When I was a teenager, I had pen pals. That should give you an idea of my age. At that time, we didn't have the internet; you couldn't pick up your phone and text or call someone (without paying massive long-distance costs) anywhere in the world, let alone jump on a screen and talk to them face-to-face. That wasn't even heard of, and yet, the concept would've amazed most of us growing up in the 80s or early 90s. How many times did you want to call your friends but couldn't because it was too expensive? How many times did you have to wait for a letter to show up in your mailbox to get the latest news from friends and family?
Having said that, I wonder what the 80s version of me would think now if I told her that, despite the multiple and reasonably priced forms of communication, no one communicates anymore. In fact, there seems to be a disconnect I didn't notice before the pandemic. I'm not saying it was great before, but compared to 20 or 30 years ago, the difference is massive. I remember having long conversations with friends, sitting around, drinking coffee, or even chatting on the phone for an hour. That was normal. That was back when you really, truly connected with people, knew them, and cared. And you felt like they knew and cared about you.
Now, it's a different story. People don't reach out, and when you reach out to them, some don't even bother to reply. I'm lucky to have a (very small) community of people whom I talk to regularly. But it's small, and even of those people, only a few check in to see what's going on with me.
I asked one of my closest friends for her thoughts on the subject. She spoke of how she's even seeing this with family members and relatives, as a whole. I didn't really consider this because I never had much of a relationship with my relatives, and I only have one family member. In my friend’s case, it was siblings with whom she grew tired of making an effort, noticing it was one-sided. That's terrible. Friends who seem uninterested are bad enough, but family? People who grew up in the same house not speaking is almost unbelievable to me. It's troubling.
Having said that, one-sided or frayed relationships seem to be the norm now, and I don't understand why. Most people I know focus on their family, while friendship....not so much. They may say they don't have the time, but didn't we always make the time in other decades? Why not now?
I guess I just get nostalgic sometimes, and that's no longer normal. I think of people I used to know, work with, party with, and have long cups of coffee with; friendships from years ago. We listened to each other, really listened, but that's disappearing, and I don't feel that's a good thing. It's actually quite sad. And I'm starting to think it's just me who thinks of them because attempts to reach out are often ignored, with only a few exceptions.
Sometimes I feel like there's a complete disconnect with people now. Some blame it on technology, but there are times I wonder if it's all the SRIs combined with manufactured political divides and the pandemic (keep 6 feet apart) mindset that never left us. I never believed in the 6 feet apart rule in the first place, so maybe that's why this particular form of brainwashing didn't work with me. I think technology can be used for good as much as it can be used for evil. It can also be used to stay connected or to distract and cut yourself off from reality.
A lady I know uses Snapchat, and she has one rule that I can appreciate: if you fall to the bottom of her Snapchat chat feed, she deletes you. I don't use the app, but I think I understand and appreciate where she's coming from. If you can't make an effort to stay in her world, then you get the boot. Maybe she's on to something.
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