Earlier this summer, I got a WhatsApp message with a photo of two professor friends smiling at the camera, sitting at what looked like a conference table: “Miss you! Hi from (near) Istanbul!” The sight of their happy faces together sparked in me a little frisson of joy.

The photo was sent without much explanation, but none was needed. They both work in the Toronto area, and over the years, I’ve told each of them that they really need to meet the other because their research interests are so in sync. It took travelling all the way to an academic conference in Turkey for them to finally connect.

What they sent me after their fateful encounter was proof that the connection was made IRL, without me but for me. It was what I like to call a “mutual friend selfie,” a small, intimate genre of social gesture.

The premise is simple: two people you know and like meet in person and send you photographic evidence of their connection. And it’s not for Instagram; it’s just for you. There is something delightful about receiving this kind of photo. You’re not in it, but you’re the reason it exists.

These kinds of selfies have been showing up in my camera roll and chat threads lately, and I’ve started to pay closer attention to them, to what they’re really doing and what they communicate. At first glance, they may look like the result of chance or coincidence. But scratch a little deeper and they’re something more: ambient affection, subtle social engineering, or a tiny piece of joyful anti–social media.

Another snapshot: at my son’s year-end middle school concert, I finally took a photo I’d been meaning to take for several years.

The mother of one of his classmates had served on a jury with my close friend six or seven years ago. They were jurors number one and two, sitting side by side for weeks of emotionally charged testimony, forging an indelible bond. They haven’t seen each other since, but every now and again, remembering that our kids are in the same school, my friend would ask, “How is she?”

So, when I spotted the mother across a row of chairs in the middle school atrium in June, I slid into the seat next to her, pulled out my phone, and said, “We should take a selfie—for our friend!”

We grinned into the lens, shimmering from the heat of the crowded room. I sent it off. Three dots popped up instantly, then: “OMG!!! Hi! I miss you!”—followed by the whoosh of a real-time selfie of our mutual friend walking down the street with a huge smile.

My son’s friend’s mother laughed when I read the reply to her and showed her the picture. I shared their contact information, and a long-dormant link was quietly reactivated. It was a reminder that not all digital connections have to be made in public, and perhaps the most meaningful social gestures are the most personal. Social media is suited for much louder declarations: graduations, engagements, long captions about personal growth. Mutual friend selfies are quieter, more specific.

Sociologists call it “the triadic closure effect,” the idea that two people who share a mutual friend are more likely to become friends themselves. In practice, it’s kind of like social gravity. People orbit, sometimes they bump into each other, and every now and then they take a picture. The mutual friend selfie, however, isn’t necessarily about connecting others; it can also be about showing one another the value of your friendship.

Take another selfie on my camera roll: me and my tsundoku book club friend smiling at an iftar party from a few months ago. (“Tsundoku” is a Japanese word that captures the joy of letting books pile up, and it’s also the name of my tiny three-person book club where we share literary recommendations.)

It was a packed event, full of overlapping circles and unexpected mutual acquaintances, and our third member couldn’t make it. At some point during the party, my friend and I slipped into a corner, took a quick selfie with our arms around each other, and sent it to our missing tsundoku buddy. We weren’t just saying, “You’re missed,” but more like, “You’re here too.” A mutual friend selfie with a touch of longing. It’s as though we were stitching our absent friend into the narrative of the party.

We may think of selfies as self-centring or attention-seeking, but mutual friend selfies are different. They’re not really for the people in them: they’re for the person receiving them. They’re proof that your presence is felt even in your absence. They can be playful—“Look who I found!”—or quietly affirming—“You matter to us.” Sometimes they spark new relationships, and sometimes they’re just a quiet, serendipitous way to say, “We’re thinking of you.”

They may not go viral or rack up hundreds of likes, but mutual friend selfies mark the reach of friendships. They trace the outlines of how we show up for one another even when we’re not all in the same room. This kind of intimacy travels across time zones, crowded parties, and middle school gyms. It reminds us that sparking connection doesn’t always need a chorus of affirmation; sometimes it just needs an intention.

Asmaa Malik is an associate professor of journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Julieta Caballero is an illustrator-at-large at The Walrus.