About Me - Community Series

One of the days when I was 8 years old, after dinner, my mom took my brother and I for a walk and innocently asked, “What happened at school today?”. My brother gave a very vague, “Nothing really happened”, and I began to tell them about my day, detail by detail. My mom timed the amount of time I talked about my ONE day at school, and I spoke for 45 minutes straight. Although this has been a running commentary since, “Carah does NOT stop talking.” I became good at storytelling and getting my company to tell me their side too.  

As I’ve grown up, I have gotten better at only giving the relevant details for interesting stories, but I still often refer to myself as the professional yapper. I ask my friends for life updates, and they will say nothing has been going on. I reply the same way every time I hear that, “What? So, you’ve been staring at a blank wall since the last time I saw you? You haven’t had a single interaction with anyone?” It’s my lighthearted way to tell them, “I want to hear from you. I want to know your story.”

When I was going to university at 18 years old, first time living away from home, I was scared that I wasn’t going to make friends. The first friend I made, Matt, was scared of the same thing. It seemed we all were at that time. We wanted to make a good place to hang out, Matt would invite everyone he talked to up to the sixth-floor common room of the dorms. I was more entertainment, I would do dramatic readings, I’d tell stories, I’d lead activities. Once we managed to get a regular hangout going, it became the place to be.

There were around twenty of us who regularly hung out in that common room. Every other common room on the campus dorms were empty, albeit some people used the rooms for studying or laundry. Apparently, it was rare for students to be using the common rooms for fun. For the next few years after that, I learned from the on-campus first years, our group was used as an example of having fun and making friends. The best part is not the legacy, it’s that I’m still close friends with some of them to this day, including Matt.

When I was 18 years old and making friends, it was easy. I stumbled into my friend group and was able to make lasting connections. When I was 23 years old, I was moving to another province, Quebec, for work. I was moving there alone, after a pretty harsh break-up, and I knew absolutely no one and didn’t have great French skills. I cried for the first week I was there, and then I thought to myself, “I need to have at least one friend.” So, I made a plan, I looked up clubs and bars I would likely enjoy, and I went out with the goal of making ONE (1) friend, and I’d make that my starting point. I did make a friend that night, I credit the start of the conversation to Adil, who I have stayed friends with to this day. The real reason the friendship was possible was because we were both open to the possibility of being real friends, not just hang out for one night.

I went out of my way after that night to purposefully put myself out into awkward situations and making myself socially vulnerable to make friends. I approached strangers to talk to them for the night, I would participate and volunteer myself in situations that would result in getting to talk to more people. I spoke to many people, but I only have a handful of actual friends from Montreal. The goal was never to be friends with everyone, it was to approach the world with curiosity, and treat everyone I met with kindness, grace, and empathy.

My friends from throughout the years have referred to me as the glue in groups; I love to make the effort for my friends. I make the effort to spend time individually with each friend, and also as a group. I take the time to talk to them about what is happening in their lives, I ask them questions about facts and their feelings. I make sure to spend quality time with each of them, and I like to encourage regular hangouts or catch-ups.

When I was 26 years old, I applied to be a volunteer as an English Conversation Group Animator. I was bored at home, most night I would be listlessly trying to find an activity to do that didn’t involve drinking, drugs, or going on dates I didn’t want to be going on. I wanted to do something where I could leave my house, have an activity that I will look forward to, and feel like I’m trying my best to bring kindness into the world.

General Weekly Plan for Me 2025: Hangout = Could be any friend, not a specific scheduled thing
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
After work café and/or walk with Erica	Bowling League with Grant	Call with Allison (ends at 6pm) Free evening (Low energy hangout OR Life Admin)	English Conversation Group	Free afternoon / evening (Errands/ High Energy hangout)	Karaoke Bar (To speak to Strangers in French)	Chill – Phone Hangout only

On my 28^th birthday, my boyfriend, Damien, was getting to see me interact with my friends for the first time all together. My birthday party was with just my Montreal friends, which is not a friend group but rather a bunch of individual friends who only meet once a year on my birthday. At the end of the party, Damien said, “I like your friends because they all love you.”

The next day, at the English conversation group, one of the women there asked me how my birthday party was, and I said it was good because my friends always make sure I have a good birthday, and even my boyfriend had noticed how much effort my friends put into my birthday and making me happy.

Which led to some questions about how much effort my friends put into my birthday (A lot – they know it’s really important to me, and they want to put in the most effort possible since majority of the days I will not let them ‘spoil’ me); they asked me about how I got friends to do that for me (I didn’t even have to ask, they are giving me the effort we give to each other); and they asked a series of questions that I will never remember the order of about how I built that level of community.

Overall, my message stayed the same, Approach everything in life with Kindness, Grace, and Empathy.

I told them it was about putting the energy and effort you would want to see into the world. I want to hear everyone’s stories, so I will offer mine first to remove any pressure of an interesting story. One time, when my friend Allison and I were on the phone, I told a 15-minute story about a 3-minute exchange at a coffee shop. It was an incredibly mundane exchange, but we talked about every aspect of the exchange and any off-shoot conversation from there. When I ended the story, I asked what had happened recently in her life, she said nothing, and I gave my regular questioning of how nothing happened. She said nothing overly interesting has happened, and I pointed out the ordinary and mundane story I had just told. That is what made her open up about something silly that had happened in her past week.

I put the energy and effort I want to see into the world. I helped plan how we made the common room fun, I regularly organize the group hangouts, and I try my best to know how to connect my friends together through offering the stories as a click-bait headline and then letting them have the stage. I make sure that if someone is taking the time to be with me in any social way, I will make them comfortable to the best of my control.

I want the world to be a warm and forgiving place. I want the world to offer kindness, grace, and empathy. I want to hold the assumption that everyone is trying their best and that no one is going to actively try to harm others. I doubt that anyone wakes up and decides to ruin someone’s day. I am not the exception on wanting to be nice, and that is a belief I hold fiercely. I’m writing this series for people who have those same expectations and who want to encourage that for themselves.  

Your expectations will only hold meaning if you are willing to participate in those expectations. Asking everyone to be a pillar for you but refusing to be a pillar for others, this doesn’t make you “aware of your boundaries”, it makes you a hypocrite. If you want people to show up for you in life, you need to show up for them.

The English Conversation Group asked me about disagreements, and about whether I was worried about being used or mistreated. I told them, I don’t fight with my friends. I can disagree with them; I disagree with kindness, not malice. If someone is fighting with me, they’re not my friend. I want them to find happiness and peace, just not in my life. I’m not worried about being used or mistreated because I will remove myself from that relationship if it is causing me any form of harm.

If you would like to have a life centred around community then you need to find purpose in treating others with kindness, empathy, and grace. The result will be an overall increase in happiness in everyone’s lives. There will be times with this approach to life that will have people trying to take advantage of you, but that says more about them than you.