Have you ever experienced a time when you are walking in sync with that special friend, and all of a sudden his arm slips around your waist for the first time. At that moment, a flood of questions race through your mind. Questions like: 

·         What are his intentions?

·         What is motivating this new display of affection?

·         Does he want to increase our relational commitment?

·         Or maybe he just wants to have sex.

The answers to these questions can either make us feel joyful or stressed. We feel joy if we want to form, maintain, or add depth to the relationship (Floyd, 2006, p.1). Or, we can feel stressed if we are uncertain about changing the relationship from its present arrangement.

So, maybe instead of trying to answer those questions from our own point-of-view, we should try to discover and create a shared vision. “At the simplest level, a shared vision is the answer to this question, ‘What do we want to create?’” according to Peter Senge, the bestselling author of The Fifth Discipline. “Few, if any, forces in human affairs are as powerful as shared vision.”

Knowing this, now imagine that special friend slips his arm around your waist, and instead of trying to speculate the reason for this display of emotion, you are empowered to ask, “What are we creating with this affectionate gesture?” Asking this sort of question can be very risky, because the answer may not be what you want to hear. On the other hand, wouldn’t creating a shared vision be better than a distressing misunderstanding.

Does anyone have any ideas for a better way to create shared meaning during an affectionate gesture?