Yes, yes, dear, but--

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2024/feb/02/prioritize-friend-relationships-loneliness-health

'...digital relations are not a substitute for “face-to-face, hip-to-hip get-togethers when two friends can leisurely connect and share – even spending time together saying nothing. Online friends can’t provide the type of caring and support from friends who live close by"'

Well, there's the little problem of 'living close by'. What if they don't? Then there's the bit about caring and support. In my less guarded youth I had those face-to-face, hip-to-hip friendships, which inevitably turned into 'you're so weird' or 'you're so insecure' or 'you're so depressed', after which I learned to keep my thoughts to myself and to get my support from therapists (who also took care of the depression.)

Things got better once I was in fandom where, like Hamlet's England, the (wo)men were as mad as me. Or as weird, rather. And an awful lot nicer than the mundanes I knew before. But fandom friends are scattered to the wind's twelve quarters and I doubt I'll find them among the oldsters of Seaton Village. Oh well. I'm sure Buddhism has some solution to this. All those monks in caves in Nepal seem not to suffer from their solitude.