India, Feb. 17 -- A Bengaluru-based professional has sparked a discussion online after revealing that he spent 6 years tracking his friendships and analysing what he calls their "return on investment" (ROI), concluding that forming new close relationships is statistically inefficient.

In a detailed post on X, Pankaj said he built a system named "Ziya" that works like a personal customer relationship management (CRM) tool for people in his life. "It tracks context, patterns, interactions, how i feel after talking to someone," he wrote.

"Yeah, I literally quantify friendships. If someone's ROI stays negative long enough, I stop engaging," he wrote, acknowledging that many found the approach "cold, dystopian" and transactional but arguing ...