Accommodation Fatigue

There used to be a simple rule.

If I entered your home, I respected your home. Shoes off? Fine. No smoking? Fine. I entered your space, so I adjusted. That was not oppression. It was manners.

What feels different now is that more people seem to carry their house rules into the public square. Baby on board. Student driver. Be patient. Respect my boundaries. Accommodate my needs. Affirm my choices. Underneath it all sits the same expectation: Please modify yourself for me.

That is where I resist. We owe each other basic decency. Drive safely. Keep your hands to yourself. Control your dog. Follow the law. Make reasonable accommodations where access or safety requires them. But basic decency is the floor. It is not an open-ended contract requiring me to reorganize myself around every stranger I encounter.

Somewhere along the way, we started confusing having a choice with having authority over everyone else's response to that choice. You chose to have a baby. You chose the dog. You chose your religion, how to parent, your values, and what matters to you. Good. Own it. But your choice does not become more powerful because you announce it loudly enough. Your preference does not become a rule because you call it a boundary. Your discomfort does not get veto power over everybody else.

The loudest need in the room does not automatically deserve control of the room.

If I see a "Baby on Board" sign, am I supposed to drive differently? More carefully than I was already supposed to drive? Which bumper stickers am I required to obey? I already have a responsibility to drive safely because other human beings are on the road. Your baby did not create that responsibility. Your sign gives me information. It does not deputize me into your life.

Sometimes I am simply trying to get home. I do not have unlimited bandwidth to process the personal circumstances of everyone between here and there. That may sound cold. Fine. I would rather be honest about the limits of human attention than pretend I am emotionally invested in every stranger I pass. I am not.

Pets may be the clearest example. You love Fido. He's sweet. He's family. He has a Christmas stocking and apparently understands English. Fantastic. That is your relationship with your dog. It is not mine. I do not want Fido jumping on me, licking me, rubbing against me, climbing into my lap, or humping my leg while somebody says, "He's just being friendly." Maybe he is. I still don't want him on me. You chose the dog. I did not. Your affection does not require my participation.

The same thing happens with beliefs. We tell people to be authentic. Be yourself. Live your truth. Until your truth collides with somebody else's. Then authenticity suddenly has terms and conditions. Be yourself, but say this. Be yourself, but don't believe that. Be yourself, but affirm this. Be yourself, as long as the version of yourself you bring into the room receives approval.

That is not authenticity. That is conformity with better branding.

I can respect your right to believe something without believing it myself. I can respect your right to make a choice while thinking your choice was terrible. I can care about your humanity without becoming invested in your preferences. I can hear your request and say no. No thanks is also a choice.

But increasingly, "no thanks" is treated as hostility. Decline and you are insensitive. Disagree and you are intolerant. Refuse to affirm and you are disrespectful. Set your own boundary and suddenly your boundary is the problem. That is where accommodation becomes something else: control.

And I am tired of it. Call it accommodation fatigue. We have stretched the expectation of accommodation so far that ordinary consideration is starting to feel compulsory. Push that far enough and you get kindness fatigue too. Forced kindness is not kindness. It is performance.

It is being told you have to eat the bread pudding because somebody else loves bread pudding. Maybe you think it is incredible. Good for you. I don't want it. Why isn't that enough? Why does my plate need to become a referendum on your dessert?

Shared space cannot function if every person enters it carrying a personalized rulebook. The road is not yours. The park is not mine. The grocery store does not belong to whoever arrives with the greatest need, strongest feelings, loudest identity, or newest boundary. We all showed up. None of us gets automatic command.

Shared space requires shared standards. Sometimes those standards will accommodate you. Sometimes they will accommodate me. Sometimes neither of us will get exactly what we want. Good. That is what happens when people with different beliefs, preferences, needs, and lives occupy the same world.

I owe strangers basic decency. I do not owe them a customized version of myself. Your choices can matter enormously to you without becoming instructions for me. Your discomfort can be real without becoming my emergency. Your values can guide your life without governing mine. And mine do not govern yours either.

That is the deal. You get to be you. I get to be me. Neither of us gets extra votes because we feel more strongly. Neither of us gets to turn personal preference into public law by proclamation. Choice has to run both ways. Otherwise it is not choice. It is control.

And sometimes I really am just trying to get home.

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