The Connection You’re Craving? It Won’t Come to You. Here’s How to Go Get It.

There’s something about Mother’s Day that cracks me open every year.

Maybe it’s the ads. The flower arrangements and the brunch reservations and the “celebrate the women who shaped you” messaging everywhere you look. It’s beautiful, and it’s a lot. Because for so many of us, what it really stirs up is something quieter and more complicated: a longing for the village.

You know what I mean. The village it takes to raise a child. The village it takes to raise a woman. The village it takes to just… make it through the week without losing your mind.

We were never supposed to do this alone. And yet, so many of us are.

Not because people don’t exist who could be our people. But because we’ve been waiting. Waiting for connection to find us, to feel natural, to “just happen.” And while we’ve been waiting, the years have slipped by and the loneliness has quietly settled in.

So let’s talk about that.

The Myth That Connection Just Happens

We have this cultural story that real friendships are spontaneous. That your people will walk into your life at the right moment, and you’ll just know. That if you have to try, it’s somehow less authentic.

I believed that for a long time. And honestly? It left me lonelier than I needed to be.

The research on friendship tells a different story. Dr. Marisa Franco, psychologist and author of Platonic, is very clear that making friends as an adult requires what she calls “proactive vulnerability.”

That means we have to be the ones to reach out, to invite, to show up before we feel certain we’ll be welcomed. The connection doesn’t find you. You build it, intentionally, one small moment at a time.

Shasta Nelson, author of Frientimacy, puts it even more plainly: friendships require three things. Positivity, consistency, and vulnerability. And consistency is the one most people skip. We want depth without showing up regularly. We want closeness without the repetition that actually creates it.

None of that happens by accident.

What the Village Actually Requires

I think about the village a lot. I’m Brazilian, and growing up, connection was woven into everything: the food, the doorsteps, the Sunday gatherings that nobody had to formally “plan.” Community was the infrastructure of daily life.

Then I moved. Canada. Poland. The United States. And I learned very quickly that in a lot of Western contexts, community doesn’t come pre-built. You have to construct it, room by room, person by person.

That’s not a failure of culture or character. It’s just the reality of how modern life works. And once you accept that reality, something shifts. You stop waiting to feel less awkward, less busy, less unsure. You start going to get what you need.

Because here’s what the village actually requires: it requires someone to go first.

It requires someone to say, “Hey, I’m looking for more genuine connection in my life, and I think you might be someone I’d really like to know.” It requires someone to send the text, show up to the event, stay a little longer than is comfortable.

That someone can be you.

What Going to Get It Actually Looks Like

I want to be practical with you here, because I don’t think vague inspiration is what most of us need. We need a map.

1. Get honest about what you’re craving.

Not the generic “I want more friends.” Deeper than that. Do you want someone to call when something is hard? Someone to laugh with, no agenda? A group that feels like belonging? A romantic connection rooted in real friendship first? Get specific. You can’t go after something you haven’t named.

2. Put yourself in repeated proximity to the right people.

Proximity and repetition are the engine of friendship. Join the thing. Go back a second time and a third. Attend the event, the class, the circle. You don’t have to force anything. You just have to keep showing up somewhere that aligns with who you are and who you want to meet.

3. Be the one who goes first.

Ask the question that’s a little more real than “how’s work.” Suggest the coffee. Follow up on something they shared. Going first doesn’t mean being intense. It just means being willing. Most people are quietly hoping someone will take the lead.

4. Give it time, and give it grace.

One meeting doesn’t make a friendship. Shasta Nelson’s research suggests it takes around 50 hours of shared time to form a close friendship. Not 50 hours in one go, but 50 hours across weeks and months of little moments. It’s a slow build, and that’s okay. The best ones usually are.

You Deserve a Village. Not Someday. Now.

This Mother’s Day, I want to honor every woman who has poured herself into others (her children, her partner, her work, her community) and quietly asked herself: but who is filling my cup?

The answer isn’t to wait until someone notices you’re empty. The answer is to go build the village. Messily, imperfectly, one genuine conversation at a time.

You were made for connection. Not the curated, low-risk, I’ll-wait-until-it’s-comfortable kind. The real kind. The kind where someone knows your name and your actual life and shows up anyway.

That’s what Filled Cups is here for. To give you the map, the space, and the community to stop waiting and start building.

Come to an event. Introduce yourself. Let someone get to know you.

Your village is out there. It’s just waiting for you to go get it.

With love,

Fernanda

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Ready to stop waiting and start connecting?

Filled Cups hosts regular events in Charlotte for women who want real friendship and real connection. Check out our upcoming social events.