Have you ever wanted to rekindle an old friendship, but stopped short of actually reaching out? If so, you’re not alone – a joint-study from psychologists in B.C. and the U.K. has found many people are as hesitant to contact an old friend as they would be striking up a conversation with a total stranger. Daunting as it can be to take the plunge, study co-author Dr. Lara Aknin, a professor at Simon Fraser University, did just that two years ago and reconnected with her friend Dr. Gillian Sandstrom at the University of Sussex. All it took was a message on New Year’s Day. “I reached out to Gillian and said, ‘Happy New Year, I miss you,’” Aknin said. The two psychologists, who met years earlier as graduate students at the University of British Columbia, ultimately decided they would work on a project together – and fittingly chose to explore the ways people re-spark friendships. What they quickly realized was many of us are stubbornly unwilling to call, text or email the people who used to play a meaningful role in our lives. “So the project became an effort to document that, to try to understand it, and to perhaps help people overcome it,” Aknin said. Fear of being an ‘imposition’ For their research paper, the co-authors conducted a series of studies involving nearly 2,500 combined participants, with the first shedding light on how common lapsed friendships are, even among young adults. Of the 441 university students surveyed for that initial study, just 40 of them – or about nine per cent – said they had never lost touch with an “old friend,” defined as someone they remained fond of and still cared about. Yet the vast majority of the 91 per cent who had lost touch with someone expressed feeling either neutral or negative about the idea of reaching out, for a host of complicated reasons. “At the top of the list was the concern, or the fear, that reaching out after all this time might be awkward, and that their friend might not be interested in hearing from them,” Aknin said. “They were just worried that they would be an imposition in their friend’s life.” Guilt over having drifted apart was another powerful psychological hurdle holding people back. Dr. Lara Aknin, left, and Dr. Gillian Sandstrom met at graduate school at UBC. (Source: SFU) Interestingly, a follow-up study found people were much more enthusiastic about the idea of an old friend contacting them out of the blue instead. “People were way more interested in reconnection when they were imagining hearing from an old friend, which I think suggests that people are not aversive to the idea of reconnection, they just maybe don’t want to be the one to initiate it,” Aknin said. Are old friends just strangers? For another of the studies, 453 participants were asked to draft a message to an estranged friend as an exercise – then later encouraged to go ahead and send their note. Fewer than one-third of them actually followed through. That was the case even though the participants “wanted to reconnect” with their friend, believed their friend “wanted to hear from them,” and had the person’s contact information, according to the paper. Aknin and Sandstrom theorized that part of the reason for that apprehension is that, over time, we start to view old friends as strangers – and many of us have a strong aversion to approaching people we don’t know, fearing we won’t know what to say or won’t enjoy the conversation. But contrary to those common worries, research has found even brief conversations with strangers actually tend to “boost short-term happiness,” the co-authors noted. For their last study, the psychologists used a method shown to ease those types of anxieties – a sort of “warm up” exercise where participants spent a few minutes chatting with people they’re more at ease talking to, such as current companions or relatives. Those who did were much more willing to then go out on a limb and message a long-lost friend. “Just over 50 per cent of people who had done their warm-up activity sent the message, compared to around 30 per cent (who had not) – so that increased reaching-out rates by almost two-thirds,” Aknin said. The psychologists noted that friendships, new and old, are among the most reliable ways we can improve our well-being – and suggested the contacts that are already in our phones or social media accounts might be “very safe choices” for seeking out those connections. It certainly worked out for the two co-authors. “We went from not talking for probably a year or two to being in contact probably once a week, on average,” Aknin said. “That was a true delight.” Are old friends really strangers, after all? Or might they be the same people you got along with so well to begin with? There’s only one way to find out.

A month after eight Norwegian Cruise Line passengers were stranded in Africa when their ship left without them because they were late getting back, a U.S. couple – ages 84 and 81 – were also left behind by the cruise line in Spain.

Richard and Claudene Gordon of Salt Lake City, Utah, were on a Mediterranean cruise aboard Norwegian Viva with family and friends and looking forward to celebrating Richard’s 85th birthday later this week.

While the ship was docked in Motril, Spain, on Monday, the pair took an independent excursion by themselves to the historic city of Granada, not organized by the cruise line. On their return, their bus was delayed for an hour by a rain storm, Richard Gordon told CNN by phone.

“I am a very experienced traveller and have probably been on as many as 30 cruises during my lifetime,” Gordon said. “Never before have we ever missed catching a ship on time at a port. So we are not someone who abuses the system.”

The pair missed the ship’s all-aboard time of 5.30 p.m. local time, for a sail away at approximately 6 p.m. Gordon said that at around 5.45 p.m., he spoke to a relative on board who raised the alarm that they were nearby and running late, but the relative was told by Norwegian Cruise Line staff that as the ship needed to sail on time, nothing could be done.

According to the Gordons, they arrived at the dock by taxi at 6.10 p.m., while the ship sailed away with Claudene’s medication, Richard’s eyeglasses and both their spare hearing aid batteries and phone chargers on board.

“Our cruise began in Lisbon and we departed from Lisbon about one and a half hours after the scheduled departure at 4 p.m.,” Gordon told CNN. “Then the next night or two, at least a half-hour late from the dock, so it is clear that they do not always leave on the exact moment scheduled.”

“They looked around and they looked around and no one was there,” Marilee Barker, the couple’s Utah-based daughter, told CNN by phone. They got a taxi to the police station where “the policeman helped them call back to the dock. And they said, ‘there’s nothing we can do.’ ”

The couple says they received no further assistance from Norwegian Cruise Line at that point, from the ship or on land.

No medication, no hearing aid batteries

“Luckily my dad has travelled, but he’s still 85,” Barker said. As the Norwegian Viva wouldn’t be docking again until Tuesday on the island of Ibiza, “they took a bus up to Granada and found a cute, cheap little B&B.”

Meanwhile, Barker says she and her husband were up to 3 a.m. finding flights and a hotel, eventually getting them on a plane to Palma de Mallorca, where their ship would be docking at 8 a.m. local time on Wednesday, May 1.

Claudene Gordon texted her daughter late Tuesday afternoon Spanish time to say that Norwegian Cruise Line had made contact with them for the first time since the incident and had offered them a taxi from their Palma hotel in the morning to reunite them with their boat.

“We really received the royal treatment today,” Gordon told CNN after being reunited with the ship on Wednesday morning, two days they disembarked at Montril.

“They picked us up at the hotel in a beautiful black BMW limousine to take us to the ship. There we were met by the head of ship services who escorted us inside the ship to meet the general manager of the ship, then they escorted us to breakfast, then they escorted us to our cabin.

“We simply told them that we were abandoned at the dock with no one to meet us or tell us where to go, and they said they have already complained about the harbour master who was supposed to take care of things for them. But of course the ship had not contacted us directly for two days so that doesn’t speak so well for them.”

Norwegian Cruise Line said it disputed the time of the couple’s arrival at the pier. “The two guests who went ashore independently arrived at the pier approximately an hour late and missed the all-aboard time of 5:30 p.m. local time, for a sail away at approximately 6 p.m.,” a spokesperson said via email.

“A cruise ship follows a set itinerary with designated arrival and departure times. Itineraries are carefully coordinated and planned out well in advance of each voyage to ensure that all of our guests have the experience they are expecting,” they said. While there is a small window of time where late guests can be accommodated, they added, the Gordons arrived outside of this.

“After several attempts to contact these guests with the phone numbers provided, as well as trying to phone their emergency contact, we were unable to speak to them directly. However, we worked closely with the local port agents to make arrangements for the guests to rejoin the vessel.”

The spokesperson said that, prior to the hotel pickup on Wednesday morning, the cruise line had coordinated an airport pick-up for the Gordons at Palma de Mallorca the evening before but were still unable to contact the couple by phone.

In a similar incident last month, eight passengers were late getting back to their Norwegian Cruise Line ship on the African island nation of São Tomé on March 27. They then struggled for days to catch up with their ship as it made its way up the western coast of Africa.

In that case, Norwegian emphasized that the delayed guests were on a private tour that was not organized by the cruise line.

CNN’s Sarah Dewberry contributed to this report.

Some people love to wash their car, and for others, it’s their most hated chore. It’s a necessity for car owners, so no matter where you fall on the love-hate spectrum, you want a car wash that’s going to give your car a deep clean that lasts. Automatic car washes are at almost any gas…

  When you take your car to the car wash, there are multiple add-ons available, and one common choice is spray-on wax. It may seem like it doesn’t make a difference, but there are some important benefits. And these benefits go beyond how shiny your will car looks. What Are the Benefits of Waxing Your…

Even when you are lucky enough to start with an empty room, it can be overwhelming to design an interior that you can enjoy for years to come. Following some basic interior design principles, you can transform your space into a relaxing room you will be comfortable and happy with. Decide what your focal point will be and build out from there.  For best results, keep proportion and scale in mind as you decorate as well as these tips!

 Deciding on Your Focal Point
Do you have a magnificent bay window with an incredible view?  Is there an ornate mantle that is the reason you fell in love with your home? Or is there something you absolutely MUST HAVE in the room? Situate your furniture around your chosen focal point to create balance and equilibrium. If your room does not already have an existing focal point, create one with oversized art or add an accent point like a free-standing fireplace, they come in a variety of sizes and styles. Symmetrically balance the room evenly so that both sides mirror one another.  This will help your chosen focal point stand out all the more! Use matching accent tables to flank your sofa or use different pieces of furniture to create a copacetic visual impact, like two similar armchairs to balance a sofa.
Repetition for Rhythm
Rhythm creates a flow and helps direct the eye to the differing visual elements in your room. Just as the notes of a favorite song repeat to create the rhythm, repetition in decor will create a rhythm throughout a home. Establish visual interests with a rhythm throughout your space by placing similar colours or patterns at intervals and repeat in artwork, cushions or area rugs.

Perfect Proportion and Suitable Scaling
Who doesn’t love a large, overstuffed chair? But if your room is on the smaller size it may look out of place and make your room seem even smaller than it is. Keep proportion in perspective. Proportion is the ratio between a piece of furniture and the size of a room. Scale is the size of a piece of furniture in relation to the other pieces of furniture in the room. A super large chair will overpower an apartment of loft size sofa or loveseat and create a sense of unbalance in the room.

Have your room humming harmoniously
Creating harmony will enhance how much you will continue to love your finished. Pull the room with a subdued colour palette for a pleasing, harmonious vibe.   together for a pleasing, harmonious look with a subdued color palette. You can also use a single colour for elements that vary in size and shape. Check out our blog on Doing White on White Right! for more tips!

What is the focal point in your room?  What is your best tip to find harmony and balance through your home?