The Utility Of Human Connection

Building relationships, like many of life’s endeavors these days, has become an almost purely utilitarian act. Search the term “building relationships” and, within the first handful of results, you will likely find that more than half are geared toward professional relationships rather than personal ones.

Is that a bad thing? Is it a good thing? Who’s to say.

What it certainly is, however, is a thing.

Or perhaps it has always been a thing, and the internet has merely amplified its visibility, making it appear more prevalent than ever before. But that observation would hardly be worth making if it were limited to a single search term or an isolated corner of the internet.

And that is why you have stumbled across this piece of text.

I am no expert in any field concerned with the interpersonal workings of human beings or the ways in which we relate to one another. What I am, however, is observant.

I want to talk about the ebb and flow of this phenomenon because, tunnel-visioned as we often are, we tend to miss patterns.

When Relationships Served the System

Assuming the history books are to be believed, relationships between people once resembled the structure of a bee colony. You could be little more or less than the role assigned to you. A peasant born into a peasant family would likely have lived and died as exactly that, because peasants were useful to the societies of the time. Their purpose was predetermined.

From a broader perspective, relationships were not formed primarily for love or companionship. They served a larger machine.

Of course, people still loved. They still formed emotional bonds. They still cared for one another. But those relationships existed within a framework designed to sustain the greater system.

You must love so that more workers may follow.

Contrast that with the closing centuries of the second millennium. Relationships began to take on a more personal identity and became less explicitly tied to serving the system. Yes, I am fully aware that these relationships still ultimately fed into the same machine. That is not the point.

The point is that, on a societal level, people increasingly viewed relationships as vehicles for happiness.

You can almost hear the rebuttal.

“Couldn’t you say the same thing about previous generations? Maybe you’re just looking backward with recency bias.”

To which I would respond:

You are probably right.

So why bring it up at all if the argument can be dismissed by acknowledging that either interpretation could be true?

The Rise of the Miniature System

Because this time feels different.

The larger system no longer needs elaborate tricks to persuade us to serve its interests. We have become miniature systems ourselves. Little systemettes. We move through life forming relationships based on utility, benefit, leverage, opportunity.

Not benefit in the emotional sense.

Benefit in the commodity sense.

And when enough people begin operating this way, strange things happen. Things we swear have never happened before, despite the possibility that they have.

What emerges is a landscape of short-lived relationships, stepping stones masquerading as connections. A life filled with people we know, yet nobody who truly knows us.

And when I say “we,” I mean the royal we. Not necessarily you. Not necessarily me.

What makes this dynamic more concerning than in previous eras is not that it exists. It has likely always existed in some form.

The difference is that now it is expected of you.

You expect it of yourself.

You are encouraged to form relationships that serve a purpose and little else. Once that purpose has been fulfilled, the relationship is quietly discarded.

The Infrastructure of Modern Relationships

Why do I say this dynamic feels more deliberate today?

Look around.

Consider the infrastructure that supports it.

Places where people once formed meaningful connections seem to have evaporated. In their place stand dating apps, networking platforms, and job boards.

“But aren’t dating apps supposed to solve the problem of disappearing third spaces?”

You tell me.

Does it make sense for a company that profits from your continued use of a platform to help you stop needing that platform altogether?

Most of us have used those applications before. Have you ever noticed how deleting an account is often accompanied by a pause option?

An option to step away.

An option to return.

An option that keeps the door slightly open.

The Paywall Around Companionship

But let me confess something.

Earlier, I said that places for meaningful connection had vanished.

That wasn’t entirely true.

They have not vanished.

They have been paywalled.

Think about it. How many conventional dates can you go on that require no money at all?

And for the few options that still slip through the cracks, social stigma quickly steps in. We are told that such approaches are unserious, low effort, or indicative of poor intentions.

In other words, the alternatives become non-options.

“So why does everything seem paywalled?”

Because somebody profits when you exercise your deeply human need for companionship.

We are not inherently solitary creatures. We are a social species. We are wired for connection, community, belonging, intimacy.

That reality cannot be removed, so it is redirected.

A pathway is presented back toward the promised land.

A pathway paved with short-term relationships.

So what am I trying to accomplish here?

Am I rallying the troops to fight some invisible enemy?

No.

I am simply making you aware.

The game is already being played. You may as well know that you are a participant.

Perhaps more minds examining the board creates more opportunities for solutions. Or at least better strategies.

The World We Were Promised

Until then, however, I must assume a role that runs contrary to the narrative I have been quietly painting.

The narrative that what we are witnessing is a problem.

Instead, I must present it as innovation.

As an opportunity.

I must look you in the screen and tell you that the source of your frustration may also be a gift in disguise.

You may hate that idea.

That’s fine.

You can practice the increasingly rare skill of agreeing with a thought you dislike.

Understand this:

The world we were promised no longer exists.

Not since the birds stopped flying south for the winter.

The metrics that once measured success have changed. The decisions we make are increasingly born from incentives unfamiliar to previous generations. Or at least unfamiliar to most of them.

You have likely noticed the gradual erosion of the middle class unfolding in real time.

Why does that matter?

Because it is one of the clearest indicators of a larger shift taking place.

A shift suggesting there is less and less middle ground. Fewer safe bets. Fewer comfortable paths.

The structure of the game increasingly places people in direct competition with one another.

Gamers call this PvP.

Player versus player.

Your Greatest Competitive Advantage

In that environment, success becomes dependent on the tools available to you.

Your personality.

Your physical capabilities.

Your intelligence.

And perhaps most importantly:

Who you know.

That single variable often determines how quickly success finds you, or how quickly you encounter the opportunities that eventually lead to success.

Either outcome places you ahead of the curve.

Meaningful relationships have not abandoned you.

They simply exist further down the road.

The caveat, of course, is whether you can distinguish those who value you from those who value what you possess.

You had better hope that skill arrives sooner rather than later.

Yes, it would be ideal to build your future alongside like-minded companions whom you eventually call family.

But I have come to realise that more and more people are making this journey loved only by those who raised them, or by those who no longer exist.

Either on this earth or within their lives.

Surfing the Kali Yuga

If all of this sounds ludicrous to you, understand that you may be among the fortunate few.

And to those who find themselves reflected in these words, I implore you to surf the Kali Yuga.

You have no safety net with which to play it safe.

None of us do.

Yet within that seemingly grim realization lies something useful.

At the very least, I have painted a target on the horizon.

No more aimless wandering.

That luxury belongs to those who have already completed the game and refuse to leave.

And no, I will not reveal my secrets for finding impactful relationships.

We are competitors, after all.

But I do want to address the voice inside you that keeps asking:

Why even try?

To that voice, I offer a question in return.

Who wants to play a game that is easy to beat?

There is no achievement in that.

Do not ask for easier battles.

Ask for greater strength.

Because beyond your difficult battles lie harder ones.

And beyond those battles stand stronger men.

Aspire to earn audience with such men by reaching them.

What Are You?

The purpose of this passage was never to reveal hidden truths or stir people into action.

Sometimes words are meant to paint rather than persuade.

I was simply trying my hand at painting.

Truthfully, I may not even believe everything I have written here.

And that does not matter.

Because I am not what I know.

Nor am I what I believe.

I am the desire to know more.

The desire to change.

So, at the end of this passage—

What are you?