Authenticity isn’t a one-size-fits-all quality; it looks different in different contexts. At work, it might mean speaking up when you disagree with a decision. With friends, it might mean admitting when you’re struggling. Online, it might mean resisting the urge to present a curated version of your life.

Maintaining authenticity doesn’t mean oversharing or being insensitive to boundaries. It means being true to yourself while respecting the needs and comfort of others. It’s a balancing act, one that requires self-awareness and emotional agility.

The journey begins with self-awareness. Before we can truly understand others, we need to understand ourselves, our triggers, our patterns, and our emotional responses. I have a habit of chewing over interactions, however minor, replaying them in my mind, testing different responses I might have made.

I know I have been especially sensitive to what the person I’m dealing with might have considered a throwaway, forgettable comment, but for some reason, the comment stung. I now understand that this is actually a learning moment for me; it highlights a sensitivity I might have. That’s valuable information when I stop to consider why the comment resonated with me as it did.

This is when I remember my mantra, curiosity not judgment, and apply it to myself. This is not about self-criticism; instead, a curiosity. Why did I react the way I did, even if I didn’t show this to the other person? What was the trigger?

The most challenging aspect of emotional intelligence is learning to manage our own emotional responses, especially in difficult conversations. We need to resist the knee-jerk impulse and learn to manage our emotional self-control. It’s not about suppressing emotions, quite the reverse, it’s pausing to consider whether our immediate impulsive reaction is valid or likely to damage a relationship or connection.

Maintaining authenticity in various social contexts can be difficult. It’s tempting to morph — to shape-shift depending on who’s in the room. But real connection only happens when we show up as ourselves.

Comedian Hannah Gadsby made waves with her stand-up special Nanette, where she stripped back the performance and shared deeply personal experiences. It wasn’t comedy-as-usual, and that was the point. The honesty resonated far beyond the stage, because it was real.

Authenticity is magnetic. It invites others to lower their guard. That doesn’t mean being brutally honest at all times; tact is also important. But it does mean aligning your outside with your inside.

Creating a safe space for vulnerability means fostering an environment where people feel comfortable sharing their true selves. This requires active listening, non-judgment, and a commitment to confidentiality.

Oprah Winfrey in her finale show said:

"I've talked to nearly 30,000 people on this show, and all 30,000 had one thing in common: They all wanted validation. If I could reach through this television and sit on your sofa or sit on a stool in your kitchen right now, I would tell you that every single person you will ever meet shares that common desire. They want to know: 'Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you?'

In practice, creating a safe space might mean setting aside your phone during a conversation, resisting the urge to interrupt, or simply saying, “I’m here for you.” It’s about making room for silence, for tears, for laughter—for whatever someone needs to bring to the table. One of the most effective ways to create a safe space for others to be vulnerable is to be vulnerable yourself. We can't expect people to share their deepest selves with us if we haven't created an environment where that sharing feels safe and welcome. The best way to demonstrate that emphatically is to expose ourselves first.

Rereading my words above, I feel like I’m coming over all serious and august! But hey, laughter plays a part too. There’s nothing better than two of you falling about laughing uproariously at a shared joke or experience. Humour and the joy of a shared joke are key to a relationship's glue and an authentic connection. One of my favourite comedians, Tina Fey (30 Rock rocks!), once quipped, “You can tell how smart people are by what they laugh at.”

How we respond when someone shares something vulnerable with us determines whether they'll do it again. The wrong response can shut down future openness; the right response can deepen the relationship immeasurably.

The best responses often involve reflection rather than reaction—acknowledging what was shared, thanking the person for trusting you with it, and resisting the urge to immediately relate with your own story or offer unsolicited advice - the latter a major urge of mine that I have worked deliberately to supress in the last few years.

One of the most beautiful aspects of authentic connection is its ability to bridge differences. We don't need to be similar to connect deeply; we need to be curious about each other's differences and willing to find the commonality.

When we encounter someone whose perspective differs dramatically from our own, our natural tendency is often to judge or dismiss their viewpoint. But authentic connection requires us to get curious instead. What experiences led them to this perspective? What might they know that we don't? What can we learn from their different way of seeing the world?

Jung said: “If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool”. He was reminding us that what we often interpret as foolishness might simply be a perspective we don't yet understand.

We need to dial up the empathy, connecting to the emotions that give us insight into understanding that others experience the same things differently than we do. Or have had experiences that differ from our own.

I came across this quote attributed to Maya Angelou (although the source seems uncertain):

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Irrespective of who said it first, I think the point is well made. We remember emotions, as I mentioned earlier, occasionally someone will say something that stings me. It’s how we respond that matters, grace rather than defensiveness. We didn't necessarily do anything wrong. Not everyone in a conversation will have the matching levels of emotional maturity. Sometimes people just don’t mesh. So, realistically, we are not going to connect authentically with every person we interact with. But we must build the skills and courage to do so whenever the circumstances are right.

I think it’s essential to note that while vulnerability is crucial for authentic connection, we need to monitor our ‘firewalls ’-our boundaries. Oversharing to the wrong person is fraught. Not everyone should have access to our deeper selves, so being discerning in our connections is crucial. This is not judgmental; instead, it applies wisdom to recognise that not everyone is a safe recipient of our vulnerability. We must also protect our emotional well-being. Opening up deeply to a confirmed narcissist, for example, is likely dangerous; they may use that vulnerability as ammunition in the future, potentially to harm us.

I am, by nature, a fixer. I want to save everyone, but not everyone can be saved, or deserves to be saved, because doing so will backfire and cause harm to me or others.

I reckon there’s a chain reaction with connections. If I build an authentic connection with one person, surely they are more likely to do the same with another person? A ripple effect, if you like. By dropping our masks, we permit others to do the same. It is only the last few years that I can genuinely say I have been properly curious about the differences between myself and others. When I walked into my first class in Darwin some 50 years ago after moving from my white suburban English existence, and noticed that people came in different colours, this was not curiosity, but rather a factual examination. Today, I hope I make space for the differences between everyone I meet, so often these are hidden, masked, as a defence. As a result, my new curiosity leads to much more productive and satisfying interactions.

Connection is why we are here; it is the purpose and meaning underpinning our lives. As we invest in genuine connections, we are building wellbeing not just for ourselves, but for those around us. For those of us who have experienced long-term loneliness, this is beyond precious. By creating authentic connections, we are building a community around us.

The path to authentic connection isn't always easy, but it's infinitely rewarding. Our world today thrives on disconnection and superficiality, applying the brakes to building genuine, honest relationships. Yet if you need one answer to the loneliness epidemic, this is it. We can all combat loneliness simply by having the courage to be real with each other.