YOU USE ME AS A TOOL — AND I USE YOU AS AN EXCUSE NOT TO EXIST

There is a way of inhabiting relationships
There is a way of inhabiting relationships that does not manifest through conflict, but through its absolute absence. It is not the despair of not being oneself, nor the torment of wanting to be—it is something prior and more insidious: the dissolution of the very question of who one is, replaced by the question of what the other can do for me. We live in the era of affective instrumentalization, where human presence has been reduced to the category of existential tool.

What distinguishes this relational modality is not conscious bad faith, but the tranquility with which it establishes itself. People do not lie about their feelings—they genuinely believe that convenience is affection, that utility is intimacy, that need is desire. They have built a system of meanings where depth has been replaced by functionality, and no one notices the difference because everyone uses the same impoverished dictionary.

There is a silent violence in this way of relating, more devastating than explicit aggression: the violence of genuine indifference masked as pragmatic interest. The other is not hated, not feared, not even rejected—they are simply processed as a resource available in one’s personal psychic economy. We have become managers of relational portfolios, where each bond is evaluated by its emotional, social, or material return.

What makes this phenomenon particularly complex is its perfect integration with contemporary discourse on authenticity. The same voices that proclaim “be yourself” and “take care of yourself” have constructed an operational narcissism that turns every encounter into a transaction. We have learned to call self-care what is, in truth, a sophisticated form of relational autism—the inability to recognize the other as an autonomous existence that does not exist to serve my personal narrative.

Convenience has created its own temporality in relationships: the time of availability. It is not the time of encounter, not the time of joint construction—it is the time of when I need. People enter and exit our consciousness like applications we open and close according to necessity. There is a permanent presence-absence, a way of being together that is fundamentally being alone in geographical or digital proximity.

What escapes us in this architecture is that convenience is not merely a way of treating the other—it is a form of annihilating oneself. When I reduce all bonds to their utility, I build a world where I myself only exist as a function. I become what I do for others, what others do for me, what I manage to extract or offer. The substance of being evaporates on the surface of exchanges.

We have developed a frightening capacity to simulate intimacy without ever achieving it. We master the codes of proximity—the right words, the appropriate gestures, the physical presence—but all this occurs on a layer where the real encounter never takes place. It is as if we were in permanent diplomatic negotiations, where each party seeks to maximize its gains while maintaining the appearance of genuine collaboration.

The language of contemporary relationships has betrayed its own essence. We say “I’m here for you” when we mean “count on me while I need you.” We speak of “deep connection” to describe the coincidence of mutual interests. We celebrate “partnership” for what is, in truth, a temporary coalition of converging conveniences. Words do not lie because we have stopped distinguishing between their original meaning and their strategic use.

There is a question we rarely ask: when did we decide that relationships exist for something? When did we naturalize that people must “add value” to our lives? When did we transform the human encounter—this radical mystery where two existences recognize each other without need for justification—into just another item on the list of personal optimizations?

Convenience operates through an emotional cost-benefit logic that has colonized even the spaces we imagined protected. Friendships are maintained “because you never know when we’ll need them,” romances endure “as long as it works for both,” families organize around what each member can offer. We build networks of interdependencies where no one truly depends on anyone—only using the other as scaffolding for their own constructions.

The most disturbing aspect is that this way of relating produces its own validation. It works. It is efficient. It avoids unnecessary suffering, protects from disappointments, keeps expectations clear. It seems mature not to get involved beyond the necessary, intelligent to always preserve an emotional emergency exit, healthy not to depend deeply on anyone. We have created an entire psychology of independence that is, at bottom, a celebration of isolation disguised as autonomy.

But there is something this efficiency does not account for: the cost of never being truly seen. Because to be seen requires existing beyond function, beyond utility, beyond the role one plays in the other’s life. Being seen demands the courage to be absolutely useless and still remain. It requires the vulnerability of having nothing to offer except one’s own naked presence, stripped of any pragmatic justification.

Convenience kills what is most human in relationships: risk. Every genuine encounter is a leap into the dark where there are no guarantees, where I can be disappointed, where I can be transformed in ways I did not choose. Affective instrumentalization is, above all, a refusal of this risk—a attempt to domesticate the unpredictable, to control the uncontrollable, to manage what only exists when it escapes management.

We have also developed a peculiar form of loneliness: loneliness in company. We are surrounded by people, constantly connected, never truly alone—and precisely because of this, we experience a void that no presence fills. Because all these presences are functional, transactional, conditional. No one is there simply because, because something in the encounter is worthwhile in itself, independent of what I gain or offer.

What has been lost is the gratuitousness of the bond. There is no longer space for affection that serves no purpose, for time wasted together, for conversation that solves no problem, for presence that neither adds nor protects nor facilitates—only exists. Everything must have purpose, function, objective. And in this total economy of utility, what is properly human—that which exceeds any calculation—disappears.

Convenience has also produced a specific form of guilt: the guilt of not being useful enough. We have internalized transactional logic to such an extent that we feel inadequate when we have nothing to offer, when we cannot solve others’ problems, when our presence makes no practical difference. We have forgotten that existing is already offering something—the only thing no one else can give: this specific, unique, unrepeatable existence.

There is an illusion of control in this way of relating. We believe that by maintaining safe distances, setting clear boundaries, preserving our independence, we are protecting ourselves. But what we do is build sophisticated prisons where we are surrounded by people who never truly reach us. Protection reveals itself as isolation, autonomy as loneliness, clarity as incommunicability.

Instrumental relationships also create a peculiar form of boredom: the boredom of never being surprised. Because when all bonds are predictable in their functionality, when each person performs the expected role, when there is no space for the unexpected, relational life becomes an infinite repetition of the same script. We know exactly what to expect from each, what each expects from us, and we inhabit this predictability as if it were comfort.

But there is a dimension of human existence that only reveals itself in the unpredictable, the uncontrollable, the absolutely useless. It is in this dimension that the real encounter happens—not the encounter of complementary needs, but the encounter of two opacities that do not fully decipher each other and precisely because of this remain interesting. Two complexities that do not reduce to one another and therefore can effectively dialogue.

Convenience has also robbed us of the capacity to remain. We are accustomed to discarding what no longer works, replacing what has ceased to serve, constantly updating our circle of relations like software updates. There is no space for jointly traversing crises, for enduring unproductive phases, for permanence that is not justified by results.

What happens when a bond traverses a period of mutual uselessness? When neither has anything to offer the other? When the relationship no longer fulfills any practical function? In the logic of convenience, this is the moment of discard. But it is precisely this moment that could reveal if there is something there beyond instrumentality—something that persists when all practical reasons disappear.

We have created biodegradable relationships, designed to decompose as soon as they lose utility. And we call this maturity, realism, emotional health. But there is a question we avoid: if everything is disposable, including people, what exactly is not? Where is the anchoring point of one’s own existence when even the most intimate bonds are contingent on their use value?

Convenience has also altered our relationship with time. We live in the immediacy of the useful response, the practical solution, the measurable result. There is no longer time for the slow maturation of a bond, for the gradual development of trust, for the patient construction of intimacy. We want instant relationships, plug and play, that work from the first moment or do not deserve our investment.

But the deep human encounter demands exactly what we lack most: useless time. Time to do nothing together, to solve nothing, to produce nothing. Time to simply be, to let something emerge without forcing, to allow the bond to reveal its own nature instead of imposing a predefined function.

What has been lost is patience with the mystery of the other. We want to decipher quickly, categorize, understand what it serves for. The opacity of the other, its irreducibility to any scheme, its capacity to surprise us indefinitely—all this has become a problem to be solved instead of a mystery to be inhabited. We prefer the predictability of utility to the unforeseen of the true encounter.

Affective instrumentalization has also created a form of suffering we do not know how to name: the pain of never having been loved for nothing. We have been appreciated for our intelligence, desired for our appearance, valued for our achievements, needed for our problem-solving capacity. But loved for being exactly what we are when all useful qualities are suspended? This has become rare to the point of seeming impossible.

There is an ancient hunger that convenience never satiates: the hunger to be recognized in our absolute singularity, not as an instance of a useful category, but as this unrepeatable existence that never existed before and will never exist again. We want to be seen not for what we do, but for what we are—and we discover that we have built a world where this distinction no longer makes sense.

Convenience has taught us to ask about any person: “what can she do for me?” But we have forgotten to ask: “who is she when she is doing nothing for anyone?” And more importantly: “who am I when I am not being useful to anyone?” These questions terrify us because they reveal that we have built identities entirely dependent on functionality.

Instrumental relationships have also robbed us of the experience of care that expects no return. We care strategically, invest calculatively, give ourselves with reservations. There is always an expectation, even unconscious, of reciprocity. We have lost the capacity to give without accounting, to be present without timing, to love without evaluating the return on emotional investment.

But there is a way of being together that fits no economy of exchanges. It is gratuitous presence, affection that needs no justification, a bond that serves for nothing beyond existing. It is in this radical uselessness that the human reveals itself in its deepest dimension—not as a functional being, but as pure existence that is worthwhile in itself, without need for external validation.

The question we need to ask is not how to optimize our relationships, how to make them more efficient, how to extract more value from them. The question is: can we still conceive of a bond that needs no justification? That has no purpose beyond its own existence? That remains even when it adds nothing, solves nothing, facilitates nothing?

If the answer is no, then we must recognize that we are not merely instrumentalizing others—we are instrumentalizing the very possibility of human encounter. And in this process, we become instruments of a logic that traverses us without our noticing, reducing all existence to functionality, all affection to transaction, all presence to utility.

The way out of this labyrinth is not in more relationship techniques, more communication strategies, more bond optimizations. It is in recovering the courage to be useless, to serve for nothing, to be present without justification. It is in relearning that the human encounter is not a means to any end—it is an end in itself. That the other does not exist to fill my gaps, solve my problems, validate my existence. The other exists, simply exists, and that is already everything.

We need to relearn what it is to be together without agenda, without expectation, without predefined function. Relearn permanence that is not justified by results. Relearn presence that does not count time. Relearn affection that expects no return. Relearn that being human is not being useful—it is being, radically, this specific existence that meets another specific existence, and from this encounter nothing needs to result beyond the encounter itself.

As long as we do not recover this non-instrumental dimension of shared existence, we will continue inhabiting a world of empty presences, functional bonds, encounters that encounter nothing. We will continue solitary amid the crowd, surrounded by useful people but never truly accompanied. Because companionship is not function—it is gratuitousness, mystery, risk. It is being together without knowing exactly why, without being able to explain completely, without managing to justify rationally. And it is precisely in this unjustifiability that the deepest human resides.

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