Stop calling it having expectations when it's actually entitlement
the difference between the two
There’s a difference between having expectations and feeling entitled, and most people use the words interchangeably, but they are not interchangeable.
Expectations are built on communication. You ask for what you want, you tell people what matters to you, and you agree on something together, in actual words, and then you hold the relationship to that agreement. Expectations (and boundaries which are a part of this) are how adults negotiate the terms of being close.
But entitlement skips all of that and gets mad anyway. You don’t ask, you don’t say, and you assume the other person should already know, because if they really cared they would. Then you punish them for failing the silent test you didn’t tell them they were taking.
Here’s what the difference looks like in practice:
Expectation: “We made plans, and I’d like you to show up.”
Entitlement: “You should just know what I need without me saying it.”
Expectation: “I asked for something, and I’d like to be taken seriously.” Entitlement: “I shouldn’t have to ask. If they cared, they’d already know.”
Expectation: “I want honesty in this relationship.”
Entitlement: “Everyone should communicate exactly the way I do.”
A lot of the disappointment people carry around isn’t actually about other people letting them down. It’s disappointment that people couldn’t read their mind. These are different problems.
This shows up most often in close relationships: partners, parents, best friends. It’s easy to assume that the closest people in our lives know us the best and know how we want to be treated. And when people disappoint us it’s easy to take it as evidence that they don’t really love you, instead of evidence that you stopped saying what you needed out loud.
And social media makes it way worse. We complain about how other people are rude or disrespectful or don’t show up the way we want to. And then we get agreement from others. But we often need to come back to ourselves first.
A question to sit with this week:
Where in your life have you been calling something an “expectation” that you’ve never actually said out loud to the person it involves?
Xx,
Amanda
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