On Connection: More Illusion Than Contact

Fri Aug 15 2025

What is connection?

We use the word connection as if it were a single, self-evident thing. A fixed point of understanding. In reality, it’s an umbrella term, sprawling across meanings that range from the mechanical to the emotional. Its roots are literal: the Latin connectere — con- (“together”) and nectere (“to bind, tie, fasten”), once described rope on wood, joint to joint.

Over centuries, the binding shifted from physical objects, to places, to ideas, to alliances and eventually to feelings. Today the word is just as likely to describe an internet signal as it is a sense of belonging.

But when we talk about feeling connected to someone, we’re not invoking history or engineering. We’re describing a subjective state, one that might be less about invisible threads between souls and more about the brain’s quiet decision that, for now, this is safe or advantageous.

What “feeling connected” actually is

It’s the nervous system’s green light. An internal state where threat detection relaxes and you allow greater exposure of self. This isn’t magic, it’s the product of a running appraisal process.

Why it feels “real” but might be superficial

The brain reads “criteria met” as connection. But this can be shallow, because it’s really just two defense frameworks agreeing they can coexist without threat. That’s not the same as deep relational transformation, it’s basically just non-interference.

True depth would mean the frameworks themselves evolve, not just coexist intact.

The implication

If the “feeling of connection” is just a survival framework seeing safe compatibility, then much of what we call connection is self-preservation disguised as intimacy. It’s just two defensive frameworks going “We’ll be nice to each other, right?”. They can co-exist and not be under threat from each other.

It’s why people can feel “deeply connected” but never truly change each other.

It’s why long-term bonds sometimes crack when one person’s framework shifts. The old checklist stops matching, it’s no longer safe or productive, so the connection stops.

That doesn’t make surface-level connection useless. Coexistence without deep challenge can still be nourishing and it can stabilize you, give you space to heal, or allow you to function in contexts where transformation isn’t the point.

It’s only when we mistake this for the rare, framework-shifting kind that we overestimate its depth.

We often confuse performing connection with having it. Active listening, mirroring, saying the ‘right’ things. These are just sophisticated ways of keeping the framework intact while simulating openness. It feels safe because the signals match our checklist, but nothing fundamental shifts. In fact, this theatre of connection can make real transformation less likely, because it convinces both parties they’ve already arrived.

It’s actually a simple process

Every interaction is evaluated against a decision framework (conscious or unconscious). This framework is built from belief systems, inherited values, learned norms, and survival strategies shaped by past experience, including trauma.

Internally there is an evaluation going on. Will I be judged harshly here? Will my needs be dismissed or ignored? Will I be safe if I reveal vulnerability? Does this person’s behaviour align with my expectations?

Each criterion is like a checkbox. When enough are ticked, the system allows you to lower defenses, move boundaries, and increase visibility.

If we strip the poetry, philosophy and emotion away, “feeling connected” can be understood as the output of a three-layer process:

• Belief Layer

  The deep architecture of assumptions you’ve inherited or built: values, rules, and interpretations of what “safe” and “unsafe” look like. This layer is shaped by upbringing, culture, and past experiences and of course includes your trauma.

• Decision Layer

  The active checklist that runs during every interaction. These are the questions your system keeps answering: Will I be judged? Am I understood? Does this person’s behaviour fit my expectations? Can I be vulnerable here without repercussion? Each “yes” ticks a box, lowering the guard.

• Perception Layer

  The conscious feeling that emerges when enough boxes are ticked: the sensation of ease, resonance, or intimacy we label as “connection.” It feels organic, but it’s actually a signal from your internal gatekeeper that the conditions for self-exposure have been met.

If you look at it this way ‘connection’ isn’t a mysterious bond. It’s the byproduct of two systems mutually deciding they can exist alongside each other without immediate threat. Whether that’s deep or superficial depends on whether those underlying belief systems are ever allowed to shift, or if they simply agree not to challenge one another.

What now?

So if what we ‘think’ is connection is really just our protective mechanisms keeping us safe and mixing with the right crowd so we can continue existing in peace…what is real connection then?

Here’s what I think it is.

Connection (between people), in the real sense, isn’t the absence of threat. It’s the allowed presence of potential transformation.

It’s not just two protective systems agreeing to coexist. It’s when the very frameworks that decide “safe” and “unsafe” are willing to soften, bend or even dissolve in the presence of another. This kind of shift often happens when those frameworks are already destabilised. During grief, major transitions, or deep uncertainty. Not because you’re simply vulnerable, but because your usual criteria aren’t working, and you’re willing to let them change.

That kind of connection changes your criteria. Things you once thought essential for safety may no longer matter.

It expands your self-concept so you don’t just fit the other person into your existing map, you redraw the map with them in it.

It survives discomfort and the bond holds even when some boxes go unticked, because the relationship has moved beyond conditional tolerance. And of course it requires mutual risk. Both sides bring their defenses into the light, knowing they could be altered in ways they can’t predict or control.

It is agreeing to scrap the protective frameworks if that becomes necessary. And perhaps to establish, partake and engineer a mutual framework.

Real connection is less about finding someone whose presence doesn’t threaten you. It’s about discovering someone whose presence you trust enough to let it change you and being willing to play a part in their change in return.

Intimacy means shared evolution, not preserved safety.