Preface

    If you asked me how many friends I had, I wouldn’t say 342, but according to Facebook I do; I have this many people who have a passing interest in me as a person, and I in them, or at least we claim to. Yet, the past couple years as I invested more and more into my social media connections, I have had less and less in-person ones, even going 6 months or more without seeing humans I consider my closest and longest friends. It was doing something to me. And I didn’t like it. I felt lonely, yet devoid of energy to socialize. I clutched for the connection, and conversation my soul craved , only to get a handful of likes and loves.

   Recently, as I scrolled through my friends list to cull anyone that no longer fit the bill, I wondered— how long has it been since I had a conversation with this person? Since I saw them in person? Since I did an activity with them? If I asked them to hang out, would they even say yes? 

   And then and there the idea came to me. A social experiment. An adventure. A challenge. A quest for old-fashioned human connection. Friendship in the sense of sharing experiences together and weaving moments of lives into shared memories…  Remember when? I remember. Do you? 

   What if…

What if I had an in person experience with every person on my friends list? What if I tried to do that in a year?! The idea was exciting. It would involve travel, it would push me to the limits of social discomfort, and it would force me to face things in myself that made it easier to hold people at a screens-length away… ? I wanted to find out the answer to that question. And so launched the Unfurl Project. Follow me as I open my heart to people and my sails to the wind!