Tits summer, I received a WhatsApp message with a photo of two professor friends smiling at the camera and sitting at what looked like a conference table: “I miss you! Greetings from (nearby) Istanbul!” The sight of their happy faces together gave me a slight shiver of joy.
The photos were sent without much explanation, but they weren’t needed. They both work in the Toronto area and over the years I have told each of them that they really need to meet each other because their research interests are so aligned. To finally establish contact, they needed a trip to a scientific conference in Turkey.
What they sent me after the fateful meeting was proof that a connection had been made in real life. without me, but For to me. It was what I like to call a “mutual friend selfie,” a small, intimate genre of social gesture.
The idea is simple: two people you know and love meet in person and send you photographic evidence of their connection. And it's not for Instagram; this is just for you. There's something delightful about taking photos like these. You are not in it, but you are the reason it exists.
Selfies like these have been popping up in my camera roll and chats lately, and I've started paying closer attention to them and what they're actually doing and communicating. At first glance, they may seem to be the result of chance or coincidence. But dig a little deeper and they turn out to be something more: ambient affection, subtle social engineering, or a tiny piece of joyful mood. anti– social media.
One more shot: At my son's end of year high school concert, I finally took the photo I've been wanting to take for years.
The mother of one of his classmates six or seven years ago was a jury member along with a close friend of mine. They were jurors number one and two, sitting side by side for weeks, giving emotionally charged testimony, creating an indelible bond. They haven’t seen each other since then, but from time to time, remembering that our children study at the same school, my friend would ask: “How is she?”
So, when I spotted my mother across a row of chairs in the middle school atrium in June, I sat down in the seat next to her, pulled out my phone and said, “We need to take a selfie—for our friend!”
We grinned at the camera, shimmering in the heat of the crowded room. I sent this. Instantly three dots appeared, and then: “Oh God!!! Hello! I miss you!” whistling A real-time selfie of our mutual friend walking down the street with a big smile.
My son's friend's mother laughed when I read her the answer and showed her the photo. I shared their contact information and the long-dormant link was quietly reactivated. It was a reminder that not all digital communications have to be done in public, and perhaps the most meaningful social gestures are the most personal. Social media lends itself to much bigger announcements: graduations, engagements, long headlines about personal growth. Selfies of mutual friends are quieter and more specific.
Sociologists call this the “triadic closure effect”: the idea that two people who have a mutual friend are more likely to become friends themselves. In practice it is something like social gravity. People move around, sometimes bump into each other, and take photos from time to time. However, a mutual friend's selfie does not necessarily bring others together; it can also be about showing each other the value of your friendship.
Take another selfie photo of me and my friend from the Tsundoku book club smiling at an iftar party a few months ago. (“Tsundoku” is a Japanese word meaning the joy of accumulating books, and is also the name of my tiny three-person book club where we share literary recommendations.)
It was a busy event, full of overlapping circles and unexpected mutual acquaintances, and our third participant was unable to attend. At one point during the party, my friend and I walked into a corner, took a quick selfie cuddling, and sent it to our missing tsundok buddy. We didn't just say, “You're missed,” but rather, “You're here too.” A selfie of a mutual friend with a touch of longing. It's as if we're sewing our absent friend into the party narrative.
We may think of selfies as self-absorbed or attention-seeking, but selfies of mutual friends are a different matter. They're not really for the people wearing them: they're for the person receiving them. They are proof that your presence is felt even in your absence. They can be playful: “Look who I found!” – or quietly assert: “You are important to us.” Sometimes they spawn new relationships, and sometimes they're just a quiet, casual way of saying, “We're thinking about you.”
They may not go viral or get hundreds of likes, but selfies of mutual friends indicate the degree of friendship. They trace the contours of how we show up for each other, even when we're not all in the same room. That intimacy extends across time zones, crowded parties and high school gyms. This reminds us that the birth of a connection does not always require a chorus of approval; sometimes you just need intention.
Julieta Caballero is an illustrator at The Walrus.
