Inflation isn’t the only thing getting more expensive. People are too. Not financially. Emotionally. We’ve all met them. The friend who turns every tiny misunderstanding into a three-hour debrief. The colleague who somehow leaves every meeting convinced you’ve personally attacked them by saying, “Could we move this to Tuesday?” The date who interprets replying three hours later as a sign you’ve emotionally checked out of the relationship. The stranger who projects an entire childhood onto the fact you didn’t smile in the supermarket.

People have become emotionally expensive. And before anyone panics, this isn’t about people struggling with their mental health. Life is hard. We all have bad weeks, bad moods and moments where we’re not our best selves. That’s called being human. Being emotionally expensive is something else entirely. It’s expecting everyone around you to manage emotions you’ve made no effort to manage yourself.

For years we’ve been learning a new language. Boundaries. Red flags. Gaslighting. Love bombing. Trauma responses. Attachment styles. Emotional availability. Therapy has done something wonderful: it’s given us words for experiences that once felt impossible to explain. But somewhere along the way, many of us accidentally accepted a second job. Unofficial therapist.

Suddenly every conversation feels like an intervention. Every disagreement requires a psychological analysis. Every friendship comes with emotional customer service. We’re not just expected to listen anymore. We’re expected to interpret. Repair. Reassure. Validate. Translate. Repeat. Sometimes all before breakfast.

The funny thing is that most of us genuinely want to help. We love our friends. We show up after breakups. We answer midnight phone calls. We celebrate promotions. We bring soup when someone is ill. That’s what relationships are for. But support and responsibility are not the same thing.

Somehow empathy has become evidence in a courtroom. The intention quietly disappears. Only the perceived offence remains. Perhaps that’s what makes emotionally expensive people so exhausting. You’re no longer responding to what you actually said. You’re responding to the story they’ve decided to tell themselves about what you meant. It’s impossible to win a conversation happening inside someone else’s head. 

And yet so many of us keep trying. We replay messages before sending them. We reread conversations looking for invisible mistakes. We apologise for things we didn’t actually do. We spend entire evenings wondering whether saying “Take care” somehow sounded passive-aggressive. It’s remarkable how much emotional energy we donate to situations we never created. Maybe because we’re kind. Maybe because we’re conscientious. Maybe because we genuinely don’t want to hurt people. Those are beautiful qualities. But kindness has one fatal flaw. It often believes everything is its responsibility. It isn’t.

One of the most liberating lessons adulthood offers is this: Someone else’s reaction isn’t always your responsibility. Read that again. Not every disappointment belongs to you. Not every misunderstanding requires fixing. Not every emotional storm has your name on it. As long as you’ve acted with integrity, honesty and consideration, you’ve already done your part. The rest belongs to them. That’s not selfish. It’s healthy.

We’ve somehow confused compassion with unlimited emotional availability. As though loving someone means absorbing every mood, every projection and every insecurity they haven’t yet unpacked. It doesn’t. Love isn’t becoming someone else’s emotional storage unit. Sometimes love sounds like, “I’m here for you.” Sometimes it also sounds like, “I don’t think I can carry this for you.” Both are acts of care.

Here’s the hopeful part. Emotionally healthy people are wonderfully inexpensive. Not because they don’t have problems. Quite the opposite. They simply take ownership of them. They apologise. They communicate. They assume good intentions before bad ones. They don’t make you decode hidden meanings from punctuation. You leave conversations with them lighter than when you arrived. Not because life is easier. Because they’re easier to be around. Maybe that’s the real green flag we’ve all been overlooking. Not someone who never gets upset. Someone who doesn’t make every emotion your responsibility.

Life is already asking a lot of us. We’re trying to build careers. Pay rent. Remember birthdays. Drink enough water. Call our parents. Keep our plants alive. Figure out what “healthy work-life balance” is supposed to mean. We don’t also need to become full-time emotional project managers for every adult we meet. Relationships should feel like a place to rest. Not another item on your to-do list. So be generous. Be patient. Assume the best in people. Offer help when you can. Listen with your whole heart.

But remember this too. You are responsible for acting with love. You are not responsible for how every single person chooses to receive it. And perhaps growing up isn’t learning how to carry everyone else’s emotional baggage. Perhaps it’s learning that sometimes the kindest thing you can do, for them and for yourself, is gently hand the suitcase back.

With Love, Chaos, and Jazz. Always.