You were expecting people to meet you during a pandemic? Or am I misunderstanding?
I have friends who work at the CDC that I saw regularly during the pandemic (outdoors, distanced, and masked when necessary).
In person interactions are okay too. I hung out with lots of friends who frequently tested and limited their encounters to those who took the same precautions and none of us caught Corona.
I doubt more than a handful actually thought that
Partially because having been dropped by a few "friends" in my childhood though.
- had you at a disadvantage but never exploited it
- someone who helps you move a couch and a desk
- lend a book to and always get it back
- lend a small amount of money to and always get it back
- leave something at their place and they tell you about it
- can count on them for a couch if you get locked-out
The closest of friends:
- you would kill for them and vice-versa
- you trust them implicitly with everything: secrets, material, and family
- you could be mistaken for family and/or your families blend together to where no one can really tell who-is-with-who
Traditionally these bonds came about through other things like neighbors, communities and religion, but people are constantly moving for work, and society is more pluralistic (and secular) than ever so most don't begin to lay roots until they have a spouse in these roots aren't being laid, and there hasn't really been anything new that fills that gap outside of where you work.
What Covid showed me was that nearly all of my friends were people I had friendly working relationships with. A ton of my friends were from church where we served in different capacities together and enjoyed working together. And I had a lot of similar relationships at work. But with stay at home covid, I found that I didn't yearn to see these people still. I'm glad when we do stuff together, we enjoy doing so. But I don't miss them. And I found there was a small handful of people that were worth making the effort to actually go on socially distanced walks or whatever to still just hang out.
I am never going back to that super busy over programmed life style where my friends are just the people it's best to get along with friends-like because you're together a lot.
This sounds like a sunk-cost fallacy to me. You've already pointed out that friendship length isn't correlated with friendship quality.
Many people this past year were terrified and traumatized.
We talk if "normal stuff" (including the Pandemic) for 10-15 minutes top at the start, especially while waiting for everybody to get online, then we play for two hours straight. Voice only, no video. It's a Fantasy campaign so it's pure escapism. It sorta worked so far.
Some others would be out gallivanting every day (per their socials) and yet couldn't find a half an hour to hang out. I gave up on those. No loss.
In 2020, the US was dealing with the stress of a pandemic and also the most anxiety-inducing election season in modern history.
Some people dealt with it by totally shutting down or narrowing their circles. It wasn't personal.
I had some 'friends' who I knew for 10+ years who couldn't spare a single minute over the past 1.5 years to go for a walk or have a coffee outside. As someone who was there for them at various points in life, all I could think of was "really, you know I live alone and don't have an SO like you do, did it seriously never cross your mind how lonely it's been for me?" Unless I made the umpteenth trip to visit him/her, they would make zero effort.
I also had friends including those who just had newborns who made the time every single week to jump on a zoom call just to say hi and to keep each others spirits up.
I probably won't let it destroy the friendships because what is 1.5 years compared to 10+, but at the same time, I'd be lying if I said it was easy to forget.