440 friends and not one I can call at 2 am!

I remember the years when we started using internet for the first time. I bought the 'Dummy's guide to the internet' which had a CD that read 'Free Internet'!! 

The dummy thought he was getting free internet. WOW! I played my first internet games, created my first email address on yahoo and hotmail, surfed porn while waiting for images to download at 5kbps. You would be lucky if you could download movies and clips overnight, because my mom would come and unplug the landline mid-download.   

No one told me of the inflated phone bills that came afterward. It was a short lived honeymoon.

Years later, Orkut arrived. The more friends we had online, the more popular we would be offline. Thankfully, that fad faded away soon.

Today, we are more 'plugged in' to eachother and the world than any other generation in history. But why does building a genuine connection sometimes feel like such hard work?

Here's my question: If your life fell apart at two in the morning, how many people could you call?

Not message. Not send a carefully worded WhatsApp text to, complete with a “Hey, are you awake?” that gives them enough room to pretend they aren't.

Actually call.

How many people would pick up, listen to you ramble incoherently for twenty minutes, and not begin the conversation by asking whether you've tried turning it off and on again?

It's an interesting question, considering most of us have more contacts on our phones than our parents had in their entire address books.

We have school groups, office groups, family groups, apartment groups, hobby groups and groups created for the sole purpose of deciding what to do in another group. We have friends we haven't met in fifteen years but whose holiday photos we see every week. We know what strangers had for breakfast, where they went on vacation and what they think about the latest political controversy.

We are spectacularly informed about people we barely know.

And yet, sometimes, we don't know whom to call when we're having a really bad day.

Remember when keeping in touch actually required effort?

You had to call someone at home and hope their parents didn't answer. You wrote letters. You made plans and occasionally showed up at somebody's house because you happened to be in the neighbourhood.

Today, we can maintain a hundred casual connections without leaving the sofa.

A birthday notification reminds us to wish someone we haven't spoken to in years. Instagram tells us our friend has visited Bali. LinkedIn informs us that a former colleague has been promoted to Vice President of Something Important.

We respond with a thumbs-up, a heart, or the universally useful “Wow! Congratulations!”

And there. Friendship maintained.

Except, not quite.

There's nothing wrong with these little gestures. They can be lovely. A message from an old friend can brighten an otherwise miserable Tuesday. Technology has helped people stay connected across cities, countries and continents.

But staying updated about someone's life isn't quite the same as being part of it.

We know that our friend bought a house. We may not know that their marriage is struggling. We know that a colleague has started running marathons. We may not know that they haven't felt happy in months.

We see those thirst trap videos of couples having the best time of their lives online. We don't see the brokenness of that relationship offline. 

We see the announcement. We miss the conversation.

And because we see so much of each other's lives, we sometimes mistake familiarity for intimacy.

Adult friendship is a strange business.

When we're younger, friendships often happen by accident. You sit next to someone in class. You share a cigarette behind a building, a terrible meal in a hostel or an unreasonable hatred of the same teacher. Before long, you're inseparable.

Nobody schedules a quarterly friendship review.

Then life happens.

Careers take off. People get married. Children arrive. Parents grow older. Someone moves to another city. Another person gets a job that consumes every waking hour and occasionally a few sleeping ones.

Meeting friends becomes an exercise in calendar management.

“Let's catch up soon” is the adult equivalent of a cheque written against an account nobody has checked in months.

We mean it when we say it. We really do. But soon becomes next week, next month, after the project, after the school exams, after the holidays.

Then we look up and discover that we haven't seen someone we love in a year.

The uncomfortable part is that nobody necessarily did anything wrong. There was no argument, no betrayal, no dramatic falling-out. The friendship simply got buried under the logistics of living.

And because reaching out now feels like it requires an explanation, we postpone it further.

It's been so long. What will I say?

How about, “It's been so long”?

That's a perfectly reasonable place to start.

We have become very good at appearing fine.

There's another problem - We have perfected the art of presenting a life that looks perfectly manageable.

We tell people we're busy. We say things are good. We make jokes about work, complain about traffic and send memes about getting older.

Sometimes that's all that's happening.

Sometimes “I'm just tired” is a convenient little cupboard into which we stuff loneliness, disappointment, anxiety and the vague feeling that something isn't quite right.

We don't always want to burden people. We don't want to be the person who brings down the mood. We worry that admitting we're struggling will change the way others see us.

So we keep the conversation light.

The irony is that the people we call friends may be doing exactly the same thing. Everyone is waiting for someone else to drop the act first.

We're like two people standing on opposite sides of a locked door, each convinced the other is too busy to open it.

And then we wonder why we're lonely.

This isn't an argument that every friendship must become a deep, emotionally revealing conversation. Some friendships are built on terrible jokes, shared interests and the ability to sit together without saying anything particularly meaningful. Those are valuable, too.

But we need a few relationships in which we don't have to make ourselves entertaining, successful or reassuring.

People with whom we can say, “I'm not doing very well,” without immediately adding, “But it's nothing, really.”

People who can hear the silence in our voice, not just the words in our message. Maybe we should make the first move!

We tend to talk about loneliness as though it is a problem someone else ought to solve.

The government should build better communities. Cities should be less isolating. Social media companies should stop turning our attention into a commodity. Families should spend more time together.

All fair points.

But perhaps we could start smaller.

Call the friend you've been meaning to call for six months. Not because Facebook reminded you it's their birthday, but because you genuinely want to know how they're doing.

When someone tells you they're struggling, resist the temptation to fix everything in the first thirty seconds. Sometimes people need advice. Sometimes they need someone to listen without turning their problem into a motivational speech.

And when you're not doing well yourself, consider telling someone you trust. Not everyone will respond perfectly. That's life. But give the people who care about you a chance to show up.

We don't have to turn every casual acquaintance into a lifelong confidant. We don't need a massive social circle or an elaborate programme for improving our relationships.

We need to pay attention to the people who matter, before an emergency reminds us that we've been taking them for granted.

So, how many friends do you really have?

I don't think the answer is the number displayed on your social media profile.

It isn't the number of people who like your photographs, remember your birthday or congratulate you when something goes well.

It's closer to the number of people with whom you can be honest when things don't.

And perhaps the better question is this: how many people in your life know that they can call you at two in the morning?

Because friendship isn't only about having someone to turn to. It's also about being someone another person can turn to, without feeling that they've interrupted something more important.

We can't always be available. We have responsibilities, boundaries, sleep schedules and, occasionally, the very reasonable desire to throw our phones into a lake.

But we can make room for each other.

We can stop confusing constant contact with closeness. We can stop waiting for the perfect time to reconnect. We can ask a second question after “How are you?” and mean it.

Four hundred and forty friends are a nice thing to have.

One person who knows when you're pretending to be fine is something else entirely.

And if your phone rings at two in the morning, perhaps the greatest measure of friendship isn't whether you answer.

It's whether the person on the other end felt they could call you in the first place. 

Which one are you?