“Oh, it’s ok.”
“I can figure it out myself.”
“You don’t have to go through all the trouble.”
“I don’t want you spending all that time on me.”
For years, mine and many other Gen-Z friend groups have been infected with displays of individualism and rejections of help for the sake of not wanting to inconvenience and bother. But what if Gen Z’s habit of not asking for help is based on a fear of rejection, not actual consideration for others?
I cannot tell you the number of times a particular friend of mine has told us after or during a hangout that she walked five miles to get there, despite the fact that the rest of us have cars and have offered to drive her. After years of hearing her say she didn’t want to bother anybody, I felt something fishy. She knew she wasn’t bothering us, but she never asked for help. To prevent her from walking through dangerous neighborhoods at night, we had to go out of our way to make sure she wasn’t lying when she said someone was going to pick her up and dissuade her when she said she didn’t want to inconvenience us.
Her “not wanting to bother” was becoming a bigger bother than any five-to-ten-minute detour could. At that point I realized, she did not really care about bothering us. Her concern was a protective shield against rejection. She didn’t overvalue our time; she thought that we would deny her if she asked for help. This was later confirmed after a long, heartfelt conversation. She still doesn’t ask for rides, and we still must ask if we can drive her home.
Individualism is not new. In fact, it is a part of the national myth: the American dream. It sells us the idea that we can through rugged individuum, and that we can get everything that we’ve ever wanted if we march into the frontier alone with only the clothes on our back. But individualism hidden under the veil of selflessness is on the rise, and it makes sense.
Rejection is commonplace for Gen-Z. It is not a surprise that we are afraid of it and have come up with ways to avoid it. According to a poll by the UK Office for National Statistics, people aged 16 to 24 years were the loneliest of any age group. Gen-Z is often described as the most isolated generation; compared to millennials, we are less likely to be in romantic relationships and we reportedly have fewer friendships.
The average college student applies to 30–100 jobs before receiving a single offer. These numbers don’t prove why my friend won’t ask for a ride, but they paint a picture of a generation that has learned to expect a ‘no.’
A 2023 study in the Journal of College Student Mental Health found that students with the greatest need “were less likely to seek help for personal or emotional problems.” The study doesn’t say why, but it is reasonable to suggest that the same motivations that prevented my friend from letting down her walls may be applied to others in similar circumstances.
If one can avoid asking for help, they cannot be rejected. As a large swath of us fear rejection is around every corner, why risk asking for help?
It’s genius. By saying that you don’t want to bother someone, you are protecting yourself from potential rejection, giving yourself a moral desert and in some sense, are virtue signaling humility, but like the titular Tartuffe of Molière, it is false.
It is my opinion that instead of keeping our problems to ourselves, we ought to unburden ourselves — at least to our close friends.
To the people pleasers: don’t think of what you need as a burden: It may be a gift to the person offering you help.
According to Mental Health America, our brain releases serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin when we help others. Though one must take care of themselves, do not let that prevent you from helping others when they need it. Maybe then, no one will fear rejection and need to put up these walls.
But in the meantime, keep offering to drive your friends home, even if they say, “you don’t have to.”