I Don’t Owe You My Friendship
By: Rachael Hope
Tags: Mental Health, Humanity, Friendship, Culture, Relationships

I Don’t Owe You My Friendship

It’s not my job to spend my time listening to bigoted ideas so someone feels heard.

Image by DanaTentis from Pixabay

When I published my piece about why I wasn’t going to share that Ellen kindness video going around, it was clear from some of the responses that people were struggling with my decision. Nearly everyone I got into a dialogue with conflated kindness, basic decency, friendship, and politeness.

Ideas like “you cannot fight hate with more hate” and “hate the sin, not the sinner, love all” were in good supply. On the surface, I don’t disagree with these sentiments. I agree that you can’t fight hate with hate, and that people generally deserve compassion. But there are a lot of options that seem to be getting ignored on the path from hate to love. Americans love the binary. We love separating things into either-or choices when in reality our choices are plentiful.

There are a lot of options getting ignored on the path from hate to love.

Being a decent and polite human being, being kind, and being actively friendly are three different things; options along a line that stretches from tolerance to hatred to apathy. Unless you have been intentionally cruel or harmed me, I’m going to be polite to you, and probably superficially friendly. We can chit-chat about whatever, and I’m not going to say anything to hurt your feelings or say or imply that I don’t really like you.

However, I don’t feel the need to be overly kind or to actively pursue friendship or connection with every person I meet. I don’t feel bad about the fact that I can’t be friends and devote time and energy to making every person I meet feel good about themselves. Resources are finite, and part of being an adult is learning how to best invest your resources to live a happy, fulfilling life.

This weekend, I had an extended exchange with a reader over some things in one of my articles. It expanded to the person emailing me, and in the process sharing some views that I find reprehensible and bigoted. After I received a very long email from them, I replied simply with “I am not interested in further discussion with you. Have a nice life.”

The email I got back then called me “an enlightened kinky chick” and asked me to block him and unsubscribe him so that he wouldn’t be reminded that he “got my proverbial face slapped by someone I tried with great sincerity to befriend.” This particular person tried hard to play the guilt card on me, baiting me to defend myself or explain myself to them, neither of which I cared to do. Since I declined to respond, he said:

Just because I hold the views that I do, you’ve deemed me useless to your life. I get it. I guess you’ve learned the “art” of rejection quite well.

He continued on to call me a closed-minded idealogue, told me it was “heartbreaking” that he devoted time and thought to me and then I judged him on his bigoted ideas. Okay, that part is true, I DID judge him on his bigoted ideas. Which is my prerogative.

Here’s the things, my dude, and all other dudes: I don’t owe you friendship. I don’t owe you discussion, conversation, or discourse. I am sincere in the wishes I offer that you will have a nice life, that you will find the friendships you’re looking for, and that you will be happy. I didn’t say anything mean. I just don’t choose to delve into arguments or friendships with people who have ideas that I find reprehensible.

I don’t owe you my time or attention.

Making a judgement call that someone is not going to add positive value to my life, and then not spending time fostering a connection with that person is a good decision. It’s better for my mental health, and my soul. The idea that I should try to search for the value in these types of exchanges feels a lot like some great extension of the nice guy phenomenon.

In my article about the non-existent friendzone, I explained:

But wait, there’s more! Courtesy of Amanda Marcotte: Passive aggressively lingering around someone who is trying to find away to politely tell you to buzz off is one Nice Guy® tactic, and that’s intensely rude and not nice at all. Giving overly extravagant gifts and putting someone on the spot? Also rude. Guilt tripping someone for not wanting you? Super rude. Assuming, without evidence, that a guy that a woman is dating must be an asshole because he’s not you? Nasty. Spinning out bullshit theories accusing women of being incapable, as a sex, of wanting what is good for them? Awful. I could go on, but you get the drift. If you really want to know why women don’t like “nice guys,” here it is. They are not nice. When you say “women don’t like nice guys” you are really saying “women are too stupid to recognize how amazing I am and appreciate me.” The possibility that someone is just not attracted to you or that you might not be right for each other doesn’t exist.

The bottom line is that I don’t owe you my time or attention. You are in control of your own behavior. If you choose to spend a bunch of time composing emails and comments to me, that doesn’t automatically give you some right to be a part of my life.

When you turn around and accuse me of deeming you useless, you are purposely using language to try and make me feel bad about not engaging. There was a time in my life where it may have worked, where I would have fallen for the ingrained desire to defend myself to a stranger on the internet, but that time has passed.

Beyond politics, beyond social issues, beyond moral issues, sometimes I just don’t like people. It is impossible to get along with everyone all of the time, and that’s okay. People have different energies that surround them, their brains and personalities call fall anywhere across a huge spectrum. Sometimes, people are just not my cup of tea. And that is perfectly okay.

The idea that it’s my job to spend my time listening to racist, sexist, phobic, or bigoted ideas so someone feels heard is ridiculous.

Twisting someone else’s feelings into an action they are taking against you is a type of emotional abuse. It’s manipulative, and it’s one person trying to convince another that their feelings and mental health and self esteem are more important. People are not being assholes by not engaging with you because they don’t owe you anything. Not friendship. Not witty repartee. Not attention. Not any of it.

I am not going to be mean to you, I believe in being polite and civil. In fact, until you prove otherwise, I will assume you are a good person and treat you as such. But the idea that it’s somehow my job to spend my time listening to racist, sexist, phobic, or bigoted ideas so someone feels heard is ridiculous. The world expects a lot of emotional labor from women, and this is one area where I’m definitely saying no to that. I am allowed to say “no thank you,” and I don’t owe any explanation beyond that.

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