SF techie rants: everyone plays 4D social chess, ghosting is about infinite optionality

amplifiedamp · x · 2026-09-09

A long rant from someone embedded in the San Francisco scene on its social culture: everyone is playing 4D social chess while pretending to just hang out, virtue-signaling for the privilege of human connection—acting important while seeming too busy to care.

The ghosting, the author argues, isn't about being busy but about maintaining infinite optionality: people believe everything is happening and keep all options open, so they commit to nothing. Roughly 4-5 real connections emerge from 50 interactions, and even those feel tenuous—people the author has known for over a year ghost meetup requests. "I don't know if they're busy or just pretending to like me."

Original post →

More from Fun

Fun channel →