I hear you younger people saying how many friends they have on

Host: The city café was alive with the hum of screens — blue light flickering across faces, the soft tap of fingers dancing across glass instead of conversation. The air smelled faintly of espresso, rain, and disconnection. In the corner, Jack sat with his phone glowing in his hand, its reflection ghosting across his tired eyes.

Host: Across from him, Jeeny set down her cup of tea and watched him scroll — the endless, mindless flicker of digital faces. The sound of muted laughter from nearby tables filled the space between them, hollow as canned applause. On the napkin by her saucer, she had written a quote that she slid toward him.

“I hear you younger people saying how many friends they have on the Internet. That’s nonsense. That’s not friends, that’s acquaintances. The word ‘friendship’ has lost its significance.”
— Ruth Westheimer

Jeeny: “She’s right, you know,” she said softly. “We’ve made friendship a currency — something to collect, not to feel.”

Jack: glancing up briefly “Come on. Times change. Connections change. It’s not worse — just different.”

Jeeny: “Different?” she echoed, her eyebrows arching slightly. “You call that friendship — a list of names on a screen? People who vanish the second you stop performing?”

Jack: “You sound like my mother,” he muttered, scrolling again.

Jeeny: “And you sound like someone who’s afraid of silence.”

Host: The light from his phone flickered across his face, casting him in pale, artificial glow. He locked the screen and set it down, almost defensively.

Jack: “Look, it’s not all fake. I’ve met real people online. Friends. People who listen.”

Jeeny: “They listen,” she said, “but do they hear you? Do they notice the pauses in your voice, the way your hands shake when you’re lying, the difference between your laughter and your deflection?”

Jack: “Not everyone needs to sit across from someone to care.”

Jeeny: “No, but everyone needs to be seen to be understood. And a pixel can’t hold that weight.”

Host: The café’s door opened, letting in a gust of cold wind and a handful of new voices. The rain outside softened the edges of the city, the way nostalgia softens the edges of truth.

Jack: “You know, for someone who believes in empathy, you’re being pretty judgmental.”

Jeeny: “No,” she said. “I just miss what friendship used to mean. When it wasn’t about likes or messages or streaks. When it was about time. About choosing someone again and again — not because an algorithm reminded you, but because your soul did.”

Jack: “Maybe you’re romanticizing it. Every generation says the same thing — that the new one’s lost the meaning of connection.”

Jeeny: “And maybe they’re right every time.”

Host: A brief silence. The kind that hums with meaning. The kind the digital world never allows to exist long enough to matter.

Jeeny: “Tell me, Jack — how many of your friends know the sound of your silence?”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “The sound you make when you’re not okay but too proud to say it. Do they know that sound?”

Jack: “You think real friends have to see your breakdowns?”

Jeeny: “No,” she said quietly. “But they should be close enough to feel them.”

Host: The rain outside grew heavier, tracing trembling lines down the window. Their reflections appeared side by side in the glass — two outlines blurred by condensation and light.

Jack: “You know, maybe Ruth Westheimer didn’t get it. Maybe friendship has just evolved. Maybe it’s not about proximity anymore. Maybe it’s about presence — in any form.”

Jeeny: “Presence isn’t the same as attention, Jack. You can be everywhere and nowhere at once — like a ghost haunting your own social feed.”

Jack: “You sound like a sermon.”

Jeeny: “Maybe sermons used to sound like conversations.”

Host: He looked down at his phone again, thumb hesitating over the glowing screen. Notifications blinked: new messages, new tags, new noise. He turned it over, face down. The silence that followed felt heavier — raw, human.

Jack: “Okay,” he said slowly. “So let’s say you’re right. Let’s say friendship means less now. What do we do? Stop reaching out? Go live in a cave?”

Jeeny: “No. We reach closer, not farther. We talk like this. We sit across from each other and say the things we’d usually type. We remember that friendship was never meant to be convenient — it was meant to be chosen.”

Jack: “And when people stop choosing?”

Jeeny: “Then you stop confusing acquaintance with love.”

Host: Her words lingered in the air — sharp, true, necessary. The hum of the café dimmed beneath their gravity.

Jack: “You think the word ‘friendship’ has lost its meaning?”

Jeeny: “No. I think we’ve stopped living up to it.”

Host: He exhaled slowly, the faintest hint of shame — or realization — crossing his face. He reached for his coffee, the warmth grounding him back in the physical world.

Jack: “Maybe I’ve forgotten what it feels like,” he said quietly. “To really be someone’s friend.”

Jeeny: “Then remember,” she said. “Start by listening — not scrolling.”

Host: A faint smile flickered across his lips — the fragile kind that carries both apology and hope.

Jack: “You know,” he said, “Dr. Ruth might have been onto something. We keep inventing new ways to connect, but all we really do is invent new ways to be alone together.”

Jeeny: “Exactly,” she said. “The tragedy of our age: hyper-connected souls, emotionally offline.”

Host: Outside, the rain slowed to a drizzle. Inside, for the first time all evening, they didn’t speak — and it wasn’t awkward. It was communion. The old kind. The kind you don’t tweet about.

Host: In that quiet, the truth of Ruth Westheimer’s words shimmered like a candle flame — small, steady, defiant:

“That’s not friends, that’s acquaintances. The word ‘friendship’ has lost its significance.”

Host: And maybe, sitting there in the soft light of screens gone dark, two people remembering what real presence feels like,
the word began — slowly, quietly — to mean something again.

Host: Because friendship is not measured in followers,
but in the stillness that two souls can share
without needing Wi-Fi,
without needing words —
just the courage to be.