“He learned that those visits were called ‘bumping into’ or ‘running into’ someone, though no such collisions were ever involved.” — Allen Levi, Theo of Golden
I’ve been thinking about that sentence for days.
We bump into each other constantly. At the school pickup line. At the networking event with the bad wine and the name tags that peel off before you find someone worth talking to. We share space. We make small talk. We do the activities and achieve the things and check the boxes.
And we call it connection.
But Levi is onto something. A bump isn’t a collision. A graze isn’t impact. We have developed an extraordinary talent for occupying the same space as other human beings without anything actually breaking open.
I think we do it on purpose.
My friend and I have known each other for years. We’ve been in the same rooms. Laughed at the same things. Done all the polite bumping-into that passes for friendship.
One morning we walked while others played pickleball. No agenda. No audience. Just movement and time and enough quiet between us that something real could surface.
She told me the things that broke her and built her. I listened. Not performed listening — actually went quiet and received it.
She texted me recently: “I feel so grateful for that walk. I don’t think I ‘saw’ you prior to that morning.”
When I asked her what she meant by that, she said this:
“You vibrate at a high frequency, which can make it harder to understand what you are about. You’re clearly capable, smart, and decisive. Seeing your intentions — the fuel behind what motivates you — wasn’t easy to identify. That walk showed me your heart. When I could make that connection, you became whole to me.”
Here’s the strange part. She remembers finally seeing me. I remember finally seeing her. Neither of us can fully account for what the other received.
That’s not a bump.
That’s a collision.
And I’ve been thinking about why it took years. Why two people who genuinely liked each other kept grazing past without impact.
I know my part in it.
I am good at asking questions. People leave conversations with me feeling understood, known, lighter. I’ve been told it’s a gift.
It is. And it’s a shield.
If the light stays on you, nobody thinks to turn it around. I have been building walls my entire life. The people closest to me will tell you — you never know when Kristen is struggling because Kristen won’t say. Won’t reach out. Won’t let it show.
And the frequency my friend described — that capability, that energy, that decisiveness — it doesn’t just intimidate. It keeps people at exactly the right distance. Close enough to admire. Too far to collide.
That’s not an accident.
It’s architecture.
So here’s what I want to ask you.
Think about the people in your life you’ve been bumping into for years. The ones you genuinely like. The ones you’d call if something happened. The ones who would say they know you.
Do they?
And more importantly — do you let them?
Because some of us aren’t disconnected by circumstance. The distance in our lives isn’t the result of busy schedules and competing demands. We built it. Brick by brick. And we got so good at it that it just looks like our personality now.
The question isn’t how to have deeper conversations.
It’s whether you’re willing to stop navigating around the moments that might actually break something open.
Collide more.
When you do — and if you’re still enough, and present enough, and willing enough to receive what someone hands you — you might just become whole to them.
And they to you.
