There are screens for uncomfortable moments, chatbots for existential questions, and metrics for all the ways we’re falling short.
My final question: why does it seem that avoidance is growing?
Modern life might be making avoidance cycles harder to disrupt. It intensifies pressure to appear polished, while giving us more private, frictionless ways to escape interpersonal uncertainty.
New meta-analytic research suggests that socially prescribed perfectionism – the sense that everyone else expects us to be perfect – is accelerating among college students (Curran, Hill, & Pose, 2026). I think one consequence is that the more we feel pressure to perform “right” the first time, the riskier it becomes to try something new.
And, experimentation is how we learn; failure is not only expected, but functional. A demand for early excellence impedes trial and error, and therefore growth.
Artificial intelligence makes polished performance seem more attainable. Turning to chatbots for emotional support can lower the stakes of saying the hard thing out loud. I wonder whether the more we practice vulnerability with a machine, the easier it becomes to avoid practicing it with others. And when we hide our imperfections in LLM memory, do we bring a more curated version of ourselves to humans?
Relying on AI for emotional support makes a lot of sense, especially given the risks inherent in vulnerability. It can feel like a safe space to bring our fears, insecurities, and helplessness – a place to disclose the thoughts and desires that might scare us – because we cannot control how another human will respond.
And. In doing this, we risk avoiding the very process that develops connection: moving through uncertain situations with another person.
The risk isn’t AI itself – it’s what happens when it becomes a substitute for vulnerability instead of a bridge toward it. When we hide our messy selves from others, we miss opportunities to discover that our fallibility is normal.
Others can remind us that thoughts about not being good enough are common, help us fact-check the belief that we are unlovable, and show us that perceived flaws often make us more approachable and relatable. That is often why we avoid vulnerability in the first place – we fear that our imperfections will make us unworthy of belonging.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development found that the quality of our relationships is among the strongest predictors of happiness and health. It’s the depth of our relationships that matters most – specifically, whether we have people we can depend on and with whom we allow ourselves to be known.
What’s essential about these relationships is not the absence of friction, but what happens when friction occurs – whether connection is maintained through mutual respect, productive disagreement, and timely repair. Learning to move through this friction effectively is the work. It’s how we do better at being human. Life feels worth living when we’re deeply connected to, and growing alongside, others.
Vulnerability – when met with acceptance and validation – is regulating.
Being known can reduce the burden of managing alone. Connection can reduce shame and help us tolerate what otherwise feels intolerable.
Allowing ourselves to be known is often uncomfortable upfront. It requires tolerating uncertainty, relinquishing control, and facing unknown consequences. Breaking the cycle of avoidance calls for the willingness to sit with the discomfort long enough to try something new.
Willingness is a form of acceptance. It’s doing what’s needed in the moment for the sake of what we want long-term. If avoidance is how we hide from our own lives, acceptance is how we turn back toward them.
Accepting uncertainty, while holding hope that others respond compassionately, might never come easily. It might be something we always have to choose on purpose.
The goal is to notice the urge to avoid and ask: is this signaling genuine danger or pulling me away from my values?
When it’s the latter, the work is to remember that avoidance quietly starves us of the very thing that makes life feel worth living – the sense that we matter and belong, imperfections and all.