Edition #142: The Cost of Connection
Plus, who is still in the Metaverse, a secret note, and what things should cost.
A Note From the Editor
Back in 2016, I spent a grueling year in Pheonix for a new job. During the first week of living there, I got a vicious bout of food poisoning that left me bedridden for a few days. I texted my new boss and told him I wasn’t going to make it in, then settled into my sickbed. After 48 hours of retching and shaky dehydration, I began to wonder how long it might take for someone to find me if I died in that apartment. I had no friends in the city yet—it would be my loneliest year, though two weeks in I still felt hopeful—and the only person who knew I was ill was my boss.
I imagined how it might go; I wouldn’t show up to work for a day or two and he’d assumed I was still sick. Another day would pass, then a week. Because he didn’t know me, he might just think this irresponsibility was part of my character, and his unknowing would make it take longer for him to act. Perhaps my mother or sister would become worried first and find a way to contact my office, or maybe my neighbor would start to smell the rot and complain to the building’s front desk staff. All the while, my body would be peacefully decomposing in my bed. I figured it would take at least a week, possibly two before I was found.
Maybe that is why I appreciate a cool little community event so much—a bakery pop-up, a communal-style dinner, a surprise concert where everyone sits on the floor. The scrappier these events are, the better. I appreciate these events not for their cool factor, but because they nourish the part of me that is constantly searching for belonging. That very human inner child who is perpetually looking over her shoulder, hoping to join this group or that, hoping to connect with like-minded people, hoping if she happened to drop dead on the floor of her home in any given city or town, it would take less than a week for people to realize she hasn’t shown up.
Such is the function of today’s society, especially in big cities. People live on top of each other but are often disconnected. Less common are random interactions in the wild, and technological tethers make it easy to tune out the world. Pop in Airpods, slide on sunglasses, scroll thorugh TikTok, and you, too, can ensure no one has the chance to catch your eye, let alone exchange a world with you. We the people feel lonely—lonely!—even among friends, sometimes. Even among family. I’ve come to believe this is because a part of us, a primal part, remains unfulfilled when we do not feel part of a true community.
Community is a group of people, of varying sizes, to whom you feel you matter and to whom matter to you. It is a separate entity from the individual family unit, even from the individual’s relationship with their neighbor. Community is a collective third—like how in a romantic relationship, there are two individuals and then there is a third, the relationship itself, which needs to be nourished and tended to. When you belong to a community, you share a vision with a group of other people. There is something that you all come together to care about and that thing is ostensibly beneficial to all of you, even if you as individuals are entirely different.
I recently interviewed a handful of folks from a small, tight-knit community on a South Carolina barrier island and was surprised to discover that, time and time again, residents of the island voted to tax themselves at a higher rate in order to put the priorities of thier community first—preventing over-developed and having as much shared green space as possible, in their case. The people I spoke to were of different races and genders, coming from varied backgrounds, and yet they were on the same page when it came to their community. It was a point of pride for them; it kept them on course.
The question arises: When we do not live on such an island, how do we go about creating community in an ever-disconnected world? Little community events, I think, are a good start. Reasons to come together. One of the best things about living in New York is the sheer number of such events, probably because we all feel the weight of loneliness more often, and because of the sheer number of people who live here.
When I was in Costa Rica for the winter, I remember coming across an event cleverly called the Seasonal Depression Soirée. I was amused and also, empathetic, because I was not suffering through the grey, sad New York winter as I had for the five winters prior. Still, I remembered the deflated feeling of the sun setting at 5 pm, sitting home drinking tea and wondering if I’d ever see the sun again. Just by the title, I was a fan of this cute little community-oriented event. When I clicked to learn more and saw the price tag, however, I cackled in disbelief.
Two hundred and fifty dollars a head. More expensive than a prime ticket to Swan Lake or a decent ticket to Hamilton. More expensive than a fancy omakase or a weekly grocery bill for two, even if you’re buying all organic. The price was so jarring that I refreshed the page just to be sure—and, nope, still $250. The event included dinner, cocktails, and a craft. Even with the Costa Rica sunshine warming my arms, I felt seasonally depressed just thinking about the state of things in my home city, for an event seemingly intended to uplift attendees and give them a chance to connect with one another should not, under any circumstances, cost that much money. Which raises the question: Why?
A few thoughts come to mind. The first, most ideological version of me wondered if this cost was simply set to cover the price of goods. Things had gotten more expensive since I’d been gone, I knew, so I reached out to the event’s organizer to inquire about the basics of the ticket cost breakdown for this essay but I never heard back. If the tickets weren’t priced simply to cover costs but to make a profit, I could also understand—we all have to support ourselves. But what ground down on my psyche in this particular case was what the price would mean for the people in attendance. Inevitably, the dinner would consist of a very particular group, likely mostly women, all of whom had enough disposable income to shell out a casual $250 for an evening with strangers. Presumed homogeny of the event’s crowd aside, to spend that much money on a few hours of connection might also mean those in attendance were so lonely that they would do anything, spend anything, to ease their solitude.
Loneliness is a part of life, but so is connection. Both are important; most would agree that the ladder is crucial in leading a happier, more fulfilled existence. It shouldn’t cost $240, or even $100, to foster connection with others, and yet I am not surprised that an event organizer would suggest such prices as reasonable. The economic model of selling services is based on supply and demand. Airline tickets are dynamically priced, Ubers are more expensive when the weather is bad or during a holiday, and now, this model can just as easily be applied to our emotions. Insecurity sells beauty products, so why can’t collective loneliness sell events? To capitalize on the more painful parts of human existence is increasingly, dishearteningly acceptable. Still, it’s important to realize when it’s happening. For this trend to make its way into the genre of small, community-based events in my city is heartbreaking in a special kind of way, for these events were one of the last strains of accessible community left.
It’s time to reimagine the community center, to reinvigorate the YMCAs of the world, to find little ways to come together to build community when regular people are getting priced out of opportunity for connection. We live in a world where everything’s for sale, and it’s all too easy to forget that we, ourselves, have the power to come together without paying for it.
Cheers, my dears, and as always, thank you for reading. As you read this, I will be in the air flying to Las Vegas for my best friend’s wedding. I know it’s not so cool to say, but I love Las Vegas! A weird, wonderful place of excess, color, and human strangeness. Make a bet with a loved one this weekend. Even if money’s not on the table, the winner can make dinner.