We know too many people. @alisoneroman
Summary
A straphanger drops a modern truth bomb: we know too many people. She follows 2,400 accounts on Instagram, mostly furniture brands and vintage shops, but admits her brain is still overwhelmed by strangers' morning routines. Kareem agrees, though he thinks the problem is knowing too many people in real life rather than online. The conversation spirals into the absurdity of keeping up with acquaintances' Italy trips and whether we should adopt a "no new friends" policy. The rider insists there's no real solution except collective awareness. Maybe we should stop going to dinner with new people and call an old friend instead. Both agree: we know too many people.
Full Transcript
So, what's your take? We know too many people.
100% agree. We know way too many people.
We're only meant to know like 10. Our brains are so full of people that we don't need to know about that I can't function at a normal level because I know about like a person's morning routine. People that I've never met, will never meet, and don't care to know.
Oh, see I think we know too many people in real life.
But that's a privilege of being like a cool person in New York, but I'm saying even the average person.
How many people do you follow on Instagram? As little as possible. It's mostly like furniture brands.
300? No, more. 30,000?
Do you want me to look?
Yeah, pull it up.
Okay, 2,400. Too many people. It is too many people. I'm in a call right now, too. I'm in a call, but it is honestly a lot of like house accounts and like vintage furniture and like I'm I'm doing it for inspiration. There's also a lot of muted people.
Oh.
It's not personal. It's just that I don't need to see everything that you're doing.
Am I muted? No, you're not muted.
Do you know how much better my work would be if my brain wasn't so full of people and what the hell they're doing all the time?
You know what I hate when somebody comes up to me and they go, "Hey, how was Italy?" You will stop going to Italy all the god damn time. You've been like eight times this year for Christmas.
No, I've only been twice.
Okay, well the average person knows too many people. Like on TV, on their phones. Like we are bombarded with other people constantly. I have a cut off. People are like, "Do you know this this new musician?" I go, "Never heard of him."
It's very no new friends. Like no new people.
There's no real solution to this problem.
You know what the solution is? Awareness. That you know too many people.
That you know too many people. I think if we collectively as a society agree that we know too many people that we can start to be like, "You know what? Instead of going to dinner with somebody new, call an old friend."
And if both people know that we know too many people, then they meet and they go, "Yeah. We don't need to know each other." I do enjoy the human experience and I do think that, you know, expansiveness is beautiful and we do enrich ourselves by meeting all sorts of people, but we know too many people. We know too many people.