There’s a kind of tired that doesn’t look like collapse, it looks like being high-functioning. A form of exhaustion that passes as competence. From the outside, you’re articulate, “good with feelings,” the one who can hold the room. You’re not collapsing — you’re just quietly managing the emotional weight of every interaction like it’s a second job no one remembers hiring you for.

And then I learned something that cracked the whole pattern open: most people don’t think in sentences. About 60% of people don’t have an inner monologue — no running commentary, no internal analysis, just vibes, flashes, instincts. And about one in ten don’t have full access to what they feel — not because they’re heartless, but because their wiring doesn’t translate emotion into language.

If you’re someone who thinks in paragraphs and feels in full sentences, you assume silence in others means restraint. But sometimes, it’s not restraint. It’s absence. They’re not hiding the depth you sense — they just don’t experience it.

That’s when the story stopped being “people are cruel,” and became, “some people simply don’t have the emotional software I keep expecting them to run.”

And suddenly the rest made sense.

Because the funny part is: I wasn’t even doing all this emotional labour for great loves. I wasn’t pouring depth into a soulmate. I was doing full internal maintenance for people I wasn’t even sure I liked.

There was the thirty-two-year-old who told me he was “looking for a serious relationship,” and then immediately followed it up with a casual inventory of the other women he was sleeping with — as if transparency and respect were interchangeable concepts. He spoke about commitment the way people speak about “getting into yoga”: theoretically, someday, spiritually aligned, but absolutely don’t ask him to buy a mat. He also announced, unprovoked, that he was “really into squirting,” which managed to be both too much detail and not nearly enough substance. I hadn’t even decided if I liked him, and somehow I was already offering emotional depth like it came free with the meal he did not pay for.

Then there was the man who casually omitted the existence of his girlfriend — not a detail, a missing act. He resurfaced months later with the confidence of someone who assumes women sit in emotional sleep mode awaiting reactivation. He messaged like I was a leftovers container he’d forgotten in the fridge but still felt entitled to eat.

Then the one who communicated mostly in future tense: when life settles, when timing aligns. A man who maintained “connection” through the occasional emoji reaction, as if a relationship could be powered by push notifications. His only real achievement was not yet being blocked.

And of course, the ex-colleague who demanded exclusivity from me while living in a fully open-plan romantic lifestyle. He treated monogamy the way people treat recycling: a noble concept he loudly supports, as long as someone else reminds him which bin is which.

None of these were love stories. None of them were even high-risk. And yet there I was, handing out empathy and insight like I was running a non-profit for people who still think communication is sending an emoji.

Which is why I didn’t spiral — I laughed — when Vogue announced that having a boyfriend in 2025 is now officially embarrassing. Not because women are anti-love, but because we’ve finally stopped glamorising the role of unpaid emotional support worker disguised as a partner. The new status symbol isn’t “taken” — it’s “regulated nervous system, no man required.”

That’s when the shift happens. Not dramatically, not with a speech, but with the quiet realisation that you’ve been running the emotional IT department for men who still forget their own passwords.

So you stop offering five-star emotional hospitality to people who show up with nothing but vibes and a phone at 9% battery. You stop translating feelings for adults who have full vocabularies but mysteriously lose language when accountability enters the room. You stop treating empathy like a debt repayment plan. You stop confusing emotional patience with romantic depth when it’s really just administration.

You don’t become cold. You just start charging energy at market rate.

You stop feeling flattered when someone says you’re “easy to talk to,” and start noticing who never asks whether you need anything. You stop calling it grace when it’s actually labour. You stop shrinking so someone else can keep calling themselves “not ready” at thirty-six.

Some days the shift feels like growth. Other days it feels like exhaustion with a clearer vocabulary. But either way, you’re done being the emotional infrastructure in relationships where the other person still hasn’t located their own settings menu.

There’s a kind of tired that doesn’t look like collapse, it looks like being high-functioning. A form of exhaustion that passes as competence. From the outside, you’re articulate, “good with feelings,” the one who can hold the room. You’re not collapsing — you’re just quietly managing the emotional weight of every interaction like it’s a second job no one remembers hiring you for.

And then I learned something that cracked the whole pattern open: most people don’t think in sentences. About 60% of people don’t have an inner monologue — no running commentary, no internal analysis, just vibes, flashes, instincts. And about one in ten don’t have full access to what they feel — not because they’re heartless, but because their wiring doesn’t translate emotion into language.

If you’re someone who thinks in paragraphs and feels in full sentences, you assume silence in others means restraint. But sometimes, it’s not restraint. It’s absence. They’re not hiding the depth you sense — they just don’t experience it.

That’s when the story stopped being “people are cruel,” and became, “some people simply don’t have the emotional software I keep expecting them to run.”

And suddenly the rest made sense.

Because the funny part is: I wasn’t even doing all this emotional labour for great loves. I wasn’t pouring depth into a soulmate. I was doing full internal maintenance for people I wasn’t even sure I liked.

There was the thirty-two-year-old who told me he was “looking for a serious relationship,” and then immediately followed it up with a casual inventory of the other women he was sleeping with — as if transparency and respect were interchangeable concepts. He spoke about commitment the way people speak about “getting into yoga”: theoretically, someday, spiritually aligned, but absolutely don’t ask him to buy a mat. He also announced, unprovoked, that he was “really into squirting,” which managed to be both too much detail and not nearly enough substance. I hadn’t even decided if I liked him, and somehow I was already offering emotional depth like it came free with the meal he did not pay for.

Then there was the man who casually omitted the existence of his girlfriend — not a detail, a missing act. He resurfaced months later with the confidence of someone who assumes women sit in emotional sleep mode awaiting reactivation. He messaged like I was a leftovers container he’d forgotten in the fridge but still felt entitled to eat.

Then the one who communicated mostly in future tense: when life settles, when timing aligns. A man who maintained “connection” through the occasional emoji reaction, as if a relationship could be powered by push notifications. His only real achievement was not yet being blocked.

And of course, the ex-colleague who demanded exclusivity from me while living in a fully open-plan romantic lifestyle. He treated monogamy the way people treat recycling: a noble concept he loudly supports, as long as someone else reminds him which bin is which.

None of these were love stories. None of them were even high-risk. And yet there I was, handing out empathy and insight like I was running a non-profit for people who still think communication is sending an emoji.

Which is why I didn’t spiral — I laughed — when Vogue announced that having a boyfriend in 2025 is now officially embarrassing. Not because women are anti-love, but because we’ve finally stopped glamorising the role of unpaid emotional support worker disguised as a partner. The new status symbol isn’t “taken” — it’s “regulated nervous system, no man required.”

That’s when the shift happens. Not dramatically, not with a speech, but with the quiet realisation that you’ve been running the emotional IT department for men who still forget their own passwords.

So you stop offering five-star emotional hospitality to people who show up with nothing but vibes and a phone at 9% battery. You stop translating feelings for adults who have full vocabularies but mysteriously lose language when accountability enters the room. You stop treating empathy like a debt repayment plan. You stop confusing emotional patience with romantic depth when it’s really just administration.

You don’t become cold. You just start charging energy at market rate.

You stop feeling flattered when someone says you’re “easy to talk to,” and start noticing who never asks whether you need anything. You stop calling it grace when it’s actually labour. You stop shrinking so someone else can keep calling themselves “not ready” at thirty-six.

Some days the shift feels like growth. Other days it feels like exhaustion with a clearer vocabulary. But either way, you’re done being the emotional infrastructure in relationships where the other person still hasn’t located their own settings menu.