To misquote the basis of the Anna Karenina principle : good friendships are all alike; every bad friendship is bad in its own way. I cannot help but feel a significant shift in the nature of friendships over the years. I am not referring to the manner in which our approach towards these relationships changes as we grow older. That change is natural enough, and therefore, inevitable. Nor am I willing to subscribe to the increasingly common opinion of dystopians who blame the apparent decline in the quality of friendships on social media, which in fact, if used wisely, ends up saving many acquaintances which may otherwise sink into oblivion. Social media is no more a novelty than the telephone was, when it was first introduced to human societies largely dependent on letter writing. Socrates is said to have considered even books (the emerging breakthrough technology of his times) or rather the written word on paper, a threat to human memory. In this context, I believe social...