I’ve always been a talker. A chatter. A gabber. Yet somewhere along the line, I just… stopped calling my friends. There are plenty of theories about why millennials and Gen Z dislike phone calls, from full-blown telephobia to a preference for the convenience of texting. But I’m not against phone calls: as a paid-up member of the “sorry, just saw this!” WhatsApp club, I actually much prefer them to texts.

The boring truth is that I just don’t feel the need to ring my closest friends very often. Most of them live in London, like me, and we’re all still child-free (for now). Social media and WhatsApp provide me with daily snapshots of their lives, and when we want to catch up in person, we do. Why would I need to call them?

At 31, though, I’ve noticed the gaps getting wider between face-to-face catch-ups with certain friends. Some are moving to far-flung boroughs to get on the property ladder; others are disappearing into romantic relationship bubbles or dedicating all the hours of the day to exponentially more demanding jobs (sadly but unsurprisingly, one major analysis of US data in 2017 found people generally spend less time with friends as they move through their 30s). Many of us are also cutting down on socialising to save money amid the cost of living crisis. I’ve never taken my platonic relationships for granted, but I’m starting to see how they require more active effort as you get older.