By Admin
You know those people, right? Walk up to you and brag about their life.
Okay, life brag is still acceptable, but bragging about your Instagram followers??
Silly. Stupid.
Usually I let go of such situations, such people, but i was in no such mood then.
With a wry smile (one you have when you know you’re going to win a situation), I asked him a one-line question that shut him up, make him walk back to where he emerged from..
“Can you name 5 of your friends?”
He first laughed, thought more, his face tuned red. Opened his mouth, stopped again. He was confused. His chatter box shut and then he just left.
I have not see him since. Felt bad, but i don’t think it warrants an apology but anyway..
A strange thing happened over the last decade.
We solved communication. And broke connection.
You can see your ex’s vacation photos or what your gym crush had for breakfast
Yet somehow more people than ever are asking the same question:
“Why do I feel lonely?”
The Friendship Paradox of 2026
We have:
- Followers
- Connections
- Subscribers
- Matches
- Group chats
- Communities
- Meetups
- Broadcast channels
But when your plans get cancelled on a Saturday evening…
Who do you call?
That’s where the system starts to crack.
We know more people than ever. We know fewer people well.
Social Media Was Built For Visibility
Not Friendship. Ask Zuckerberg
The incentive is simple:
Post. Engage. Scroll. Repeat.
Spend hours observing other people’s lives. But increasingly less time participating in our own.
Dating Apps Accidentally Changed How We Think About People
Dating apps introduced something fascinating.
Endless choice.
At first it felt amazing. Then it became normal. Then plain creepy.
And now one section wants to befriend people on them while the other one still has expectations from a decade ago. (IYKYK)
Enters In-person Socializing
Now that dating apps have become uncool again, admitted truthfully by the Bumble CEO, the next weird trend is here..
People increasingly switching to in-person community platforms. Meetup apps.
They advertise themselves as messiah of your loneliness, fixing your social life in a jiffy..
When in reality they are just dead group chats packaged as a platform.
Make you go-through fancy onboarding, claim to have cutting edge matching algos, take in your interests and then comes the real play..
Same boring board game, music jam that literally everyone is doing!
Taking your money for thrusting you in a meetup of 70 people after which you end up feeling more lonely.
Put you in a “community”, abusing this word so much, people are actually now fearful of it.
All those IG stories you see of people having fun, i hate to break it to you- all fabricated.
These events are social calories. Not social nutrition.
You feel full for a moment. Then strangely hungry again.
Why meetup apps don’t work
Technology solved access.
It didn’t solve proximity.
The people who could become your closest friends aren’t found on one-time board game meetups from all parts of the whole wide world.
Often much closer, they’re usually doing the same everyday stuff as you!
You already have adulting stuff to deal with, socializing shouldn’t be on the agenda.
Ideally you going to a cafe to work, walking your dog, trying a new restaurant, getting drinks over a match, chai break in your workday, waiting for your flight, gymming, hell.. even rating about your boss is what you should be bonding over. Stuff that doesn’t require planning, scheduling.
And when done with people near you, which takes away the lazy-ass factor, friends are made.
The Next Era Of Social Networking
Maybe the goal was never to maximize screen time.
Maybe it should have been to minimize it.
Maybe the best social app isn’t the one that keeps you scrolling for three hours.
Maybe it’s the one that helps you meet someone in thirty minutes and then gets out of the way.
A crazy idea, perhaps.
But then again, so was social networking once.
The Real Flex
In 2015, the flex was followers.
In 2020, the flex was engagement.
In 2026, the real flex is..
Having someone to call.
Having someone to grab coffee with.
Having someone to text:
“Want to do something today?”
And getting a yes. Ion Țiriac