As social media has made face-to-face contact more of a rarity, many other simple gestures have been deemed as odd, like showing human emotion and compassion, whether it be in friendships, relationships or your average day-to-day short interactions with others.

There has become a specific emphasis on being seen as “nonchalant” or a “loner,” where people don’t want to be seen as someone who actually cares about others or the actions of others.

I often see this kind of behavior in those who have been perhaps hurt or betrayed by someone in the past, but this kind of behavior is now often broadcast on social media and has since become some kind of flex.

It is now considered more rare to find someone who actually shows up and acknowledges their feelings about things. It is far too common in the relationships I see that someone does not want to tap into their emotions solely due to the fact that they want to appear “chill” or “cool” in some way.

Not only is this prevalent in deeper connections, I see it with humans trying to engage in small talk and even in my own experiences.

It is far too difficult now to make friends organically because a simple, “Hi, nice to meet you” has been deemed as “doing too much.”

However, I see this behavior more often in younger people, such as high-school-aged students, rather than in college. Students of that age are more likely to care about what their peers think and how they portray themselves to others online, so this doesn’t surprise me.

But despite it being perhaps less common in college, it is still somewhat of a trend. For example I have observed my peers in my classes making efforts to make friends with others by asking them little things like what their major is or where they’re from, only to be given incredibly dry and short responses back with no reciprocation and sometimes even sharp looks of judgment.

Of course, no one is obligated to match energy or be as responsive as we might like, but because of these kinds of constant short-lived interactions, it has become harder to make connections in real life and we are stuck behind a screen to talk to people in order to avoid “doing too much.”

Despite this, it is important to remember that it is not wrong to show emotion and to care to get to know those around us, especially in college. One compassionate interaction can go a long way, and acting like everyone around you is inherently weird for no objective reason does more harm than good; it separates us rather than brings us together. Forming new relationships can be scary at times, especially after being perhaps hurt in the past, but not every relationship will be that way. It is much harder to find a real connection by pretending like there are none left in the world, and there is no shame in showing you care about others and experiencing emotions; you may find it much easier to do that than to try and suppress yourself all the time.