Turns out that a lot of people I knew posted huge life updates that I completely missed out on. I asked them why they didn’t tell me and they were confused. They said the posted it on social media. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know a lack of social media meant that I have lost touch with old acquaintances completely. I have a few close friends and that’s it.
Maybe that’s an ok tradeoff to make, but it’s worth knowing that before getting into it.
I think it has made me a better friend in some ways, as I'm a respite from the narratives they sustain, but to others, also a kind of legacy friend who may be an attachment to an old life, and who isn't part of their present.
there's an aspect where watching their social media would be to participate in the change in their lives, and separating from it (perhaps selfishly) preserves things that might be left behind. but on the other hand, I'm interested in relating in one way too. social media profiles are strange because they say, "see, I am all these things now!" and in not seeing them, it declines to recognize those, like an old uncle you're always going to be a kid to because that's how you always were.
I have more old friends than most, and I often think about whether there is an essential self we see in each other, like a character that all these stories happen around where we can peer across them to one another, protagonist to protagonist, as companions in the real. or are the relationships artifacts of the stories, and when they change, we do? it's prob a mix, but I don't think those essential(ist) aspects of friendship survive being mediated by the churn of updates and the curation of a public persona.
anyway, being outside social media is a very different way to relate and not everything survives.