The People Who Make You Lose Time
There are a handful of moments in our lives where we meet someone with whom conversations flow so effortlessly that you lose all sense of time. If I asked you to talk to someone for hours you would most likely flinch — but with the right people, and there is no fixed definition of them, you wouldn't mind talking endlessly.
It is not just about the person, but what they invoke inside you. What aspect of your personality they awaken determines how deeply you invest in the conversation. The flow state you enter during those exchanges can only happen when you are personally invested — either in the person or in what is being said.
One obvious case is when someone genuinely matters to you — a sibling, a best friend. You care about the outcome. You care about their state of mind to the extent that you refuse to abandon the conversation. You want to know everything about them. You want to stay until something is resolved.
Such conversations raise the personal stakes, which sharpens your focus. And because you are focused, you lose all sense of time. Before you realise it, a couple of hours have slipped by.
Then there are people you are genuinely drawn towards. It could be a love interest or someone you care deeply about without yet daring to call them your partner. You want them to think well of you, you want good things for them, and so you become invested in their happiness.
This naturally deepens focus and the conversation flows on its own. There are some people with whom conversations will never be dull, never feel constrained — people around whom you have no inhibitions. Honestly, they are so rare that you almost hope they stay in your life longer and turn out not to be an absolute scumbag.
The flow state you reach during lengthy conversations depends entirely on how invested you feel in them. That investment could come from a sense of freedom — of speaking without restraint. Or it could be because you are so drawn to someone that you want to keep talking to them until the end of time.
Study the underlying chemistry behind every such conversation so you can begin to identify the essential qualities in people when you encounter them. Our intuition is usually sound enough for this, but it isn't always reliable — it can be overwhelmed by anxiety or by the mood we happen to be in.
What matters is that you remain open to such conversations. Do not stay cocooned inside your social bubble. Talk to people, but stay attuned to those who might just trigger that flow state in you — the ones who make you feel alive. Such people make life feel beautiful.