The Algorithm Sorted My Friends Into Tiers. I Saw the List

The social app quietly ranks my contacts by engagement: who replies fast, who views my stories, who would show up. I found the tier list by accident. My best friend is in tier four. I have not been able to look at her the same way.

The feature was supposed to be a convenience: a subtle ordering of the people you interact with most, so the app could show you their posts first. It was never meant to be visible. I found it in the settings, behind a menu I was exploring out of boredom, and it was called, with breathtaking honesty, your relationship score.

There were six tiers. My mother was tier one. My boss was tier two. The person who delivers my lunch was tier three, because I tip through the app. My best friend, the one who drove three hours when my father was in the hospital, the one who has my spare key and my secrets, was tier four, because she does not engage with the app. She calls me. She does not like my posts. The algorithm cannot see the calls.

The algorithm cannot see the calls. I keep repeating this sentence to myself, the way you repeat a fact that refuses to change the feeling. I know the tier list is wrong. I know it measures the wrong things. And yet I have caught myself opening the list, checking the numbers, feeling the small cold prickle of betrayal at a friend who is ranked below a delivery driver.

Here is the poison of it: the app has given me a way to doubt the people I love, and the doubt is not mine, and I cannot seem to give it back. I have started replying to my best friend's messages with the speed the algorithm would approve, not because I love her more, but because I hate the tier.

I deleted the app last night. My best friend called me today, the old way, and we talked for an hour, and neither of us liked each other's posts, and it was the best conversation of my week. The app, if it were still there, would have ranked that hour at zero. I am trying to be okay with the fact that the things that matter most are invisible to the things that measure everything.