The funny thing about connections is that sometimes they exist long before you realize they’re there.
For the first 16 years of my life, Basim Rehman was someone I had only heard about from the pictures my mother would find of us on Facebook. To me, he was just a distant side character within my life, whom I did not think twice about.
Our moms have been best friends since college, the kind of friendship that survived distance, marriage and decades. Because of that, our families crossed paths occasionally in Pakistan, the country both of our families call home. I briefly recall some encounters: playing soccer in the garden of my grandmother’s home while the adults talked over tea, an awkward hangout at a trampoline park and my brother and him playing together at their house. Despite all of these encounters, we were never a part of each other’s lives. We were simply two people caught in the same tangled string that had quietly connected us all along.
I live in America. He lives in Germany. There is a seven-hour time difference, a 10-hour flight and approximately 5,320 miles between us. Just three months ago, I would not have known any of this. We were just two dots on opposite sides of a map that neither of us would have guessed would connect.
But in December of 2025, something changed.
When I visited Pakistan during winter break, our families met up almost every other day. Even though the first few times were filled with small talk just to avoid awkward silence, by the last day our dynamic had changed so much that anyone watching would have thought we had been best friends for years. Time passed faster than it had before. Suddenly, someone who had barely existed in my life became a person I could not live without.
Sometimes, connections quietly build along with you before you have a chance to recognize them.
Meaningful relationships do not always happen instantly. Sometimes they take years of small coincidences, shared history and the right timing before they fully form.
Psychologist Charlotte Nickerson, a contributor to Simply Psychology, said “the more we encounter something, the more we tend to prefer it.” According to studies on interpersonal relationships, people often develop stronger connections with individuals who are already part of their extended social networks. In other words, the people who have been orbiting our lives for years might one day become the people closest to us.
Surprisingly, distance can also play a role. A study published in the Journal of Communication found that long-distance relationships reported an average of 3.45 interactions per day across various forms of communication, relying more heavily on phone calls, video calls and messaging than those of people who live near each other. In my case, distance did not weaken the connection; instead, it made every conversation feel more intentional.
In contrast, some argue real connection requires constant physical presence. They believe friendships or relationships built across countries are harder to maintain, or even unrealistic. In some ways, this is true. Time zones, busy schedules and thousands of miles between two people can make communication difficult.
But sometimes distance forces people to focus on what really matters: conversation, understanding and a genuine interest in each other’s lives. When physical proximity isn’t possible, words become the bridge, building a kind of comfort and closeness that even physical presence sometimes can’t create.
As I think about how many times we had crossed paths without realizing one day we would become such integral parts of each other’s lives. It is almost like two parallel lines that suddenly decided to intersect.
It makes me wonder how many other people in our lives are like that — people we have crossed paths with dozens of times, but haven’t truly met.
Some connections are not meant to happen immediately. Maybe they’re meant to wait for the exact moment when the string finally untangles and suddenly pulls two people toward each other when they’re ready.
And when that string pulls, the distance, the years and the waiting suddenly feel like they were part of the story all along.
