I get sick to the stomach whenever I look around and once again realize that nothing feels entirely real anymore. I find it very difficult to explain without sounding exaggerated.
“People have disappeared”…
Not literally, but if anything, there are more people than ever, more gatherings, more events, more spaces where interaction should naturally happen. And yet, something about those spaces feels hollow, as though the presence of people no longer guarantees connection.
Really, I have tried to understand it without rushing to conclusions. It would be easy to say that things have simply changed, that every generation feels this way at some point, that maybe this is just another phase of societal evolution. But the feeling does not go away that something has shifted. It shows up in my every day small observations that repeat themselves too consistently to ignore.
At events that are meant to be social, people are physically present but mentally elsewhere. Conversations feel brief, transactional, almost like obligations rather than genuine exchanges. There is less curiosity, less openness, less willingness to engage beyond surface-level interactions. Even in spaces that are designed for celebration, people are no longer spontaneous. The energy feels controlled, curated, almost rehearsed.
And it makes me pause, very hard. Like “Hold Up!!!” kind of pause.
Not because I expect perfection from people, but because I remember that it did not always feel this way.
There used to be a kind of ease in interaction. Present enough that it felt natural. People laughed more freely. They moved more freely. They existed in shared spaces without the constant awareness of being observed, evaluated, or compared. That ease seems to have been replaced by something more restrained, more calculated.
It is difficult to ignore the role that our digitally-optimized lives plays in this shift. Social media has become more than a tool; it has become a primary environment for many people. It shapes how people present themselves, how they perceive others, and how they measure their own lives. The problem is not simply that it exists, but that it has begun to replace something more fundamental.
Real presence.
There is a difference between being connected and being in proximity. One can sit in a room full of people and still feel completely detached if there is no genuine exchange taking place. And increasingly, that seems to be the case. People maintain connections online with remarkable consistency, yet struggle to sustain the same level of presence in physical spaces.
What is more unsettling is how normalized this has become.
There is little resistance to it. Little acknowledgment that something might be missing. It is as though everyone has collectively adjusted to a lower standard of connection without explicitly agreeing to it. And in that adjustment, something important has been lost.
I’m not entirely comfortable with the question I’m about to ask… But here it goes:
Is it the world that has changed, or is it my perception of it?
Because there is always the possibility that what feels like clarity is simply a different form of bias. That what appears to be disconnection is actually just a shift in how connection is expressed. That what feels like absence is simply unfamiliarity.
But even with that possibility in mind, the feeling remains.
There is a gap between what interaction looks like and what it used to feel like. A gap between presence and engagement. A gap between being seen and being known.
And existing within that gap creates a certain tension.
It makes it difficult to fully relax into social environments, because there is a constant awareness that something is missing, even if it cannot always be defined. It creates moments where I question whether I am expecting too much, or whether I am simply noticing something that others have chosen to ignore.
Perhaps the most unsettling part is the possibility that this is not temporary.
That this may simply be the direction things are moving.
And if that is the case, then the real challenge is not trying to change it entirely, but learning how to exist within it without losing a sense of what genuine connection actually feels like.
Because if that is lost, then everything else begins to feel like a performance.
And performance, no matter how well executed, cannot replace presence.
