They Need You. Krishna Asks: Do They Choose You Or Just Depend on You? There is a quiet confusion many sincere people live inside for years without naming it. They mistake being needed for being loved. They mistake emotional access for intimacy. They mistake endurance for devotion. Because from the outside, it looks noble. It looks patient. It looks selfless. But Krishna never glorifies sacrifice that hollows the self. The Bhagavad Gita does not praise suffering that comes from lack of discernment. Krishna teaches Arjuna something far more uncomfortable: clarity without guilt. And clarity, when it arrives, exposes where kindness has been weaponized against you. This is not an article about becoming cold. It is about becoming accurate.

They Come to You for Regulation, Not Relationship

You provide emotional relief, not chosen commitment or care.

They approach you without hesitation.
“This is my problem.”
“Tell me I’m not wrong.”
“Tell me I’m not a bad person.”
You become their emotional stabilizer. Their mirror. Their relief system. Notice the pattern carefully. They do not come to build a shared life. They come to discharge emotional weight. They arrive when their ego cracks, when loneliness sharpens, when they feel lost or unseen elsewhere. You are not chosen. You are accessible. They take your listening. They take your reassurance. They take your emotional labour. And once they feel lighter, they withdraw - until the next internal collapse.
This cycle repeats because you are consistent, not because you are valued. Your inner cup drains quietly. Not dramatically. Not suddenly. Slowly. And the most painful part is not the taking. It is the absence of curiosity about you. Not once do they ask - Are you holding too much? Who holds you? Krishna would call this attachment without accountability. It feels like closeness, but it carries no responsibility toward your well-being.

Emotional Intensity Creates Illusion, Not Bond

Long conversations at night. Deep confessions. Heavy emotional exchanges that feel profound. You tell yourself: This means something. This depth must matter. But intensity is not investment. People can expose themselves emotionally and still remain unavailable relationally. They can cry with you, lean on you, unload everything and leave without consequence. And because you are conscientious, you justify it.
“They’re struggling.”
“Their situation is genuine.”
“How could I say no?”
Yes. Their pain is real. So is yours. But watch closely - only one pain is allowed space. Yours becomes something to postpone. To manage privately. To be mature about. Krishna never equates self-erasure with virtue. Compassion that excludes the self is not wisdom, it is fear dressed as goodness. It is the fear of losing relevance, connection, or moral superiority.

Where There Is No Reverence, There Is Only Use

Lack of respect turns kindness into emotional utility.

Someone who sees your worth does not require you to collapse for their comfort. Those who intend to use you do not arrive aggressively. They study you. They test your limits gently. They see how much you tolerate without protest. You become the rehearsal space. They practice vulnerability on you. Communication on you. Emotional leverage on you. And then, when someone they actually desire appears, they behave differently. With them, they hesitate. They respect. They fear rejection. With you, they demand. You are not the prize. You are the placeholder. And then come the comments that quietly dehumanize:
“You reply fast. I like that.”
“You’re too kind.”
“You’re naive.”
Because excessive availability invites contempt, not intimacy. Krishna is unsentimental about this truth: where there is no mutual dignity, there is no love, only convenience.

Stop Explaining Yourself, Notice What Actually Changes

Most people don’t keep crossing your boundaries because they are confused. They do it because nothing happens when they do. You explain. You soften. You contextualize their behaviour. You give one more chance so things don’t feel "harsh." And they learn something important about you: You will adjust before they ever have to.
Stop explaining what hurts you to people who have already watched it hurt you.
Stop negotiating basic consideration.
Stop staying present in conversations that drain you and pretending it is maturity.
The moment you reduce availability, patterns reveal themselves. Some people get confused, because access was automatic. Some people get irritated, because effort was never part of the arrangement. Some people disappear, because without your emotional labour, there is nothing holding them there. And this is the point where most people panic and return, because silence feels like guilt when you have been trained to be useful. But nothing is being taken away from someone who was never offering care in return.

Being Needed Is Easy. Being Chosen Requires Cost

Being needed only asks that you stay available. Being chosen asks that someone consider you - your time, your limits, your inner state, even when it inconveniences them. If a connection survives only when you are endlessly understanding, endlessly present, endlessly forgiving, then it is not stable. It is dependent. And dependence always collapses the moment you stop compensating. This is where clarity finally arrives. Not because you left. Not because you hardened. But because you stopped cushioning the imbalance. When you no longer make it easy to take from you, people show you exactly why they were there. That information is not cruel. It is corrective. And once you see it clearly, you cannot unsee it.