Interesting. I have been in two places since 2007. As such, the onus was on me to visit friends when I was coincident in space and time with them. No I can't come to breakfast I'm a thousand miles away thanks for thinking of me. Yes let's absolutely get together the next time I'm in town.

From a friendship perspective, COVID has been more of an extended business trip than anything else - no I can't get together with you because obviously I can't we'll get together when we can. My methods for keeping in touch with people are fundamentally unchanged because the added impediment of COVID is functionally identical to the added impediment of business travel.

We have a couple friends in their 60s and 70s who we used to see regularly and we don't now because my wife is a vector and they have compromised health. That sucks. But we did two full hours of Zoom over Thanksgiving which really served to highlight how much we miss them. Frankly, I'm closer to several people now because there's no impetus to get off the phone - we won't talk about this the next time we get together because we can't plan to get together so sure I've got 20 minutes for you to tell me about reselling your house. And frankly, I appear to be a "leading health expert" as far as lots of my acquaintances are concerned so plenty of people call or text me far more often than they used to.

Attempting to exist in the Hollywood ecosystem teaches you (often explicitly) to treat your friends transactionally and view each interaction as an opportunity for advancement. It's terrible and mercenary but if you strip away the awfulness you're left with "if you want something out of your friends you need to call your friends" and also teaches you "if you call up your friends without needing anything out of them you move to the head of the line because nobody remembers how to do that anymore."

You never regret lunch. Since we can't do lunch right now, you never regret texting. Or just reaching out. Or just answering questions.

I appreciate you bringing this up. It's given me a thankfulness for my situation.