Modern Friendship Is Just Keeping Tabs on People You Never See

Maahika Banerjee
11 hours ago
5 min read

My first encounter with heartbreak was fairly early. Not the kind you’re thinking of (my social skills with boys are virtually non-existent), but a little something called friendship.

As a child, this heartbreak did a pretty fantastic job of rattling my brain when I couldn’t yet make sense of the world.

When I was nine, I spent two hours making handmade Halloween cards for two of my closest friends, each card personalised for them. But they never showed up. I’d wait exactly until the clock struck 12 am to wish someone Happy Birthday with a birthday collage so they knew how special they were. That’s what friendship means to me.

Maybe it’s karma. Maybe it’s a lesson from a past life, but for nearly 20 years, friendships have entered my life for a fixed period, as if bound by a contract. All the years of making memories and going to each other's houses suddenly came to an end… just like that. As winter ceased, these friendships reached their expiration date without warning.

No matter how much I tried to lend a friendly hand or examine myself under a microscope, I never understood why I kept dealing with this dreadful heartbreak. It wasn’t until I reached my final year of university that I decided to do something entirely different.

I stopped caring.

While many relationships faded from my life, I had some acquaintances who chose to define the parameters of friendship by initiating a conversation and never responding. The so-called ‘friends’ I had in the digital realm were names that said a few words, shared a few memes, and called it a day. Fun times.

Every year, I’d think about who I wanted to be; I’d still be me, but I’d live in my head instead of the real world. But all that changed on my last first day of university. The universe pushed me to spend the entire day alone. Now, for the old me, this would’ve been disconcerting, but the new me wanted to be braver. So, I grabbed my copy of Beach Read, sat in the freezing winter weather, and spent my day peacefully alone.

That day gave me the courage to confront the one thing I always feared: being by myself.

Spending time with myself provoked me into a level of awareness I couldn’t explain. I’d walk down the street and notice girls laughing hysterically with their little friend groups, chatting, walking, and eating. It honestly felt like a sick game where I went days without speaking to anyone except my parents.

Embracing this was never linear, but I learned to appreciate my company tenfold just as university was about to end, a lesson I discovered very late, but now hold as a promise for the little girl in me. I became daring enough to do all the things I once believed were fun with a buddy: going to a photobooth, going out to dinner and cafe dates, taking cute pictures, and so much more.

As I became a more confident version of myself, my brain couldn’t accept the satisfaction and gentle contentment that came with it. It forced me to question if this was a permanent destination rather than a temporary stopping point.

I was always terrified of loneliness because my childhood taught me to accept it as a fact rather than an experience. How the hell are you supposed to make friends when little to no effort is considered the new norm? I also learned how easily people were consumed by their egos when it came to reciprocity, especially in my 20s.

As 21st-century technology blesses the world with the indulgence of feeling connected 24/7, maintaining that connection has somehow become a herculean task, especially when you’re the only one trying. I found myself constantly reaching out, initiating plans, and remembering small details; a blessing and a curse, as it made me realise that I was the fallback friend. Despite having every convenience at their fingertips, people blamed me for not reaching out, all because I stopped doing the work of two people.

I’ve always heard the quote, “Humans are social creatures.” From an evolutionary perspective, that’s the natural order of things. But what do you call it when your ‘friends’ check in by sending you a DM, instead of using the phone number they’ve had all along?

If you’re ever in trouble, drop the text and just slide into the DMs.

Recently, I started something I like to call ‘social distancing’, a boundary between myself and social media. It’s as if there’s an obvious distinction between those I speak to online and those I speak to offline. The moment I quit, my relationship with the people on Instagram arrives at its final act. It’s not the talking that keeps these connections alive; it’s the pointless sharing that produces an illusion of having someone to confide in.

That’s as far as the ‘social’ aspect of friendships has evolved in the last five years.

I’ve always found an intimacy in carrying a conversation over text. If you’re lucky, you spill your guts to a friend who doesn’t reduce your value to a follower. But no matter how many times I tried changing surface-level friendships on social media into something meaningful, I hit a wall.

And my mother told me, “Nobody is a real friend anymore…”

The very definition of friendship has been diluted to relationships in a virtual world. You don’t have a friend; you have an avatar that observes and keeps tabs on you. My online hiatuses concerned many; they’d kindly check in by dropping me a DM… on the very app I was trying to get away from.

Over time, it’s not the genuine effort of preserving connections that sits on a pedestal. It’s social media.

I do feel lonely, yet I’ve learned to embrace it rather than settle with people who wouldn’t think twice about me. Somewhere between acceptance and denial, I’m caught in a tug-of-war with these feelings, where the constant friction between desiring and being has become an arduous task.

I enjoy being alone, but will I ever share these moments with someone? I can stand in a crowded room, but will I continuously resist the urge to speak because I arrived alone?

We learn about birthdays from a post, send messages because it feels obligatory, supervise people through a screen, and define it as connection. There’s an assumption that the digital world is a playground where you follow a stranger and gain the label of a ‘friend’. A word that once meant something. Now, it’s handed out before we’ve earned the privilege of truly understanding each other.

My inner child is still waiting for the moment she can rest easy knowing she’s found another shoulder to lean on that isn’t my family… or me.

Some days, I enjoy being with me. Other days, I wish it wasn’t just me. I no longer wait for people to create memories. But I wish for somebody I could laugh and talk with. After all, having a number has never been the same as having a friend.