When navigating modern friendships, it can be easy to second-guess yourself when it comes to reaching out for emotional support, a small favor or even just a listening ear. Every week there seems to be new viral advice on ways not to be an inconvenience to your friends, including the recent Tweet from Codie Sanchez encouraging people to use Uber to save their friendships. “As an adult, don’t ask your friends to pick you up from the airport,” she wrote. Then there are the Venmo request horror stories, including the friend that requests $2.37 from you if you have a sip of their La Croix. But by walking on eggshells in order to not “inconvenience” our friends, are we missing out on building deeper connections?
In 2019, there was a viral Tweet of a template encouraging people to text their friends that they are “at capacity”. While it was heavily meme-ified, the exchange encapsulated the current, highly individualistic friendship climate — filled with robotic therapy speak and transactional social media exchanges. In a time where everyone is encouraged to “protect their peace” and prioritize themselves at all costs, people can often be left feeling like they have no one to turn to. It goes without saying that this leads to extreme levels of loneliness, with a recent report titled “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation” finding that, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, about half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness.
South African content creator and podcast host Ayanda, 27, Boston, often lives with the fear of inconveniencing those around her. “I never feel worthy of majorly inconveniencing anyone,” she says. “Asking for their help moving me, taking out my braids, helping me when I’m in a crunch or could simply use an extra hand.” After reflecting on her own relationship with inconvenience in relationships, Ayanda posted a now-viral TikTok on “why you need to let people inconvenience you”. “Many of us say that we want more community, but are not willing to put up with the time, effort and yes, at times, inconvenience, that it takes to build and sustain close relationships,” she adds.
Ayanda says that the approach to convenience in friendship can touch on a range of intersectional issues in our relationships. “The Tweet that says ‘use Uber, save a friendship’ is coming from someone who can obviously afford an Uber without even thinking about it. So we see how prioritizing convenience in a relationship is tied to classism and therefore racism, and also, to ableism,” she says. “Who in our society gets to be most self-reliant? People who are able-bodied, who are wealthy, who are white, who are straight. Community is often not an act of survival for these groups.”
There’s no doubt that the pressures of late-stage capitalism can and often do interfere with our ability to show up in friendships, something that Ayanda says contributes to the texts she currently owes to “several friends and family members”.
“Capitalism overburdens us with meaningless tasks, stressors and distractions, which don’t allow us time to show up in the way we would want,” she says. “And at the same time, in not texting them, I’m indirectly prioritizing my own convenience over their relational needs to feel attended to. Both things can be true.”
Sophie K Rosa, the London-based author of the recently-released Radical Intimacy, says they wrote the novel because how we organize our intimate lives under capitalism is “under-considered”. “I believe that the dominant modes of organizing intimacy neglect friendship,” she says. “I think it’s a huge loss that friendship is so often demoted in a culture that prioritizes romantic partnership and the nuclear family over other forms of intimacy. To disrupt this, Sophie encourages people to treat friends more like romantic partners and romantic partners more like friends. This could look like asking yourself if you’d allow your partner (or even your boss) to “inconvenience you” in the same way, then moving accordingly with friends. They also say, of course, that there are many groups of people in our society where friendship is already of more value, including queer communities.
Dr. Lauren Cook, a licensed clinical psychologist, says we’re currently at a point where friendship is still something everyone is seeking, but that we’re often not always willing to go to the lengths that may be required to build and maintain those solid friendships. “Part of the problem can include that we have excessively leaned into boundary setting,” she says. “If it doesn’t fit into our schedule or causes us any stress, we can be quick to feel burdened by our friends, rather than seeing it as an opportunity to connect.” This is where the self-care movement (which started as a form of resistance for Black women) has lost its original meaning and become an excuse for self-isolation and self-centered behavior.
Although we all could probably use a little more tolerance when it comes to inconveniencing and being inconvenienced by friends, that doesn’t mean there’s never a point where you’re instead getting taken advantage of. Dr. Cook says there are a couple of things to make note of when determining between the two. “Is there a healthy give-and-take in the relationship where both sides are contributing and receiving in the relationship?” she asks. “Secondly, it’s important to notice if there’s a sense of gratitude. Does your friend appreciate you taking the time and thank you accordingly? Or does it seem to be an expectation in the relationship where they don’t acknowledge the extra time, money, etc. that you may be contributing?” For people pleasers and over-extenders, it’s also worth working through the uncomfortableness of feeling like an inconvenience. After all, your friends often don’t know what you need help with unless you tell them.
It seems, unlike your work calendar, striving for convenience when it comes to friendship might be missing the point of it entirely. In fact, it’s through “inconveniences” like picking your friend up from the doctor or helping them move that we can open ourselves up to deeper connections with those around us. “Lean into how good it feels to help someone out,” says Dr. Cook. “Rather than feel burdened by a shift in your schedule, see time with a friend as an opportunity to truly connect.” Yes, this might mean sitting in traffic on the way to the airport, but that’s a small price to pay in order to prioritize one of the most important areas in your life when it comes to health and happiness.