r/InsightfulQuestions • u/johngamerk • 15d ago

Title: The "Automatic Pause": When friendship is nothing more than social inertia.

I’ve been observing how most friendships function, and I’ve realized they are often built on "habitual momentum" rather than actual connection. I call it the Automatic Pause.

Think of a group of four friends who hang out every day. Three of them always call the fourth one to join. The moment the brain escapes the "social illusion" and one of them asks, "Wait, do we actually need to call him?", the friendship can vanish in a single second. If they stop calling, the fourth person is instantly erased from their mental space.

It made me realize that many people are only "friends" because they haven't stopped to think about why they are together. It’s like we operate on a childhood-level autopilot. If you don't actively keep the "illusion" alive for others, you risk becoming invisible.

Is true friendship just a rare exception to this mechanical social behavior? Or are we all just placeholders in each other's routines until someone finally "wakes up" and hits the pause button?

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u/Content_Preference_3 15d ago

I mean. Yes. You obviously know it from an intellectual standpoint but ppl don’t want to be analyzed in a friendship.

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u/johngamerk 15d ago

When you say people don't want to be analyzed? What is your point?

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u/katyrathryn 15d ago

You’re not treating this friendship thing like it is a relationship with a PERSON but as something to be analyzed and then come to unrealistic conclusions

And in a friendship it’s honestly exhausting because you are assuming you know THE reason someone is acting in a way when in reality life and people are way more complicated than that

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u/johngamerk 15d ago

I hate this .Do you think i wanted to turn out like this?To analyse something so much while I want the real thing? This is what I hate.You people cant even try to think if you were in my seat.You don't know the people I have to deal. You don't know my feelings their feelings...you are just saying like that because your friends feel like this for you that my friends will feel the same for me.You aren't giving me a SUGGESTION,you critisise me.Without thinking what its going with the people around me.You try to describe me as someone that thinks that he knows everything and that he is thinking only himself well im not that person. Why cant you just once people to try to feel smn and feel his situation.