MOTD (Message of The Day)
Welcome to Signed, A Friend — a newsletter where I attempt to name something many of us feel but don’t always say out loud: it’s hard to make and keep friends as an adult, and it’s hurting us.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship — not the kind forged in college dorms or over late-night bar shifts, but the kind that’s harder to find and hold onto as we get older. As someone approaching 50, raising a child, and working in tech, I’ve noticed how easy it is to fall into isolation, even while staying endlessly connected online. Life’s demands—career, parenting, caregiving, moving, starting over — have a way of crowding out the relationships that once grounded us. But the need for connection doesn’t disappear with age; if anything, it deepens.
Research keeps sounding the alarm — loneliness is linked to higher rates of depression, cognitive decline, even early death. And yet it’s still often treated like a personal failing instead of a public health issue or a cultural blind spot. I want to explore that here: what friendship looks like now, why it matters, and how we might rebuild it — one real conversation at a time.
What I'm Reading
This month I’m reading “You Will Find Your People” by Lane Moore (2003). If you want to read along and share in the discussion, you can do that in 1 or 2 ways:
You can subscribe to this newsletter and join our paid subscribers group chat
You can join the book club over on Fable (you should get $5 off the book if you buy it via the club)
Below are some excerpts I’ve highlighted in my own copy. I’ve never read any of Lane Moore’s work before, so this is new ground for me — but I’m enjoying it so far and would love to hear what you think of it as well.
No More Fake Friends
I made a post on a public forum recently and thought it would be interesting to expand on it here. The post was this:
AI agents are sold as companions, but they don’t experience the same toll as you
Products like “Friend” are sold as just that — friends — but don’t actually build friendship with you
Chat LLMs can know about you but can forget about you with the click of a button
I want to work on the side of AI and tech that brings people closer in meaningful, substantive ways
No more fake friends
Someone in my network brought up an app called Tolan, and in the interest of calling out these sorts of “fake friend” products, let’s take a closer look at what Tolan is — and more importantly, what it’s not.
Meet Tolan, a “companion AI designed to understand you deeply — not to trap you in your screen, but to help you feel grounded, get things done, and connect more meaningfully with yourself and the world.”
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But here’s the problem: AI can’t truly be a companion; it can only be a simulation of companionship. Finding you a deli sandwich is an assistant — not a companion.
Tolan can never be a true companion because it lacks:
Mutuality: True companionship requires reciprocity.
Shared lived experience: You can’t go through life with an AI the way you can with a human — or even a pet.
Empathy: AI can mimic understanding, but it doesn’t feel anything. Its “care” is performative, not experiential.
Tolan isn’t a replacement — it’s a proxy. It lacks the core of true companionship: mutual presence, vulnerability, and shared meaning.
It’s important that in this pursuit for real friendship we recognize and call out these distractions and detours and name them for what they are: fake friends.
What I'm Building
Beyond reading and thinking about adult friendship and loneliness, I’m also trying to build something to address it.
Introducing: Yenta — https://yenta.chat/ a voice-first social networker, not a face-first social network.
Privately, you (and everyone else) tell Yenta about yourself and what’s important to you. You can share as much or as little as you feel comfortable with — and that’s it. Yenta will scour her network and find people you’d likely hit it off with. They might be nearby or far away, depending on your comfort level. But it’ll be a guaranteed match, and when both you and your new friend consent to sharing your info, Yenta will make the introduction.
’ll share more as development continues, but for now, anyone can register their interest in getting on Yenta’s friend list early by signing up at https://yenta.chat/
Something To Leave You With
Maybe a bit of a tangent, but I’ll leave you today with a song. Honestly, I hadn’t heard this band since university, but it brought back such fond memories of the friendships I had then. Bonding over something as simple as taste seemed much easier back then.
I’d love to hear about the music that takes you back to those old days and old relationships.
Hope you’re doing well. I’m looking forward to talking again soon.
Signed, A Friend