In early 2020, I was already on the brink of living a life without many friends. Then came COVID-19, which pushed me into the abyss. Weeks turned to months, and months turned to years.

My wife was climbing the walls, anxious at not being able to socialize with her friends. All the while, I was becoming more and more comfortable with being alone, apart, even anti-social. I stayed connected to a few people through phone calls, and video conferencing. But, as time went on, I missed the direct physical contact of work lunches or neighborhood parties less and less. It got to the point where, eventually, I craved the quiet and isolation of being locked up.

In the past five years, a lot has changed for me—and I would imagine, for the whole country. In the same way that living through a pandemic conditioned Americans to cope with not being able to visit libraries, museums, or movie theaters (and now that those places have reopened, many of them haven’t found their way back), many Americans have learned to live without friends. A lot of us have become more “friend optional.” Or at least we don’t feel compelled to collect as many friends as possible—as a way of measuring our worth—the way some people used to do before COVID-19 turned our lives upside down.