A group chat can preserve a social arrangement after its members have stopped enjoying it.

A group chat can keep a social arrangement running long after the pleasure has gone out of it. Nobody wants to be the one to leave, so the thread continues, generating obligation without generating much else. The structure outlives the reason for it because leaving would say something.

If a group has become an obligation, muting it is usually enough and nobody notices. And if you want the connection but not the format, propose something different rather than enduring the current one: two of you, actually meeting. Most dead group chats are held together entirely by everyone’s reluctance to make a statement by leaving.