One of the basic human needs is to be loved and feel like you belong. We do this by both "keeping in touch", "getting together". The usual assumption is that "g

One of the basic human needs is to be loved and feel like you belong. We do this by both "keeping in touch", "getting together". The usual assumption is that "getting together" is a higher quality way to meet these needs than "keeping in touch". Your smartphone represents almost everyone you know. In a face-to-face meeting, the ratio is precisely (n-1)/n. So if you both have 100 friends, realize that you're competing to meet the need of love and belonging against the 99 other people in their pocket, who can also give that to your friend with surprising effectiveness. (The argument generalizes: you are also competing against every stranger that's ever put anything online - the person who wrote that Wikipedia article or Yelp review has a call on your attention, too!)