Why do I fall in love so easily? Summer camp taught me the answer. All of my life I’ve made every attempt possible to go to more summer camps, retreats and getaways than anyone else I know.
There’s something about going to an unfamiliar place with a group of people and discovering new things together. When you’re at summer camp, everyone is suddenly on the same page. Everyone gets a clean slate and the problems in your day to day life get put on the back burner.
The relationships you make at summer camp are so much deeper in such little time because they’re all based in some kind of fairy tale innocence.
Condensed Connection
Some of my greatest friendships, relationships and memories have come out of various summer camps. When I got to thinking why that was, I think it comes down to the fact that in real life it often times takes three to five meetings or encounters with a person to really get to know them.
But with summer camp those three to five meetings that might occur over the course of a month or more now happen within the course of three or four days. All of those getting to know you conversations are condensed into a very short period of time, thus allowing relationships to escalate very quickly.
Like a drug, this escalation is addictive, which has certainly been true in my life. When I meet someone that I connect with, I want to spend every waking moment with them for the next five days to forever, just to experience the surreal understanding you can get of a person when you spend that amount of time with them.
Lifecasting as Summer Camp
As I’ve been reconnecting with old friends because of my lifecast, it feels as though, through my blogs, video posts and live broadcasts, my relationships with some of these people haven’t missed a beat. They are completely caught up on what I’m doing.
The only problem is that I haven’t the slightest idea what they’re up to. By being more transparent, I’ve allowed the people from my past to catch up with me whenever they like, but the majority of the time, I feel like I’ve missed out on so much in their lives.
Is Faster Better?
But is this summer camp syndrome a good thing? Is it bad that when I meet someone I like I want to know everything about them and become best friends with them? Does it seem weird that I should want to spend days on end with someone, so that I can mainstream our friendship or relationship to the next level faster?
Is faster better, or do we need that time in between meetings to really understand how we feel about people?
I fall in love too easily, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think it just shows my desire to connect with people on a deeper level.
This is the lens the Bible is meant to be read through.
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