Friendship is objectively a huge inconvenience. Relationships are built on effort, which inevitably requires time, can create burdens, and disrupt your plans. It’s an inconvenience to pick your friend up at the airport. It’s also an inconvenience to go to keep happy hour commitments after a long day of work. However, the conversation among young adults today is that we don’t owe anyone anything — but, yes, yes we do.Â
Chronic loneliness plagues Gen Z. We have resorted to building communities with people on our phones, sometimes through TikTok comment sections or by scrolling so long on Instagram that we feel connected to our favorite influencers. It’s much easier to hide behind screens to conceal our insecurities and doom swipe our daily sorrows away than to leave the house and attempt to build real connections. As social media has erupted in the past decade, we have lost our ability to socialize with others in real life. This is detrimental to not only our milestone life moments, but also our development as our prefrontal cortex continues to form until age 25.Â
The consequences of this shift are profound. We are lonelier than ever, yet we struggle to reach out. We crave connection, but fear rejection and emotional intimacy. To resolve this, we retreat further into digital spaces, mistaking online interactions for true connection. This reliance has changed the way we view friendships, believing that if a relationship isn’t as effortless as our comment section interactions online, it isn’t worth maintaining. We see endless content about “protecting your peace” and setting boundaries but rarely about the work required to build lasting and valuable friendships or partnerships. Fundamental ingredients in relationships include: laughter, understanding, and oftentimes inconvenience.
The problem is that Gen Z has absorbed a hyper-individualistic mindset that prioritizes self-preservation and — albeit, laziness — over the menial sacrifices we should make for friendship. We’ve convinced ourselves that maintaining relationships shouldn’t be “hard,” and that if something feels like work, it isn’t worth it. We’ve internalized the idea that boundaries are sacred (true), that we shouldn’t tolerate toxicity (also true), and that we don’t owe anyone anything (partially true). However, we have overcorrected in pursuit of self-protection and “healing,” and we’ve ultimately forgotten that relationships, by definition, require compromise. Yet, many of us have lost the patience and consideration to endure these things, choosing instead the instant gratification of digital validation over tangible friendships.Â
Favor culture — doing things for friends just because you care, without expecting something in return — has also eroded. We hesitate to ask for help because we don’t want to “burden” others, and we hesitate to offer help because we don’t want to be “used.” But true friendships are built on reciprocity, not transactionalism. Picking up a friend from the airport, helping them move, showing up in their moments of life — these aren’t obligations but rather the normal give and take of meaningful relationships that I fear many young adults have been neglecting.
Friendship isn’t always convenient, but it’s necessary. In order to make life richer, have fulfilling and supportive relationships, and experience less loneliness, we must have our need for self-preservation take a backseat every once and a while. If we continue to prioritize ease over effort, we risk becoming a generation that is hyper-connected online but emotionally disconnected in real life. True friendships require investment — not just when it’s fun or easy, but especially when it’s inconvenient. They require showing up, being present, and understanding that love, in any form, is built on action, not just words. It’s time to stop seeing relationships as burdens and start recognizing them for what they are: the foundation for a happy and meaningful life.