I miss being able to connect with people over books, films, and other long-format media. I think about how most of my friendships and relationships formed over that type of bonding, and it makes sense why I really have nothing in common with new people anymore. Nobody I meet the past 5+ years has any interest in these things.

Everyone is driven by social media and short form media. Even some of my oldfriends are crackheads for Instagram and Reddit still. Everyone just talks about whatever is trendy, rather than having their own distinct interests they’ve cultivated. The last time I met someone who seemed to have their own distinct interests was 2018.

I study languages, and I’ve noticed this also has drastically affected speech patterns, and to most people now I sound ‘funny’ because I talk in complex sentences and ask questions meanwhile they are all using short declarative. I was at a party a couple of weeks ago and I was just flummoxed by how people were interacting, and it makes sense to me why people feel lonely and disconnected… because nothing of substance can be exchanged this way. Not to mention the rapid topic switching that was going on. I tried to have a more involved conversation with one person but told me I was ‘too intense’ for asking them details about their job… a pretty normal conversation to have for me 10 years ago.

And I think… yeah 10 years ago I used to LOVE interacting with people. And now I HATE it. Probably because the interacts are so meaningless, short, and trite. And nobody can stay on topic for more than a handful of exchanges. In 2018 I could sit there and talk about a single author for an hour… now every conversation I have the topics barely last a few minutes before they are swapped out for another rapid set of trite commentary.

I’ve also noticed this between other people now more and more. At bars and such, people no longer talk or focus on each other, they are either on their phones, or kind of looking to the side and just making random quips at each other. People don’t look face to face and have a focused discussion…