I wonder if constant reachability has changed not only how available we are, but what we expect friendship to feel like.
There was once more room for absence. Someone could be unreachable for a day, a week, sometimes longer, and the relationship did not need continual proof that it still existed. Now silence can feel like neglect. Perhaps one consequence of being able to reach everyone instantly is that we have become less able to trust relationships in the spaces between contact.
Maybe intimacy needs presence, but it also needs enough security to survive absence.
I wonder if constant reachability has changed not only how available we are, but what we expect friendship to feel like.
There was once more room for absence. Someone could be unreachable for a day, a week, sometimes longer, and the relationship did not need continual proof that it still existed. Now silence can feel like neglect. Perhaps one consequence of being able to reach everyone instantly is that we have become less able to trust relationships in the spaces between contact.
Maybe intimacy needs presence, but it also needs enough security to survive absence.
Good point, yes. I believe we have been losing touch with silence and what derives from it. Hence my focus on bringing it back.