is nonchalance something we really need

the new art of being nonchalant : an essay

there was a time, not too long ago, when care wasn’t considered desperation. when people would pick up the phone and call just to say, “i was thinking about you.” when showing up, it didn’t feel like a transaction. when someone was too eager didn’t automatically mean they were too much. love was messy, but it was real. friendships were flawed, but they were full of effort.

people said things and meant them. they didn’t hide behind sarcasm and ironic detachment. they didn’t make you guess what you meant to them. they didn’t reduce the connection into this cold game of psychological restraint, where the one who cares less wins.

there was sincerity. clumsiness, maybe. but sincerity.

but somewhere in between all the self-help threads and the “don’t settle for less than you deserve” mantras and the spiritual bypassing we do in the name of healing, we’ve glorified avoidance. we’ve started to treat distance like dignity. we’ve convinced ourselves that the safest way to love is not to show it. that vulnerability is a luxury we can’t afford until we’ve seen proof.

we wait for someone else to go first, and if they don’t, we pull away completely, not because we didn’t care, but because we cared too much to risk looking like the one who cared more. we ghost each other while claiming to be emotionally intelligent. we call detachment “maturity,” when often it’s just the residue of our fear, left unchecked and rebranded as growth.

we’ve gotten so used to calling silence strength that we’ve forgotten the strength it takes to be soft. to text back quickly. to admit you miss someone. to call just because you remembered their face when you saw a stranger on the street. to say, “i don’t know what’s going on with us, but i miss you and i want to talk.” we don’t do that anymore. not because we don’t feel it, but because we’ve trained ourselves not to act on it. we overthink it until the moment passes.

we tell ourselves that if they cared, they’d reach out. and maybe they’re sitting there thinking the same thing about us. but no one breaks the silence. so the silence breaks the relationship.

and what makes it worse is that this isn’t happening in isolation. it’s happening everywhere — between friends, between lovers, even within families. we’ve stopped fighting for our people. we’ve stopped checking in. we don’t remember birthdays unless we get a facebook notification. (sorry, instagram stories)

we don’t reply to messages unless we’re in the “right mental space,” even though we scroll past thirty-seven memes and watch three hours of reels in the same breath. we say we’re busy. but what does busy even mean now? busy scrolling? busy dissociating? busy running away from every difficult emotion under the guise of self-preservation?

we’ve mistaken disengagement for peace, and i think it’s killing something sacred in us.

and if you think this doesn’t affect relationships, look closer. look at the number of people saying “we just grew apart” when in reality, they just stopped talking. look at how many breakups begin with: “i didn’t want to seem clingy, so i didn’t bring it up.” look at how many friendships end not with a fight, but with one unread message too many.

the emotional stamina we used to have — to work through misunderstandings, to talk things out even when it was awkward, to stay even when things got messy — is slowly vanishing. we’re so terrified of discomfort that we would rather end something than express how we feel.

we would rather assume the worst than ask. and we would rather be alone than risk being vulnerable and misunderstood.

i often think about our parents. not in the romanticised, “let’s go back to the good old days” way. but in the sense that they stayed. they tried. they fought and cried and talked, and sometimes the love was imperfect, but it was there. you could feel it. it was in the quiet ways they showed up. the way they’d make a plate of fruit for someone after a fight. the way they’d still ask, “did you eat?” even when they were angry.

there was resentment, sure. but there was also resilience.

they didn’t have the luxury to just block someone and move on. they had to learn how to sit in the same room and work through things. they didn’t know what “nonchalant” even meant — and maybe that’s why their love survived.

what we need is not to go back. but to remember what it felt like to be fully seen, and to see others fully. to listen not just with the intent to respond, but with the intent to understand. we’ve lost the art of deep listening. real listening. the kind that doesn’t interrupt. that doesn’t wait for a break to insert our own trauma story. the kind that holds space without offering unsolicited advice or performance empathy.

we say we want closeness, but when someone tries to open up, we minimise their feelings or redirect the conversation. we say we want intimacy, but when someone tells us the truth of how they feel, we retreat into silence or ghost them. we’ve gotten used to receiving fragments of people. and even more used to offering only fragments of ourselves.

but love, real love, cannot thrive in fragments. it requires presence. attention. the willingness to be inconvenienced.

the readiness to be there when it’s not exciting, when it’s not convenient, when it’s 2 a.m. and the other person just needs someone to say, “i’m here. tell me everything.” that kind of love isn’t loud or performative. it’s built in the small, quiet choices: the message sent, the call returned, the moment you choose softness over silence. and we have to start honouring those moments again.

we have to stop treating effort like it’s embarrassing. there is nothing embarrassing about giving a damn.

i don’t think nonchalance is something we need more of. i think we’re already drowning in it. i think what we need is the opposite — radical attentiveness.

people who care too much and aren’t ashamed of it. people who still believe in calling back, in writing long messages, in remembering how someone takes their coffee. people who cry at goodbyes. people who laugh too loudly. people who pick up the phone and say, “i know we haven’t spoken in a while, but i miss you and i don’t want to keep pretending i don’t.” people who aren’t afraid to look like fools for the sake of love. because that kind of foolishness — that unfiltered, unguarded, emotionally open way of being is what makes us human.

and if you’re reading this right now, maybe it’s not too late. maybe there’s someone you can still reach out to. maybe the person you miss is missing you, too. maybe they’re just waiting for one sign that it’s safe to care again. be that sign. don’t let fear become your personality. don’t let cynicism become your belief system.

don’t let the world convince you that withholding love is power. it’s not. it’s protection, sure, but protection from what? from heartbreak? from intimacy? from being known and maybe misunderstood? those are not things we should be protecting ourselves from. those are the things that make life meaningful. that makes love worthwhile.

be messy if you have to. be needy if it’s honest. tell people you miss them. tell them you care. tell them when you’re hurt. let them hold you, and when they’re falling apart, hold them without making them feel like they need to come back together in five minutes. be the kind of person who listens until the end, not until you feel uncomfortable. be the softness that the world has forgotten. be the care that nobody’s expecting anymore. be the reminder that not everyone is indifferent. that not everyone will leave.

and don’t, for the love of everything sacred, don’t put a mask of nonchalance over your emotions. don’t pretend you’re okay when your silence is screaming. don’t smile through pain just because vulnerability makes you feel weak. don’t keep calling your loneliness “freedom” when all you really want is someone who’ll look at you and see through the brave face.

don’t call it healing if it’s just a habit of closing the door before anyone can knock.

let yourself be seen — not just the version of you that’s okay with everything and needs no one, but the version that cries at night and misses people it can’t text anymore. that version deserves love, too.

i know you’ve been hurt. i know the world has taught you that people leave. that being too open makes you disposable. that if you want to survive, you have to play it cool. that showing emotion is giving someone power over you. i know some people have mishandled your heart — dropped it, crushed it, ignored it when it was wide open. i know you’ve had to swallow your sadness just to keep moving. and i know it made you think that caring too much was the mistake.

you are allowed to feel. to want. to hope. to cry for connection. you are allowed to text first. to send long messages without editing the emotion out of them. to tell someone you miss them without waiting for them to say it first. don’t let other people’s inability to meet you where you are become the reason you stop showing up altogether. that’s how the cycle continues. that’s how a generation forgets how to love. that’s how we end up raising children who think silence is safer than truth.

don’t withhold love out of fear that it won’t be returned. give it because you want to, and because this world desperately needs more of it. don’t wait until it’s too late and all that’s left is regret. don’t build your identity around how little you care. that’s not strength — that’s resignation. that’s surrendering to a version of life where no one ever gets too close and everyone dies a little lonely.

be the interruption to that story.

if we don’t, if we keep choosing pride over presence, silence over softness, aesthetics over authenticity, we’ll end up in a world full of people who are perfectly healed, beautifully detached, and utterly alone. people who know how to meditate through heartbreak, journal through abandonment, quote rumi while blocking someone they once loved, but who no longer know how to sit with someone in silence, hold hands through grief, or say, “i’m sorry. i hurt you. let’s fix this.”

and that, more than anything, would be the real tragedy of our time.

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