The more I explore and develop my thoughts around Relational Infrastructure the one thing that keeps becoming clear is little I know about it. “Why don’t I have friends?” “Why do I feel alone?” Those questions would and still do constantly popup in my head and I’d never have a good answer for them. I’d have easy cop outs such as “It’s because of covid” or “I don’t live near my old friends”. While these are technically true, it’s not the complete truth because this happens to literally everyone, but other people do have friends and do not feel lonely. The longer I ponder these questions, the more I realize the answer to why I feel so alone is because I avoid the long-term pain the comes along with good-for-me social interactions.

When my workday is over I naturally transition from one screen (my laptop) to another (my TV). I then turn on a video from my YouTube subscriptions. Today I decided to watch Girls Trip to Solvang & $2,000 Dollar Cheese (Vlogmas Day 11) where Erin and her friends go to a tourist destination two and a half hours away from where they live to enjoy their afternoon and they bring me (the viewer) along. It may seem harmless, and in some ways it is, but over the years I’ve created a parasocial relationship with Erin. I know a lot of things about her, and she knows nothing about mine. She doesn’t even know I exist, to her I’m only a +1 to her video’s view count.

Where does this tie in to my earlier statement of “the answer to why I feel so alone is because I avoid the long-term pain of social interactions”? Because in watching Erin’s video I get to see the highlights of her day with her friends: them joking around, laughing, and having a good time. On the flip side I don’t have to see the negatives of their day: driving two and a half hours, waiting to get their lunch, or the amount of money they spent on souvenirs. These types of videos start to condition my brain that going out with my friends should be convenient, easy and breezy. But when I do end up going out with my friends and experiencing the “negatives” of having to drive two and a half hours, waiting time, or spending my money on stuff it is hard to compete with a video where I only get to experience positive emotions.

This type of consumption is fine for short-term.

But when it turns into me spending the last 5 years preferring this low-friction version of “connection” it trains to me prefer it over higher-friction connection. Then I end up choosing the quickest hit of comfort over the slower, effortful path that actually leads to connection.

Why drive two hours when I can press play?

Why deal with awkwardness when I can skip ahead to the laughter?

Why risk being disappointed when I can guarantee stimulation?

And that’s the part I’m finally understanding: it’s not that I’m incapable of friendship or connection. It’s that I’ve spent years reinforcing a pattern where the short-term reward always wins. The loneliness was never a mystery: it was simply the long-term cost of choosing the easy thing over and over again.

So now the work is to reverse the pattern. To let the short-term feel worse so the long-term can feel better. To retrain my brain to recognize that the long drives, the waiting, the awkward conversations, the money spent, and the mild inconveniences aren’t bugs, they’re the price of admission to a real, lived life. They’re what make the highlights mean something.

The point of life is to experience it. I don’t want to keep mistaking proximity to other people’s joy for actually having my own.