by Jim Herbert
I love spending time with my daughter Emma at outdoor playgrounds. Over the years, we’ve given cute pet names to the various parks around our home. The fish park is the one right outside our back door that has two slides that look like fish tails. The blue park is a five-minute walk north and has a giant blue roof on top of the main play area. The fun park is the one down by the River Park pool and recreation center a mile and a half south. I can’t even remember why we originally called it the fun park, but it’s definitely fun.
This past weekend, we had the chance to visit a really cool park near my mom’s house. We haven’t given that park an official name, but I like to think of it as the tipi park because of the giant conical climbing net that can be spun in circles.
What makes a park visit even more enjoyable for me is when I get to see Emma playing with friends. As an only child, Emma spends a lot of her out-of-school time either alone or surrounded by mostly adults. While she’s usually open to playing with other kids, she doesn’t always feel comfortable initiating. Emma is super creative and hardly ever seems like she’s lacking anything when she’s playing alone, but I’ll admit that sometimes I project my own fears about being alone and sadness onto her. I find myself wishing it was easier for her to find her way into play with other kids her own age more often.
I too grew up as an only child. Because of a few particular life circumstances, I also learned that it was easier to feel safe if I kept the world at arm’s length. I held that pattern of behavior well into my forties. Just the other day, while facilitating a men’s group, I gave a check-in prompt to share a single line that describes an aspect of yourself with none of the backstory attached. The line I offered for myself was:
Easy to get to know and hard to get close to.
That line has lingered with me over the last few days.
Well anyways, back to the tipi park. One of Emma’s favorite features at that park looks a bit like a hybrid between a teeter-totter and a swing. It works much better with two people, but if you’re creative, you can manage on your own. Much like her dad, Emma never minds a challenge when it comes to figuring out how to do something alone.
Just as Emma was about to climb on by herself, a young girl about her age ran up and asked:
“Do you want to be my friend?”
It’s a line that gets bounced around playgrounds all over the world every single day, but in that moment, it hit me. I was struck by how simple, how organic and how fearless it was for two young girls who were total strangers to jump right into twenty minutes of joyful play. No backstory. No hesitation. No self-consciousness. Just curiosity, invitation, and connection.
The whole experience had me contemplating once again why this can be so easy for kids and at the same time, so challenging for adults?
Children don’t carry all the baggage that we choose to carry as adults. Little ones haven’t yet fully absorbed the fears of rejection, the worries about appearances, the hesitations born from betrayals or ghostings or cliques. For them, friendship is often as simple as:
“You’re here. I’m here. Want to do this together?”
Adults on the other hand tend to be masters at hesitation. We overthink. We fear being a burden in the life of another. We wonder if we’ll be rejected, judged, or dismissed. We build elaborate stories in our minds about what the other person might think and those stories keep us from ever making the first move.
Deep down inside, the truth is that the childlike impulse to play and connect never really disappears. It just gets buried under layers of armor. Underneath that armor, most of us are still longing for the same thing Emma and that little girl found in an instant: to be seen, invited, and included.
What if we chose differently though?
What if instead of waiting for others to initiate, we made the first move? What would it feel like to walk up to someone new and say, in our own adult language, “Hey, I’d love to connect” or “Would you like to grab coffee sometime and get to know each other?” It doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to be dramatic. It can be simple and real and while it may require some bravery and vulnerability, the benefits are well worth it.
My main takeaway from my weekend visit to the tipi park was that making the first move isn’t about being fearless: it’s about being willing. Willing to risk a little awkwardness for the chance at a new experience. Willing to trade our carefully constructed coolness for childlike curiosity. Willing to face potential rejection for nourishing connection.
I don’t know if Emma will ever see that girl from the tipi park again, and that’s fine. The beauty of the passing connection wasn’t about permanence. The beauty was the presence. For twenty minutes, Emma and her new friend had each other, they shared joy and they reminded me – reminded us all – that friendship and connection often begin with five simple words:
Do you want to be my friend?
Think about what might shift in your world if you made the first move and asked the same.
