EVIDENCE_BOARD

The Usefulness Contract

THE HIDDEN RULE

“My seat at the table is rented, and the rent is paid in service — listening, fixing, absorbing.” The reciprocity data says the fear isn't paranoid: across 92,000+ subjects, only 34–53% of perceived friendships were actually mutual. But the contract's fix — more unpaid labor — has never once bought reciprocation.

INSTANCES (3)

“I'm only invited when I'm useful”“If I stop being helpful, they'll drop me”“I'm everyone's therapist and no one's friend”

RESEARCH FINDINGS

EVIDENCE

The Science of One-Sided Friendships: Why Half Your Friend List Doesn't Match Theirs

If you've ever suspected a friendship only exists because you keep it alive, the data has news — and it's not just about you. When researchers actually mapped who calls whom a friend, only about half

MECHANISMS

Friendship reciprocity gap

The friendship reciprocity gap is the documented mismatch between who you count as a friend and who counts you back: in network studies, people expect

Inequity distress

Inequity distress is the discomfort equity theory predicts on both sides of an unbalanced relationship: partners who consistently give more than they

Friendship tie decay

Friendship tie decay is the measurable decline in emotional closeness that friendships — unlike family ties — undergo when contact and shared activity

The Liking Gap

The liking gap is the systematic underestimate of how much other people like us after we talk to them. Boothby, Cooney, Sandstrom and Clark (2018) fou

RESEARCHERS

Abdullah Almaatouq Elaine Hatfield Robin Dunbar Jeffrey A. Hall

STATUS: READY_TO_INSTALL

“I'm only invited when I'm useful”

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