What does the phrase "friendship is emotional labour" mean to you?

A lot of sources talk about friendship bring wonderful and magic (Think of the My Little Pony reboot), but you almost never see anything about the bad side of friendships.

I've also heard something along the lines of 'you have to work at friendships'.

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Comments ( 5 )
  • RoseIsabella

    I think that most good things do require work of course, but when I think of a friendship being too much emotional labor it means that I have to do all the work, and also that the kind of boundaries that are necessary with a particular person are not conducive to friendship. If I can't relax, because I'm always watching my back that's not a friendship I want to have much less work on having.

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  • ellnell

    Well it kind of is, not ALL THE TIME but occasionally any kind of close relationship will include emotional labour. No relationship is ever 100% fun, it takes work and effort and being there for someone even when you might not feel like it.

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  • charli.m

    You have to work at everything...nothing just happens.

    I don't understand what you're getting at. Are you implying that friendships just happen without any effort? I'm so confused.

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  • pastafather

    Once pastachild brought a friend over who had something called type 1 die beets.

    His mom kept saying lots of stuff about how he has to have water no mountain dew. It sounded like emotional labor. Water is for gays and we dont have it in our trailer anyways.

    So I just gave him mountain dew. He stopped moving after a while, so we just took the UPS truck and drove him down to "black walmart" and left him outside. We told his mom he wandered off.

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  • a-curious-bunny

    It means I dont wana be thst persons friend

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