[apsurd]

What's actually being said is that these people are not your friends/family and probably shouldn't be.

That definitely sounds harsher than intended. It's a meditation really. Nobody needs FB and Instagram. (please read as a meditation)

[TFNA]

Everyone is free to define “need” and who their friends should be as strictly as they want, because, sure, some people could become total hermits. But it’s not going to strike most people as a reasonable definition.

You mention “FB and Instagram”, and I haven’t used either in a decade myself. But the OP did mention “Meta products” and you are ignoring the elephant in the room: WhatsApp. In many countries it has completely replaced the PSTN: you cannot contact a business (they won’t answer normal calls and may not post email addresses), cannot get the necessary info on how to check into the reception-less accommodation one booked, and one will find it hard to maintain contact with people one may well wish to maintain contact with.

[Larrikin]

"just don't meet people because they don't communicate via your one specific method"

[skillina]

That statement applies to the person who won't be your friend because you don't have an Instagram, not to the person who refuses to install an arbitrary app as a precondition to becoming friends.

[komali2]

There's friends and there's friends.

Someone might be perfectly happy being your friend, and not understanding why you never come to their parties that they advertise via the group chat on whatever platform, or insta posts or whatever.

"If they cared enough they would message me directly on my obscure to normies messaging platform!" Yeah your best friend might. The greater social circle?

I get it, I'm trying to get everyone on signal or onto federated platforms, but I'm realizing that if I wanna talk to The People, I need to go to where The People are.

[isolatedsystem]

There was an old YouTube video of a young guy standing around somewhere in East Asia, placards in hand, recording himself showing messages on those placards about why you should quit social media, set to Marching The Hate Machines.

It had a placard in it saying something like "You don't have 100 friends. You have like 4. And that's OK."

The more I'm getting older, the truer this has become. There is something extremely zen-like about letting the past trail away like the wake of a ship, as Watts said.

In an ideal world, those people were dear to me, and me to them, and we would all stay in touch and be one big happy family, n'importe the distance. But it takes plenty out of me just to be there for those that matter most. And for them, putting up with my quirks is burdensome but not an unscalable wall. As it is for me with their quirks in reverse.