"i miss you" "then text me back"
What does friendship mean in a world where everything has gone exclusively digital?
What’s striking about friendship is that it is always, always a compromise between convenience and selection. It has to be.
Convenience, because there has to be some sort of way to meet, some way to communicate. It’s a given – you have to meet someone to be friends with them, whether through MatchSC, sitting next to you in lecture, or fighting over the last roll of toilet paper at Trader Joe’s.
Selection, because personality matters. Most people don't consciously select their friends. It's more about the vibe, the "click". But just because that selection isn't intentional doesn't mean it doesn't exist. When it is intentional, it's even harder to ignore. Wanting to be friends with someone for their ideas, for their enthusiasm, for anything you admire or respect or like about the other person. But regardless of intention, "selection" is our preference towards what people we want near.
Quarantine takes away the convenience aspect, makes relationships more casual, yet more intentional. Now, more than ever, we select who we speak to.
Casual?
Boredom drives us to extenuating circumstances, and the social norms have been (to a degree) suspended. After all, in what normal circumstances do we mass post semi-embarrassing “until tomorrow” pictures? In what normal circumstances is it acceptable to post miscellaneous bingo cards on our stories?
Isolation mandates a digital medium. Given no other options, all of our ideas and thoughts and feelings must be conveyed through our screens. This is an inherently more casual form of communication. Digital technology is designed for convenience, making it more casual by nature. Despite exceptions such as the letter-writing app, Slowly, for the most part, we say fewer things (and even fewer things of substance) through our screens. Over text, the bubbles stare back, overwhelming in their permanence, and it feels vulnerable to have a page full of blue (as opposed to the seconds of speaking in person). Social media networks perpetuate this. Snapchat isn't meant for meaningful conversation, and Twitter is designed for short packets of information transfer, catered towards our shortening attention spans. Imagine, in contrast, the vulnerability of a late night talk. The sense that you can say anything around a bonfire. The intimacy of physical presence feels - and therefore is - substantial. And this isn’t to say that depth over digital platforms is impossible. Far from it – late night talks can be sustained through FaceTime, and maybe isolation makes us more introspective. People are fully capable of forming meaningful connection without ever have meeting in person. But it’s harder, especially when our platforms and mediums of messaging steer us towards a form of communication that’s ultimately far more casual.
And intentional?
There is no accidentally running into someone at a party or in the dining hall. There is no “saw this architecture, reminded me of you”. The closest thing we can get is sending a meme or inside joke. Whether we’re aware of it or not, intentionality and losing that ease of access prunes off friends of convenience. How far are you willing to go to speak to people?
It depends. Are you intentional about friendships? (Do you think about choosing friends? Or does it just happen?) And how much effort are you willing to put in?
For the intentional, friendships become more selection-based. On the plus side, these friendships tend to orient more about the connection between two people and less about how convenient it is to speak to them. On the negative side, they can be echo chambers and lack much-needed diversity of thought. In an interesting twist, it’s also feasible to meet new people online, if that’s what you intend*. By ourselves, we get to ask, “What kind of relationships do you really want to sustain or build?” And we have all the necessary tools to do it; it’s just more effort.
For the unintentional, friendships get harder to maintain. It’s hard to build out habits that you didn’t have before, and that includes setting aside time to call your friends. It’s harder to meet new people, because even though interactions are more casual, it’s still not in the norm. Without being intentional, without willingness to break that norm, the default transitions to a lonely place.
So what can we do about it?
It’s not feasible to ask everyone for intentionality - that’s a fundamental mindset shift. The other option is to change the norm. Why not make things convenient? Make it a habit to call a friend at a certain time every week. FaceTime while you work. Text links! DM memes! And tell ! your ! friends ! you ! love ! them!
There's no easy answer to the loneliness that comes with having convenience stripped away, but it's at least something to be grateful for, that we have this technology at our fingertips. That though we may no longer have convenience, we do have selectivity.
Imagine if this pandemic hit 15 years ago. Now take advantage of the fact that it didn't.
*no pun intended
Art by @subliming.jpg on Instagram,
Quote by Bryant McGill.