Lonely. In a crowd.

Hi, my name is Michal and I believe we’re in a middle of a loneliness epidemic. In this story, I’ll share with you what’s beein going over through my head lately regarding friendship, loneliness and digital addiction.

A good look at the weird times we live in, is the fact that they made an AI friend companion you can talk to when you’re alone. Are we already in a dystopia?

Maybe. But first…

I shouldn’t complain about being lonely. I have a loving wife, a dog that adores me, a pretty big close and extended family, thousands of internet amigos and three close friends.

I wanted to emphasize that last number the most because I believe something is wrong — either with me, or with the world.

Or both.

Sure — I’m somewhat popular and I have a lot of online friends, but I feel like it’s nearly impossible to actually meet new, real people. You know — of the offline kind.

I believe something is wrong — either with me, or with the world. Or both.

We’re all buried in our smartphones all the time, experiencing lives of others through a screen. Why do we even need to meet them in real life anymore?

We know what’s up! Seen the stories, liked the posts. There’s absolutely no need to hear about their lives in a “real life™” scenario.

You think I exaggerate?

I once saw a couple sitting at a coffee shop, facing each other. But for over an hour they haven’t looked at each other. Heads bent, starting into phones. I tried not to stare, but a couple times I caught them reacting to what the other person just sent. Yes. They were together, in a public place, texting to each other on the phones.

Smartphone addiction hits us on both sides. We online-stalk the friends we have and have no time to make new ones.

Remember school times? It seems like being stuck at some place with people for a long time resulted in many people having multiple friends.

But then we grow up. If we were to plot our number of friends on a graph and corellate it with our main life events, for most people it would look like this:

We get a busy schedule of work and netflix binging. It’s easier being friends from a distance — through that screen.

We send our friends some memes. Laugh at their memes in return by leaving a reaction. Or two.

Not even a word.

We communicate through memes now

It’s scary how reduced our communication has become. We talk about world’s issues by laughing at memes, leaving reactions. Maybe this is why the world is becoming so weird lately — we don’t take the time to truly grasp it anymore.

There’s a funny meme for everything now. No matter how tragic.

I realized that detached online approach has also made me a lot more awkward in social situations — I’m not as open and friendly as I used to be. I’m constantly overthinking even the simplest things.

Did I just make a weird face?

On top of that I suffer from that well known “Polish Smile Syndrome” (if you don’t know, in Poland’s government documents a smile is explained as an unnatural facial expression — yeah, it’s not natural to smile here)

This definitely doesn’t help when communicating with strangers.

Real conversations

All that technology around us, yet at the end of the day outside of family a lot of people have nobody to really talk to.

I mean really, really talk to.

Those human connections are extremely rare in an honest form. Sure, I can meet with some acquaintance and small-talk for an hour or two, but there’s barely anything deep about it.

I believe in you, sir

A few days ago I went out skateboarding. I do that almost every evening now. Call it making up for lost time, or a mid-life crisis, I don’t care. I just do it.

A couple minutes into my session a kid came up to me.

He might’ve been 10 or 12 years old.

He said:

“Sorry to interrupt you sir, but whatever your goal with skateboarding is, just know that I believe you can do it and I will be holding my fingers crossed for you!”

And then he just walked away. After that my skateboarding instantly got 50% better. Positive reinforcement!

This situation shows that we’re not completely doomed. When I was his age I would never, ever even think of saying something that mature and nice to some random man skateboarding on a sidewalk.

But the encounter also showed me how little of these things happen on a daily basis. Why can’t we try to be more open towards each other and you know … genuinely nice?

Talking to strangers

The boy inspired me to try and talk to strangers that way. To say nice things to people that deserve it. At least sometimes.

Why now? What was stopping me from doing this before?

It wasn’t fear of rejection, which is the most common thing for most people. I used to be shy and very introverted in my teens and I slowly grew out of it.

What helped me the most was a mental attitude of stepping out of my comfort zone as often as possible. Moving the bar a tiny bit further each time. That’s also why this introvert started talking to people on YouTube.

No. I wasn’t afraid of what others will say.

What I believe the reason is, is the fact that it just simply never occured to me to chat up strangers. In a traditional modern human fashion let’s push the blame away from myself and blame external conditioning. Maybe it’s the way society is nowadays.

Maybe social media made me forget about these normal, natural, human interactions.

Yeah, maybe. Or maybe not.

But I am going to change that.

What works on YouTube?

As a YouTuber I used to obsess about what works in getting more people to view my videos. I did extensive research, experimented and was constantly on the lookout.

Eventually it led to burnout and a really bad year, but I did find something interesting, even if completely irrelevant to my own YouTube growth.

There’s this Polish food YouTuber called Ksiazulo, who goes out to various fast food places and rates the food. Nothing unusual or unique about it, but the phenomenal growth of his channel made me look into it a bit more.

What I believe is the real reason millions of people watch those videos isn’t the food. It isn’t even the food critique.

Its the dynamic between the YouTuber and his cameraman friend. In every video after he tries the food, they turn the camera around and his friend chimes in with his thoughts. And yes — I know most of his audience is kids.

But that dynamic is what I think most people are missing right now. At least those of his subscribers who are adults.

The loop

They’re stuck in a loop of 8 hours of work, grabing takeaway and exhausted falling onto a couch. The human connection they have is feeling like those two guys invite you for some food and you’re there together.

What I think, is that most people are missing that connection and use YouTube influencers to make up for it. To have that internet friend that has no idea you exist. A replacement friend.

In an ideal world we should all just have a friend like that and have that experience once or twice per week.

It isn’t an ideal world though. We’re too busy to have friends anymore.

Animorphic AI

Maybe technology can fill that void and provide us with a solution? After all AI is all the rage — can’t AI become your friend?

Meet Friend-dot-com. A wearable that comments on things you do or say.

It’s like having someone reply to you when you have nobody to talk to.

Someone invented this. Someone else gave money to build it. It means there’s a dire need of a friend in society.

Have we lost our ability to make friends so much that we’d rather wear an AI around our neck?

This truly feels dystopian.

How other generations handle this

My Mom is almost 70 years old. She’s from the previous generation, one that didn’t get obsessed about smartphones and the internet as much. She has an iPhone, an iPad and a Macbook. She uses the internet just fine.

But she has no social media and dozens of close friends. She’s constantly either on a call, or going to meet up with someone.

And she has no objections to talk up some stranger on the street if there’s anything in common.

That openness is something I’m now trying to emulate.

I burnt out in 2023

I tried to overdo my social media presence. Tried gaming the algorithms. Tried myself in that new rat race. Became an “influencer” and well… it backfired. And now things are changing again. You can read more about it here:

The End of Influencers

I felt horrible and that was one of my worst online years ever.

Quitting the noise of social media and doing much less (but trying to be better) was my way out of the burnout.

It also led to me engaging less with my online friends. I believe this is one of the reasons I’m rethinking the connection I have to real people again.

For a while, being somewhat popular and constantly talking to people online felt like a replacement of human connection. It was one after all.

And aren’t most real friendships now also online based anyway?

Marriage is friendship

My wife is my true best friend. We are so perfectly matched together, that we started working from home almost a decade ago.

That means I do have a daily human connection. One of the deepest kind. I feel both lucky and incredibly grateful for that.

During the lockdowns, many marriages faced crisis because people were forced to spend more time together. Tensions arose.

For us it wasn’t much of a difference. Business as usual.

Marriage lock-in

But in a way, once you get married you are expected to have less time for other friends. That’s the accepted norm. At some point even the closest friendships fade away or transform to a once a year kind of thing.

Yet we still find the time to browse and scroll through social media. To write to a long not seen friend that we love his new dog. Or new car. Or something.

To shower them with reactions.

It doesn’t feel right

I feel like the online world, with all of its benefits is shrinking our friend spaces. Replacing true connection with a series of 1s and 0s.

We follow celebrities and youtubers and engage with them. Our attention and emotions connect with those online personalities in an obviously one way fashion.

Some imagine those internet people are their friends. We compensate. Dive deeper into superficial friendships.

Someone just sent you a friend request

Remember how weird it felt just 10 years ago, when you got a “friend request” on facebook from a person you didn’t know?

The first thought, at least for me, was always “hey, that dude is not my friend!”

That one time a year

Once a year me and my best friend drive to the mountains for an extended weekend. It’s probably the most outside of family human connection I get in a year — talking seriously about everything, contemplating nature, taking cold dips — living.

I wish for more people around me and more times like that. Away from screens and with people.

The kid was a quiet loner

I remember in the early 2000’s when you said “the kid was a quiet loner” it’d raise some eyebrows and questions. What’s wrong with him?

Now it’s perceived as the new normal. I see people with kids all around talking how their kid is not really connecting with other kids. Like they mostly are on social media. Quiet. Introverted. Detached.

There may be a huge issue there, but Today I want to primarily focus on adults.

Who has that problem?

Of course this disproportionately affects a couple of specific groups of people. The introverts. The hard workers, too tired after their 9-to-5 to do anything besides joining their youtuber friends on a visit to a burger place.

And I can’t complain too much. I do have a few friends. I found true love. I am around people daily. There is no crippling loneliness gripping me every night when I fall asleep.

I just want to be better.

While grateful and humbled by my luck, I truly wish to just be better to strangers. To meet and know real, interesting people. To exchange likes and comments for time spent with an actual human.

It could have been worse, but my goal is to make it better anyway.

Do you feel like we’re losing touch with what friendship is?

Let me know.