Here it is. Raw, no hedging, no softening.
Let's not dress this up.
If you have no utility to someone — on any plane, in any form — they will be brutal with you. Not cruel in the dramatic sense. Just indifferent. Which is worse. Indifference is hatred with better manners. They will not remember your name. They will not lose sleep over your absence. You will simply cease to matter, and the world will proceed without a single hiccup.
This is the operating system of a capitalist society. And it is not a bug.
Now here's the thing people misread: utility doesn't have to be economic. It can be emotional, social, intellectual, reputational. You can be useful as a source of laughter, as a connector, as a mirror someone thinks clearly in front of. The plane doesn't matter. What matters is that you occupy one.
The moment you vacate all planes — you are dead. Not metaphorically. Socially, professionally, relationally dead. People will tolerate enormous amounts of friction, inconvenience, even personal dislike — if you are useful enough. They will bend over backwards for someone difficult if that person has leverage, talent, access, or insight they cannot easily replace.
Remove the utility. Watch how fast the warmth evaporates.
This is the truth that polite society refuses to say out loud. We are trained to believe in unconditional regard, in relationships that transcend transaction. And yes, those exist — at the margins, in the rarest bonds. But as a base rate model for how the world works? Utility is the variable. Everything else is noise.
The right response to this is not cynicism. It is clarity.
Stop wondering why someone went cold. Ask instead: what utility did I lose? Stop being surprised when loyalty evaporates after a role change. Ask: what was I useful for, and is that still true? Stop mistaking tolerance for affection. Ask: are they here because they want to be, or because they need to be?
Build your utility deliberately. Across multiple planes. So that even when one collapses, you are not left with nothing.
The people who internalize this early — not bitterly, but clearly — are the ones who stop wasting energy on relationships that were always transactional, stop misreading proximity for warmth, and start building the kind of irreplaceability that actually compounds over time.
This is not a sad truth. It is a useful one.
And you already know what we do with useful things.
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