As recently as a generation ago, our closest relationships backed us up better than they do today. I’ve watched my own family and friends, once an unshakable support network, drift into surface-level connections. How did our ability to maintain deep, stable bonds go downhill so fast?

The Root of the Downhill Slide

We are mostly what we consume through education and entertainment. From early on, we’ve been told:

• “Life is a race. It’s a competition.”

• “Joint family is outdated; a nuclear family is better.”

• “Move to the city or you’ll never earn, ditch your spacious village home for a cramped 2 BHK.”

• “Two kids only, anything more is trouble.”

• “Corporate jobs = the good life” (if you ever find time to enjoy it).

• “Ditch traditions and culture- they are superstitions, but corporate yoga counts as spirituality.”

• “We were branded ‘unintelligent’ until the West ‘lent’ us intelligence, subtly teaching us to reject our own roots.”

No one paused to ask: Is education only for landing a paycheck?Or, Why does every sitcom from Friends to HIMYM glorify lives that even many Americans don’t actually live and even criticise?

In chasing urban ambition and glossy narratives, we’ve sown the seeds of our own isolation.

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What Is Bonding Social Capital?

Bonding social capital is your closest circle, the friends, family, or allies who would answer your call at 2 a.m. It’s the unspoken promise that, come what may, you’ve got each other’s back.

(Yes, you can sometimes turn a casual acquaintance into a true ally, but that’s a topic for another post.)

Who’s to Blame?

1. Education without Culture:Schools train us for jobs, not for relationships. We learn formulas, not how to ask a friend, “How are you really doing?”

2. Entertainment’s Illusion:Rom-com stars look perfect on screen and crash in real life. Yet we drink it up, then wonder why our own relationships fall apart.

3. Parental Pressure:“Get into this college, make these grades, land that corporate gig, climb the ladder.” Nobody said, “But who will catch you when you stumble?”

Am I against all of them?

I’m not against ambition or movies. I love international cinema myself. But let’s stop swallowing every glossy narrative without questioning its real-world cost.

I would like a society that is not driven altogether in the same direction but one that debates intelligently. How?

• We examine situations and their causes—evidently and empirically.

• We figure out the long-term consequences of things that feel great in the short term, like dumping age-old traditions and culture, only to discover we’ve harmed our future.

I’m lucky to have a family that never pressured me into a single “right” path. And I have friends who, despite often supporting the latest trends (which, in my opinion, make the world more complex), still pause and make sense of the quieter concepts when I speak of them.

Was Bondub Necessary?

No, if we hadn’t drifted from our very nature, if masculine and feminine balance was still intact,, if we still lived in balanced communities, Bondub wouldn’t be needed. I’ll write a separate post on that “what-if” scenario.

But since things did turn out this way, where deep bonds faded and trust felt scarce, we built Bondub to:

• Rebuild our trust-verified circles

• Send gentle reminders before connections go cold

• Turn every new relationship into a promise of shared growth

Question for you: Which of these beliefs have you accepted without question? Reply below and let’s debate the long-term cost of the “better life” we were sold.

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