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Buyer beware has always been a thing. It’s places the onus for being wise on the person buying products. It relieves all ethical considerations from the person marketing or selling a product. Loneliness has always been with us, but presently it is epidemic, significantly impacted by a pandemic and increased isolation.
Nothing Happens in a Vacuum
Of course, loneliness isn’t the result of the pandemic. Our society has been trending towards an increase in loneliness, which is ironic when you consider never in the history of the world have we had the potential for better connecting with others. Even Medium is a way of connecting. A person writes, someone leaves comment, we find a place or a dialogue. There is still a disconnect from others, being separated by a screen.
When you consider the tech and algorithms available for making analysis available to us in this modern age, one might imagine there is a way of introducing friends and potential partners in a very sophisticated way. An app or website that is sophisticated, but genuinely geared towards the things humans need most, interaction with others, is just not available regardless of the number of success stories they may pitch their services with. You might say these apps exist, but even the free ones aren’t free, and there is an underlying, psychological and sociological trap to them that may keep people in perpetual search mode as they search for the ‘ideal’ other. There is always an ideal other. One can always, theoretically do better. The fact that we as a…