Adri
How do I become someone that people want to confide serious things/issues in on a regular basis? I’m more of the “keep everything really light/casual so everyone is always enjoying themselves around me” kind of person. I guess i’m asking how to have deeper relationships with family and closest friends. or where do we start?
Wannabe Confidant
Dear Wannabe Confidant,
It takes vulnerability to seek advice, particularly from a stranger on the internet. A willingness to practice vulnerability is the foundation of what you are hoping to become for your people.
Part of being known as someone who can be approached with serious things, is being a person willing to bring up your own serious things, willing to demonstrate your own vulnerability and openness. No one likes one sided dynamics, and those arent the depth you seem to be seeking here anyways. The point is, you are gonna have to model what you are hoping to foster, especially if there are surface level dynamics that need shifting.
Still — there is the individual and then the cultural, and assuming you are in the USA, we have fostered a very surface level sort of culture in our ever shrinking third spaces.
So, in some ways, what you are striving for is counter cultural — its revolutionary in a sense. In a culture that encourages isolation, individualism, and an ability to get along no matter what, keeping it high level is more than just polite — its strategic. While this way of moving through the world does tend to diminish conflict, it also diminishes community and the deeper, more genuine connections you are seeking.
Have I gotten a bit galaxy brained about this? Maybe. But my point is — I love your question. I love that you are asking it and striving towards this and I want to validate that if it feels hard, its not just you — its also cultural.
There is one more thing our culture promotes that you allude to in your question — pleasant distraction. You said you are the kind of person who wants to ensure people are always having a good time around you, but interrogate what that means, and if thats what YOU want out of the interactions you have with others. Trust the people around you to tolerate worthwhile challenge — trust that many would trade surface pleasantries for relationships where they can be truly known. Not all of your relationships need this depth, but I applaud you for opening yourself up to it.
Vulnerability, like anything worthwhile, is a practice. You got this.
Yours in vulnerability,
Adri