Urbanization and demographics: why large numbers kill real connection

Your grandparents probably crossed paths with between 100 and 500 people in their entire lives. You, in a single week in London, New York, or any major city, cross paths with thousands.

Yet you've never had so much trouble meeting someone.

This isn't a coincidence. It's mathematical, psychological, and deeply human.

The world before: scarcity that drives action

Imagine a village of 200 people. When someone new arrives, everyone notices. When you're attracted to someone, you know opportunities to see them again are limited. So you act.

Scarcity creates urgency. Urgency drives decision.

Our ancestors didn't have the luxury of waiting for "better." They worked with what was there, right in front of them. And paradoxically, they found connection.

The shift: welcome to the age of abundance

Today, take the subway during rush hour. In 30 minutes, you cross more faces than your great-grandparents saw in a year.

We're not even talking about real encounters. Just presences. Silhouettes. Gazes that never meet.

This constant flow creates what we might call "human background noise." Thousands of theoretical possibilities scrolling by, never materializing.

The paradox of large numbers: too much choice kills choice

You know the supermarket experiment?

Faced with 3 types of jam, people buy. Faced with 24 varieties, they leave empty-handed. The brain, overwhelmed by options, prefers not to choose rather than risk choosing wrong.

This is exactly what happens with dating.

When you cross paths with thousands of people, your brain unconsciously registers: "There are so many possibilities. Why commit now? There might be someone better tomorrow."

Except tomorrow, the same reasoning repeats. And the day after.

Perceived abundance becomes a prison. You're no longer waiting for someone—you're waiting for "the best possible choice"—which never comes.

The hidden cost: a fatigue no one sees

Here's what no one tells you: every face you pass has a cost.

Even without interaction, your brain works. It analyzes. It evaluates. It feels. Is this person a threat? Attractive? Interesting? Approachable?

All of this happens in a fraction of a second, hundreds of times a day.

This cognitive and emotional load is invisible, but it's real. It consumes your mental resources. It exhausts your capacity for attention.

You come home in the evening, drained, without knowing why. You didn't talk to anyone new. You didn't "do" anything special. Yet you're exhausted.

It's a silent fatigue. Insidious. And it accumulates.

The cumulative effect: when micro-wounds add up

Large numbers don't just multiply possibilities. They multiply failures too.

Every avoided glance. Every unreturned smile. Every ignored attempt to connect.

In a small village, rejection is an event. You recover, you move on. In a big city, these micro-rejections happen constantly. They accumulate. They weigh on you.

Eventually, something closes inside us. A protection mechanism. We stop trying to stop hurting.

The problem is, we also stop connecting.

Anonymity: fertile ground for projection

There's another perverse effect of large numbers: total anonymity.

When you don't know someone and don't interact with them, your brain fills in the blanks. It projects.

Either you idealize. That person glimpsed on the subway becomes perfect in your imagination. So perfect that the real person could only disappoint you.

Or you judge. One detail bothers you, and you construct an entire negative character around it.

Either way, you close yourself off from the reality of the other person. You're interacting with your projection, not a human being.

The complete vicious cycle

Let's summarize what's happening:

Large numbers create the illusion of infinite choice
The illusion of infinite choice paralyzes decision-making
Constant processing of this flow exhausts your resources
Exhaustion reduces your capacity to act
Negative experiences accumulate and close you off
Closing off isolates you even more

Result: you're surrounded by thousands of people and you've never been more alone.

The truth we forget: not all encounters are equal

Now, let's stop for a second.

Among those thousands of faces you pass, how many truly strike you?

Let's be honest: very few.

Most are part of the background noise. They pass, you pass, nothing happens.

But sometimes—rarely—someone captures your attention. Truly.

A gaze that hooks you. A presence that stands out. An energy that triggers something inside you. Not a rational analysis. An emotion.

These moments are rare. And that's precisely why they're precious.

It's on these moments that you need to focus all your energy. Not on the flow. Not on the thousands. On the few who truly matter.

Everything else is just dispersion.

eynect: capturing what matters

This is exactly the realization that gave birth to eynect.

The idea is simple: don't treat everyone the same way.

Don't drown yourself in an ocean of profiles. Don't swipe endlessly in the illusion of perfect choice. Don't exhaust your resources on noise.

Instead, identify the precise moment when someone truly captures you. In real life. In person.

And transform that moment—which would otherwise be lost forever—into a real possibility.

Less noise. More signal.

All your energy focused on what truly matters.

Because the solution to abundance isn't crossing paths with fewer people. It's never letting the ones who matter slip away.