“Friends” can now be added or deleted from your life as easily as from your friend list. I have apparently become disposable.

A week ago, I thought I had found a real friend; one who understood sides of me that no one else had ever comprehended. We meshed instantly. We had many interests in common. We had talked every day for the last 6 weeks. We had seen each other whenever we could. We could laugh, we could be serious; we were comfortable; and we could share with each other. We explored each other’s interests in movies, music, tv shows, and cartoons. We introduced each other to new restaurants and foods. We understood each other’s frustrations with work. He walked my dog when he was at my place.

Unfortunately, I did something he did not approve, and he instantaneously threw me away without even a second thought. All the time we had spent talking and being together was erased without warning by a few lines of an e-mail.

I felt completely blindsided and betrayed. I have seen a dozen things in the last few days that annoyed me or gave me a laugh that I would normally have shared with him, and I would have liked to share them, but I don’t have that chance. We weren’t in love or anything, but I thought we had a real friendship. I was obviously wrong.

I say all that to say this: I have begun to wonder why so many people will throw a relationship away over disagreements. Nobody wants to work anything out, or give anyone another chance. You screw up and you’re out. One strike. Maybe it’s because the internet makes it easy to create new friendships/relationships. Why keep a flawed person when you can just go out and get a new one? When their flaws start to show, just move on. People have become as disposable to us as everything else in our lives. When someone better seems to come along—or if someone else “needs us more”—we swap the old for the new without hesitation.

Loyalty means nothing anymore. Employers/employees feel no loyalty. Cheating is commonplace. Divorce is rampant. I myself am about to be divorced, but it was a decision that took me years to make, based on fundamental differences and erosion of a relationship, not on an argument or a disagreement. People abandon their children, their pets—anything that becomes inconvenient for them.

It really makes me wonder what will be next. Who will throw me away next? Over what lie or misunderstanding that’s too much trouble to straighten out?