I was sat on the night bus the other evening, headphones half in, half out, watching this bloke across the aisle scroll through his phone like it held the secrets of the universe. Every few seconds his thumb would pause, he’d grin at something, type a quick reply, then go right back to the endless flicking. The bus rattled through Hackney and I thought, well, there it is. The modern way of keeping people close. Or at least the modern way of pretending we are.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some old soul who hates technology. I live in East London, I work in a bank full of under-twenty-fives who speak fluent emoji, and I can swipe with the best of them when the mood takes me. But somewhere along the line we started measuring connection by the number of little hearts under a photo or how fast someone replies to a story. And I keep finding myself wondering if any of that noise actually fills the quiet bits of a proper friendship.
Real connection, the kind that sits in your chest like a warm cuppa on a cold morning, has never needed an audience. It shows up when the lights are off and the filters are gone. It turns up with a greasy bag of chips and a shrug when you’ve just had the kind of day that makes you want to hide under the duvet for a week. No grand speeches. No Instagram story about being a good friend. Just presence. Silence if that’s what you need. A takeaway if your fridge is empty and your brain is too tired to care.
I learned that early, growing up in Basildon. Sundays were sacred, still are. Every other week I still hop on the train home for roast and the usual chaos. My mum doesn’t ask how many likes my last post got. She asks if I’ve eaten properly and whether that boy from last month is still around. My dad just grunts and passes the gravy. The cousins take the mick, the dog steals the best bit of Yorkshire pudding, and somehow by the time I’m on the train back I feel lighter. That’s the kind of connection that doesn’t need updating every hour. It’s just there, solid as the table we all crowd round.
Out here in the city it’s easier to lose track of that. People collect friends the way some collect trainers. A new match on an app, a shared meme in a group chat, a quick coffee that never turns into anything deeper. I’ve watched colleagues at the bank do it. They’ll laugh together in the kitchen about some viral video, then freeze someone out the second the numbers don’t look good. Surface level, shiny, disposable. I keep my work face on for that lot. Stern when I need to be, quiet when the drama kicks off. Because the real ones, the ones who’ve earned a permanent seat at my table, are few and carefully chosen.
There’s this mate of mine, let’s call her Jess. We’ve known each other since we were both still living at home and dreaming of bigger things. A few months back she went through a proper rough patch. Break-up, job stress, the works. Most people would have sent a string of crying face emojis and a “here if you need me” message that means nothing. I turned up at hers with a bottle of wine, a bag of Maltesers, and zero expectation of conversation. We sat on her sofa in our onesies watching some rubbish reality show. She cried a bit. I handed her tissues and the remote. We barely spoke for two hours. When she finally said, “Thanks for not trying to fix it,” I just shrugged and said, “That’s what the good ones do, innit.” No performance. No need to post about it later. Just two people who already knew the score.
That’s the bit I find myself protecting more and more. The quiet solidarity. The ability to sit in the same room and only speak if the silence starts feeling heavy. My circle is tiny on purpose. Once you’re in, you’re proper in. I don’t care if we go weeks without speaking as long as when the call comes, or the knock at the door, I’m there with whatever is needed. Food. A movie. A walk along the canal while the world keeps spinning too fast around us. The rest of the noise can stay online where it belongs.
I get the appeal of the likes, I really do. There’s a little hit of something when the notifications light up. Feels like proof you exist, that people are paying attention. But it fades so quick. One minute you’re on top of the world because fifty people double-tapped your sunset photo. Next minute you’re refreshing the screen wondering why the number hasn’t gone higher. It’s exhausting if you let it be. I’ve watched friends get caught in that loop, comparing their real lives to everyone else’s highlight reel, and ending up lonelier than when they started. Meanwhile the person who would actually sit with them through the boring Tuesday nights is left on read because the chat feels less exciting than the public performance.
Sarcasm comes easy when I look at it. We’ve got more ways to stay in touch than any generation before us, and somehow we’re worse at it. We can send a voice note from the other side of the planet in seconds, yet most of us still struggle to say the hard things face to face. We post about mental health awareness one day and ignore the mate who’s clearly struggling the next. It’s all a bit backwards if you ask me. I’d rather have three people who know the sound of my actual laugh than three hundred who only know the version I edit for the grid.
There’s a stubborn part of me that refuses to give up on the ideal of it. Call me soft, call me old-fashioned, I don’t mind. I still believe the best friendships are the ones that survive the quiet seasons. The ones where you can go months without a proper catch-up and still pick up exactly where you left off because the foundation never shifted. No keeping score. No needing constant proof. Just a steady knowing that if the floor drops out from under you, someone will turn up with silence or a takeaway or both.
I see it in the little things. The friend who texts a random photo of a dog in a jumper because she knows it’ll make me smile on a rubbish afternoon. The one who remembers I hate coriander and orders my food accordingly without being asked. The rare soul who can sit through my running commentary on whatever trash TV we’re watching and still want to hang out again next week. Those are the connections worth holding onto with both hands. Everything else is just noise dressed up as company.
Living in a city that never properly sleeps makes it harder and more important at the same time. East London is full of people passing through, chasing the next thing, collecting experiences like stamps. It’s easy to get swept along. I catch myself sometimes, phone in hand, about to fire off a quick like or a fire emoji just to stay visible. Then I put it down and remind myself that the people who matter already know where to find me. They don’t need the public version. They get the barefoot, hoodie-wearing, slightly sweary, affectionate version that only comes out when the performance is over.
There’s a happiness in that protection. A quiet, stubborn joy in knowing my real world is small and solid. It leaves room for the soft bits. The late-night talks that go nowhere important. The shared look across a crowded room that says “this is mental, isn’t it” without a single word. The comfort of someone who has seen you at your least polished and still chooses to stay. That kind of loyalty doesn’t trend. It doesn’t need a hashtag. It just keeps showing up, year after year, takeaway in hand when the heart is heavy and the words have run out.
I think about the alternative sometimes and it makes me laugh. Imagine measuring every friendship by engagement rates. “Sorry love, your reply time is down twenty percent this month, we’re going to have to let you go.” Ridiculous. Yet that’s the energy a lot of online spaces run on. Constant output. Constant proof. No space for the quiet seasons where life is just ordinary and you need someone who doesn’t mind the ordinary. Give me the friend who will watch three episodes of something terrible with me and only speak to point out how fake the drama is. Give me the one who knows when to talk and when to pass the biscuits. That’s the stuff that lasts.
At the end of the day I keep coming back to the same simple truth. The world can keep its noise and its numbers. I’ll keep the small circle that doesn’t need either. The ones who turn up. The ones who stay. The ones who understand that sometimes the kindest thing you can offer is a bit of silence and a bag of chips. Everything else is just scrolling past. Real connection sits still. It waits. And when you need it most, it is already there, no performance required, no audience needed, just the steady warmth of knowing you are not alone in the quiet bits.
That is the part I refuse to trade. Not for likes, not for followers, not for any of the shiny temporary things that fill the feed. I’ll take the real ones every time. The ones who show up with whatever is needed and never ask for a public thank you. Because in a world that never stops talking, the people who know how to be quiet with you are the rarest and most precious of the lot. And once you’ve found them, you hold on. Properly. No filters. No fuss. Just the kind of loyalty that doesn’t need explaining.
