Failing to Connect

Imagine you work really hard, achieve what most people would consider “success”, and now you’re left with a big pile. What have you achieved? What is your legacy? Is this something you’re proud of?

In my case, I’m past the point of caring about dollars and cents. Without question, more money makes life easier, but beyond a certain baseline level of comfort it adds almost nothing in terms of happiness. And I make this statement from my own personal experiences. I’m not speaking for others, though I’m sure many would agree. The thing, however, that I really crave but lack is real human connection. I don’t know how to make friends with people I want to be friends with, and no amount of money can help with that.

There are a lot of things about the modern world that I struggle with, but these days I think there’s nothing more frustrating than trying to connect with people who seem more interested in staring at Instagram than engaging with another human being in the actual reality they inhabit. There’s just something so absurd about sitting on the subway staring at your phone when the subway is rich with some of the best people-watching you’ll ever find. It’s truly fascinating. How boring do you have to be to be bored on the subway? I often look at what people are looking at on their phone out of curiosity and make a mental note, and 9 times out of 10 they’re refreshing the exact same thing on Instagram over and over. It’s especially funny when they’re underground and there’s no signal, but they’re so addicted to the device that they just keep retrying anyway, terrified of accidentally making eye contact with another human in real life. I suppose people-watching isn’t really connecting with anyone, but it’s far higher resolution than what you get from any screen.

Most of the people I do meet and interact with in real life give me the impression they’re living their lives as a character in the life they want to imagine they have, instead of just being who they are. It’s like they’re all cosplaying as their Instagram personas but forgetting to just be a person who’s not pretending they’re someone else all the time. Have you ever just tried saying how you really feel?

Everyone is so busy performing all the time, and here I am just trying to exist. The entire internet feels fake, all the companies are lying, and most people I have conversations with in real life feel like they’re actors in a movie about themselves (a sort of main character syndrome, I guess).

I wonder if life was always like this. I’ve read a lot of older books, however, and I don’t think I’ve ever encountered this idea in old writings. Perhaps this is an entirely new concept created by the delusional reality that the internet creates where we can construct an identity on our favourite “social” (more like antisocial) websites and then we try to live that persona in real life, but it’s just so clearly inauthentic. Or maybe it was always this way?

This subject seems to be what most of my blog writings are about, which is partly why I’ve stopped writing much recently. I guess there are only so many words one can produce on the subject. That, and I feel like LLMs have really destroyed writing in a way because you can’t trust any content produced after 2022 or so, and what’s the point of writing when the machines can do it better (at least technically and grammatically) anyway? That’s a thought to explore another time.

For me, I keep trying. I do my best to stay off my phone and interact with people in real life, make eye contact, speak honestly and truthfully, and look for the real connections where I can. There are a few people who I do get to interact with who I think actually live their lives as themselves, and they’re truly my favourite people. I have what I’d describe as casual relationships with these people, but for some reason I feel more connected to them in a way than I do to people I frequently see or talk to.

I have, for example, one friend who I normally see 2-3 times per week, and we have really short and surface-level conversations (“Hey, how are you?” etc.), but the strange thing is that I feel like he is one of the only people on Earth who is just completely himself and doesn’t live a life of delusion. We have conversations that are like “Any plans this weekend?” “Not really.” “Oh cool, me neither.” And it’s so nice to hear that because most people try to act like their lives are an endless roller coaster of exciting travel and dining and whatnot, and all that shit is exhausting, shallow, and superficial. It’s really refreshing because I can just talk to him and it doesn’t feel like either of us is performing, and we’re both just trying to exist. Just two people sharing without trying to impress each other.

I want to connect with people who aren’t trying to be something they’re not and aren’t afraid to share exactly what they feel. It’s okay to be simple. In fact, it’s probably preferred. That doesn’t mean you can’t have depth.

PS: Have I already written this post 100 times? Feels like it.