Bridges

I became an only child at four and a half.

Before that I had a sister, a year older. My mother crashed our car. My sister died.

I grew up in a house with two adults who had lost a child, being the remaining child, learning to occupy myself, learning that connection was fragile and could disappear without warning.

Between The Crash & my already-unusual brain, isolation became normal. By the time I was old enough to notice, being separate from other people felt like my natural state. Not tragic. Just... how things were. Glass between me and everyone else.

I’ve been thinking about connection lately. Not network connections or API connections—human connections. The kind that make isolation feel less permanent. Less the natural state of the world.

Bids

A few years ago I discovered Gottman’s research on “bids”—those small moments when someone reaches out for connection. A comment about the weather. A shared observation. An invitation to notice something together. Before I understood bids, I missed most of them. Someone would say something and I’d just... not respond. Or respond to the literal content without recognizing the invitation underneath.

Learning about bids helped. I started noticing more of these moments. Connection became possible in situations where I’d previously been oblivious.

But then I had a new problem.

Over-Reach

Once I could see connection opportunities, I wanted more. I’d meet someone interesting and immediately try to establish deep rapport. I’d share something personal too soon. I’d push for follow-up conversations before we’d even finished the first one.

People ran away. Not literally, but they’d get busy. Stop responding. Find reasons to be elsewhere. Back came isolation.

Either that or they would take & take without giving back. Eventually I’d figure it out & distance myself. Again, isolation.

This was worse than obliviousness. Before, I didn’t know what I was missing. Now I could see connection was possible—and watch it evaporate because I’d grabbed too hard.

That’s a legacy of losing connection young. When you find it, you grip.

The Under-Reach

So I’d overcorrect. I’d wait. I’d be patient. I’d let others come to me.

They didn’t.

The invitations I was waiting for never arrived. People assumed I wasn’t interested. Or they were doing exactly what I was doing—waiting for me to make the next move.

This was lonely too. A different flavor of lonely. The loneliness of knowing connection exists and not being able to reach it.

The Bridge Model

Here’s the mental model that finally helped me: a bridge.

I can unilaterally construct a bridge to another person. I can reach out. Make contact. Say something real. The further the distance—emotionally, culturally, socially—the harder the bridge is to build. But it’s possible with almost anyone of positive intent. (It’s also possible with people whose intent toward me is negative or merely transactional. That’s a different problem.)

With the bridge in place, I can walk halfway across.

Half. Way. I can make an investment. Do something a little uncomfortable. Reveal something true about myself. Share an observation that matters to me. Ask a question that shows I’m paying attention.

And then I have to stop.

I have to stand in the middle of the bridge and wait.

The Middle of the Bridge

Here’s what I learned the hard way: if they don’t walk their half, I can’t make up the difference.

If I “go to their side”—reveal more, try harder, push past the halfway point—nothing good comes of it. That’s not connection, that’s pursuit. It opens me up to manipulation. To hurt. To the particular isolation of being known by someone who hasn’t earned it.

The bridge doesn’t work if one person walks the whole thing.

Some people will walk their half quickly. Some slowly. Some will take a step, then retreat, then step forward again. Some will never move at all.

I don’t get to control their side of the bridge.

Patience as Practice

The skill I had to develop—am still developing—is patience. Real patience, not the performed patience of waiting while secretly hoping they’ll hurry up.

Understanding that other people will connect in their own time and in their own way. That their timeline isn’t a statement about me. That their hesitation might be their own version of the same isolation I feel.

Some bridges stay half-finished for years. Then one day the other person takes a step. The timing was never mine to control.

Some bridges never get completed. That’s information too. Not everyone wants to connect with everyone. Not every investment pays off. The goal isn’t a 100% success rate. The goal is sustainable connection-building that doesn’t leave me depleted or exposed.

What Four-Year-Old Me Couldn’t Know

Here’s what I wish I could tell that kid, the one who suddenly found himself alone in a house full of grief: connection isn’t all-or-nothing.

For a long time I thought it was. Either you have someone or you don’t. Either the glass is there or it isn’t. Either you’re isolated or you’re not.

But connection happens in degrees. In moments. In small steps across bridges that may or may not get finished. The glass doesn’t have to disappear completely for something real to pass through it.

I spent decades oscillating between grabbing too hard and not reaching at all. Both strategies came from the same place: believing that connection was scarce and fragile, that it could vanish without warning, that I’d better either secure it completely or protect myself from losing it.

The bridge model gave me a third option. Invest, but not everything. Reach out, but not too far. Stand in the middle and see what happens.

What This Looks Like

Concretely, here’s what bridge-building looks like for me now:

I reach out. (Build the bridge.)

I share something real—a genuine observation, an honest question, something about myself that’s true. (Walk halfway across.)

Then I wait. I don’t follow up immediately. I don’t send the “just checking in” message. I don’t interpret silence as rejection. I just... wait.

If they respond in kind—share something real back, show they’re paying attention—then I can say something else real. And listen again.

The pace is slower than I want sometimes. The connections are fewer than I’d like. But they’re real. They’re sustainable. They don’t leave me feeling exposed or manipulated.

The Software Design Connection

Software design is an exercise in human relationships. Here it comes.

But actually... the bridge model is how I think about design collaboration too. I can propose a design direction. Walk halfway across. But if no one else moves toward it, I can’t force consensus by sheer enthusiasm. The design equivalent of “going to their side” is implementing your vision without buy-in. It works technically. It fails socially.

And the patience required to wait in the middle of a bridge—to see if anyone will meet you there—is the same patience required to let ideas percolate, to let others come to their own understanding, to resist the urge to explain harder when you should be listening instead.

Maybe all collaboration is bridge-building. Maybe all isolation is about broken or unfinished bridges.

Listening From the Middle

Sometimes, standing in the middle of a bridge, someone walks out to meet me. That moment—when isolation breaks, when the glass disappears, when connection actually happens—is worth all the waiting.

It doesn’t undo what happened when I was four. Nothing does. But it suggests a different relationship with isolation. Not something to escape or accept, but something to work with. To build bridges across, walking across one halfway at a time.

Kent partners with a handful of companies each year on editorial collaborations, speaking, and workshops. If that’s interesting, let’s talk →