Outer Circle of Life

Tech may have done a number on democracy and induced screentime related rage in your household, but it’s been pretty effective at enabling you to maintain contact with your inner circle of friends and family. (The mute button has had its great moments as well.) But what about the people you used to see here and there, on occasion, or every day, that you know, but that you don’t really know. Amanda Mull in The Atlantic: There’s a reason you miss the people you didn’t even know that well. “Understandably, much of the energy directed toward the problems of pandemic social life has been spent on keeping people tied to their families and closest friends. These other relationships have withered largely unremarked on after the places that hosted them closed. The pandemic has evaporated entire categories of friendship, and by doing so, depleted the joys that make up a human life—and buoy human health. But that does present an opportunity. In the coming months, as we begin to add people back into our lives, we’ll now know what it’s like to be without them.” (On the flip side, once you have a chance to spend time away from your family, you might not want to go back home for a while.)