I didn’t realize what we had in those early years—until the day-to-day closeness quietly disappeared.

Recently, I was able to reconnect with two classmates from my formative years—one from high school and another from my university days. That prompted me to think about why those relationships still mattered to me and why I felt drawn to reconnect.

Though I lived in the country, our town was small, and we knew most people. I entered town school from a very rural school in the third grade, and nearly all of my class cohort stayed together until graduation. Life itself was close together. Churches, stores, ballfields—even the movie theater—were all nearby. You saw the same people you went to school within those places, if not every day, then sometime during the week—at the local Dairy Maid or somewhere else in town.

The same pattern followed me to the university. My fellow engineering and pre-med students were together not only in classes and dorms, but at ballgames, theaters, and places to eat. We were nearly always together—and rarely alone. At the time, none of this felt remarkable—it was simply how life was lived.

I reconnected with those classmates because the time we once shared had quietly deepened our relationships. During those years, we didn’t have to make time for one another. It happened naturally. We were in the same places, involved in the same activities, and moving through life side by side. We didn’t have to constantly plan to be together.

When my wife and I were first married, we lived in the West. Life there was informal and casual—much like the environments where we had both grown up. After church, it was routine to ask, “Whose house are we going to after church?” No planning. No scheduling. Just presence.

Then we moved to a large metropolitan city. My wife cried for two years. We had to make reservations—sometimes one to two months in advance—just to be with anyone. At first, I attributed this to cultural differences. But over time, I began to see that it was deeper than that.

Everyone had demanding jobs in different parts of the city. Few of us knew our neighbors. Meals were often eaten at fast-food restaurants, or reservations were required just to sit down together. Our children attended different schools across the suburbs. Childcare and sporting events were spread across multiple locations. Life was becoming more rushed—and at the same time, more scheduled.

It became apparent our life was becoming extremely fragmented.  My work was in one location and emphasis. My wife’s teaching position was at another location and emphasis.  Our interest in sail boating was entirely with different people, vocabularies, and place.  By this time Saturday was not a leisure time with friends but a time to run necessary errands at stores with clerks I didn’t now. Church was the only place with some time to develop friendships.

Martha and I have always enjoyed having people in our home for a meal and fellowship together. By necessity, however, these gatherings had to be heavily scheduled. It is easy to say, “Come to our house soon.” But “soon” rarely finds its way onto the calendar—and is easily postponed.

When time is short, children have schedules to keep, and one is tired anyway, it becomes difficult to have time for friends. It’s not that we stopped wanting friends; it’s that life stopped giving us the time needed to develop those relationships adequately.

Today, when you are in a gathering—a doctor’s office, a restaurant, a sporting event, or even sometimes in church—what do you see? Everyone is on a screen instead of actually talking to one another. Our lives are constantly interrupted by phones and screens. We are always “present,” but not really there.

As someone who helped develop this technology and uses it every day, I have even conducted seminars on how to optimize it. I often asked my professional students where in their lives they were going to let its use dominate.”

The problems we observe in our lives—loneliness, the absence of shared meals in our homes, distraction by devices, work stress, reluctance to commit time, and the thinning of deep friendships—are all part of a larger issue. It is a crisis of emotional connectedness. We no longer feel truly known, emotionally supported, or able to trust one another. When life becomes fragmented and little time is allowed or committed to relationships, they slowly erode and, eventually, disappear.

If we hope to recover what has been lost, it may begin with something as simple as sharing meals together in our homes—not in restaurants. More broadly, perhaps we need to ask ourselves which matters more: people or the other things that fill our lives. How might we choose to make time with others in ways that foster deeper connection?