In fact, can we talk about the difference between the concepts of deserving something and being owed something?
Because I think we get these twisted up a lot.
One time, I told a male friend who’d been single for a long time that he deserved to find someone he could be with, and in fact someone he could enjoy good sex with. And he was like - don’t tell me that - that’s how those incel guys get started.
And I was really taken aback by this. Just because you deserve to have love, doesn’t mean that any one person is obligated to give you love. Just because you deserve to have good sex, doesn’t mean any specific person owes it to you to have sex with you.
This works both ways, too. Often people - women especially - feel like they owe someone love or time or sex or energy because they see that someone needs those things. But just because someone needs something doesn’t mean that it’s up to you personally to provide it.
This isn’t just about sex, either. We talk a lot about what we deserve in life. We tell friends they deserve good things - a job they love, a solid relationship, a relaxing vacation, good health insurance, that cute outfit they want, and on and on. But when we’re saying those things, we’re not necessarily saying that anyone is obligated to give them those things.
Sometimes we are saying that, though. For instance - we all deserve things that meet our basic needs such as a roof over our heads, quality health care, food security, etc. And I, like many people, believe that the government owes us these things because we are the citizens that are being governed.
Or even taking it down a scale, everyone who is able to work might deserve to have a job that they love - but at the very least, all workers are owed a job in which they feel safe.
Not everyone is going to love their jobs, and most of the time there is no one person or persons to blame for that situation. But the employers who own and run a company are absolutely the ones in charge of making sure that everyone who works for them are kept safe while on the job. So there is a clear example of the difference between something we deserve vs. something we are owed.
Life is complicated and most of the time we don’t get everything that we deserve to have, and most of that isn’t anyone’s fault.
But what we owe to one another, what we’re obliged to give to one another - is a wholly different thing. And I feel like we need to examine and talk about this more often.
