What We Owe Each Other

A TikTok went viral recently with a simple premise: if you're visiting my city for a concert and not seeing me, it's rude to ask to crash on the couch. The comment section felt a bit unhinged. I read the replies the way you'd listen to someone explain they've never needed a hug.

Nine times out of ten, when a friend tells me they're coming to town, my first thought isn't "what's the catch?" It's "how do I block my calendar to see you?"

A lot of this same corner of the internet that insists I don't owe anyone anything is paradoxically the biggest follower of the so-called bean soup theory, another viral-video phenomenon. Someone shares a bean soup recipe and every reaction is indignant: "What if I don't like beans?" "Can I make it without beans?" A crowd that expects accommodations for all of its needs and moods, and space held on demand. Rights and not dues — a contract with only one signature.

Although I don't often flex this muscle, I'm a recovering academic. I famously did not test well as a kid, but I loved learning about the world around me, so a liberal arts college was inevitable, and being an overthinker meant grad school was too. My master's is in international relations, with a thesis on populist rhetoric, which means I know exactly how it sounds when people are very certain about what they're owed.

The IR theory that I've always identified with is constructivism: the idea, per a famous article title, that anarchy is what states make of it. Nothing in the international system is written in the sky. Norms exist because people keep performing them, and they shift the moment enough people stop.

Relationships run on the same operating system — no one gives you a rulebook but we build one by watching each other.

The Good Place spent four seasons smuggling a philosophy seminar into a sitcom, and a line that stuck for me was the title of T.M. Scanlon's book, What We Owe to Each Other. His idea, as I understand it: the right way to act follows from principles no one could reasonably reject. Not what you can get away with, not what's technically required, but what you could defend to the other person's face. Constructivism tells me how norms get built. Scanlon gives me a way to ask which ones are worth building.

My list is short. Inconvenience, curiosity, consideration. Inconvenience comes first because it's the one the discourse hates the most, and I mean the everyday kind. Relationships cost something. You get in your car or on the train, book the flight, the hotel, the dinner reservations, offer the couch, and you volunteer it before anyone has to ask. Curiosity is the follow-up question, diving deep. Remembering what someone told you last time. Consideration seems to go without saying.

Here's how a norm gets built. In DC, I frequently hosted low-stakes hangs to bring people together. My friend started texting beforehand, "Want me to pick up ice?" "Need anything from Giant before I head over?" It almost always was a yes. Eventually she told me she'd learned it from me. No one wrote it down. I kept hosting the way I wish people would show up, and one day it came back as her habit.

I'll cop to a Connecticut upbringing here (again). If I cook, I hope you'll offer to clear. If you stay with me, bring something or at least say thank you. Not everyone has the energy or instinct. That's okay, mostly.

Norms are only as strong as the people maintaining them, which brings me to the subjunctive. That's right, we're talking grammar, baybee.

Over a decade ago, a friend and I used to practice Spanish together, at her request. She kept bailing on plans. One day, while we were making plans, she corrected my grammar and told me I'd used the subjunctive wrong. I said no, it's right. The subjunctive is for what you can't count on. I used it because there was doubt you'd show up.

She didn't. In the end, technically she proved my grammar correct.

It wasn't the only time the unwritten rules let me down. On more than one occasion, I've learned close friends' biggest news the way strangers do: from Instagram. No one ever wrote down the norm that you should tell your people before the internet does. 20 years ago it didn't need writing. The goalposts moved, and none of us were consulted.

What do I think I'm owed? The bar I set is almost embarrassingly low. Remember my birthday (it's in April for those of you tracking — next year's a big one). If we live nearby, let's hang more than once a year. Don't make me carry every conversation. If you're thinking of me or see something that reminds you of me, tell me. When one friend told me phones and social media gave him anxiety, I believed him, and said the bar still stood. I'd hold that line again.

What do I ask for? Less than I should. I've spent a lifetime solving my own problems before anyone could be asked to. The ask I make most, historically, is ice. Even that I usually get by saying yes to an offer. My smallest ask turns out to be accepting one.

The asks above ice are more nuanced, and they're not really favors. Maslow put belonging and esteem on the hierarchy of needs for a reason, and relationships are where I get most of mine fed. I need a few people who can remind me I matter. I need friends who can listen without trying to fix it. I don't think that's high-maintenance so much as part of the pyramid we'd rather not admit we're standing on. So when it stops, my brain starts searching for it like a dopamine hit that didn't come. The quiet where it used to be can be loud, too.

What do I hope for? An ask I'd never make directly: would you rearrange your life for me?

Everything on my list passes Scanlon's test: an hour on the phone on a night you planned on doing nothing, sitting in traffic on the way to catch up with a friend, a couch for the weekend. None of those are major lifts. But this one fails the test almost on purpose. Anyone can reasonably say no to it. Because life takes a toll to all of our calendars.

I'd rearrange my life in a heartbeat for the people I love. Because I think we owe each other a bit more than inconvenience. I also know I haven't always been able to, and that "I can't right now" can land on the other end like a verdict when it's really just arithmetic. There have been missed birthdays, weddings, and, as I've shared, funerals.

So I don't ask plainly. Not because I expect a no, but because a plain ask means wanting something out loud and then sitting there while someone else decides. I'm a lifelong yes-before-you-ask person, which leaves me out of practice at being on the other side of it.

People can surprise you, though. When a friend who had long since moved found out I was leaving DC, she rearranged her weekend to come down and say goodbye. A toast to our Girls era, sponsored by Amtrak.

That's the difference, I think, between what's owed and what's given. What I expect can be written down, defended, even enforced. What I need, I can say out loud. Being chosen can't be done either way. It can only be given, which is exactly why it's worth so much, and why you can't demand it.

Enter: Halloween weekend. We have more space now, and I've always loved dressing up, so I did the small, brave thing and asked: come to our place. Put on a costume, stay too late. It's a very small version of the biggest ask.

But I am secretly hoping I get that text: want me to bring ice?

This newsletter is also a bit of an ask: a few minutes of your time. Thanks for saying yes.

Until soon,

Sarah