THE STRANGE RISE OF THE “LOW-MAINTENANCE” WOMAN MARIAN DE SILVA

There is a particular kind of woman society has learned to adore. She does not ask for much. She does not complain. She is independent, understanding, flexible and remarkably good at swallowing disappointment with a smile. She can entertain herself, solve her own problems, pay her own bills and apparently require very little emotional maintenance from anyone around her. She is the woman who says, “It’s fine,” when it is very much not fine. She is the woman who says, “Whatever works for you,” while quietly rearranging her entire life around everyone else’s convenience. She is praised as mature, chill, easygoing and, increasingly, “low maintenance.” It sounds like a compliment. Sometimes it is. There is nothing inherently wrong with being independent, relaxed or emotionally secure. But somewhere along the way, “low maintenance” stopped meaning a woman who is comfortable in herself and started becoming shorthand for a woman who does not inconvenience anyone with her needs. And that distinction matters.

Because there is something deeply strange about a culture that can look at a woman who asks for very little and immediately decide that she is ideal. We rarely stop to ask why she asks for so little. Perhaps she genuinely does not need much. Perhaps she has healthy boundaries and does not confuse constant attention with love. Or perhaps she has spent years learning that having needs makes her difficult. Those are not the same woman.

The low-maintenance woman has become almost a social fantasy. She is independent enough not to depend on you, affectionate enough to make you feel wanted, attractive without appearing vain, successful without being intimidating, sexual without having too many expectations, emotionally intelligent without ever becoming emotionally demanding, and endlessly understanding when you inevitably disappoint her. She is expected to have her own life, but never to become so occupied that she cannot accommodate yours.

In other words, she is encouraged to be a complete human being, provided her completeness never becomes inconvenient. There is a particularly fascinating contradiction here. Modern women are constantly told to be independent. Build a career. Have your own money. Travel alone. Know your worth. Have hobbies. Maintain friendships. Develop confidence. Do not depend on a man for your happiness. Excellent advice. But there is often an unspoken footnote attached to it: become independent so nobody has to take care of you but remain soft enough to make them feel needed.

The result is a peculiar emotional balancing act. A woman is expected to need nobody while simultaneously being emotionally available to everybody. She must be strong, but not so strong that people feel unnecessary. She must have standards, but not so many that she becomes “difficult.”

She should communicate, but preferably without raising her voice, expressing anger or making anybody uncomfortable. She should have boundaries, provided they do not inconvenience the people crossing them. And heaven forbid she actually wants something.

A woman asking for reassurance can be called needy. A woman wanting consistency can be called demanding. A woman expecting effort can be accused of having unrealistic standards. A woman asking her partner to communicate can suddenly become “too much”. Yet a man disappearing for hours, forgetting an important date or putting in minimal effort is often granted the generous title of being busy. We have somehow made women's expectations more controversial than men's absence of effort.

The language surrounding this is revealing. Consider how often women proudly announce that they are “not high maintenance.” The statement is usually intended to communicate that they are independent and uncomplicated. But listen carefully and sometimes what they are really saying is, “I do not need much from you, so please do not worry about disappointing me.” That is not always confidence. Sometimes it is conditioning.

Many girls grow up learning that being agreeable is safer than being difficult. Do not talk back. Do not make a scene. Do not ask for too much. Do not be dramatic. Do not make people uncomfortable. Do not expect special treatment. Be grateful. Be understanding. Then adulthood arrives and everyone wonders why so many women struggle to articulate what they actually want.

We should not be surprised. A girl who has been rewarded for being easy to manage may grow into a woman who feels guilty for having preferences. She may apologize before asking a question. She may say “sorry” when she means “I need something”. She may minimize her hurt before anyone else has the opportunity to dismiss it. She may convince herself that she is perfectly happy with crumbs because admitting that she wants the whole meal feels embarrassing. And because she has become so good at needing little, everyone around her gets comfortable giving little.

That is perhaps the most dangerous part. People adapt to the level of expectation they encounter. If you consistently accept cancelled plans, someone may assume cancelled plans are acceptable. If you never mention that you feel neglected, someone may conclude that you do not require attention. If you repeatedly forgive without discussing what happened, the absence of consequences can quietly become permission. Then one day the supposedly low-maintenance woman reaches her limit.

Suddenly everyone is shocked. “But you were never like this.” Exactly. She was always like this. You simply benefited from the version of her that remained silent. There is also an uncomfortable gendered element to the admiration of low-maintenance women. Society has historically valued women for their ability to care, accommodate and endure. The ideal woman has often been imagined as someone who can absorb discomfort without passing it on.

She looks after children, partners, parents, households and sometimes entire families while making the whole process appear effortless. A woman should be allowed to have preferences. She should be allowed to dislike something without constructing a legal defence for her opinion. She should be able to say, “That hurt me,” without immediately adding, “But I understand why you did it.” She should be able to want flowers, attention, romance, reassurance, commitment, thoughtful messages or an occasional grand gesture without being diagnosed with a personality disorder by someone who owns three gaming consoles and considers replying within 48 hours an act of emotional generosity. And no, this does not mean every desire is automatically reasonable simply because a woman has it. Adults are still responsible for communicating clearly, respecting boundaries and recognising that other people have needs too. Relationships are not vending machines into which we insert expectations and receive perfect behaviour. But there is a difference between having unreasonable expectations and having expectations at all.

That difference has somehow become blurred. The low-maintenance ideal becomes particularly absurd when applied to romance. There is an entire cultural obsession with being “the cool girl”. She eats whatever he eats. She does not care where they go. She does not mind if he forgets anniversaries. She laughs at his questionable jokes. She never gets jealous. She does not need constant reassurance. She has no interest in marriage until, conveniently, he proposes. She is effortlessly sexy, effortlessly beautiful and apparently capable of existing entirely without emotional inconvenience. She is less a woman than a customer-service experience. And strangely enough, women are often encouraged to compete for this role. We compare ourselves with women who appear easier, calmer and less demanding. We wonder whether we are asking too much because another woman seems perfectly happy with less. We watch relationships online and convince ourselves that being adored requires becoming exceptionally easy to adore.

But love is not a prize awarded to the woman who has the fewest requirements. Nor should independence become a performance in which women compete to prove they can survive without affection. There is a strange modern pride in saying, “I don't need a man.” Fair enough. You should not need a particular person in order to possess a life. But there is a difference between not needing someone to survive and not wanting someone to share your life with.

• Wanting care does not cancel independence.
• Wanting romance does not make you weak.
• Wanting reassurance does not automatically make you insecure.
• Wanting effort does not make you high-maintenance.

Sometimes you simply want to be considered. And perhaps that is what the entire low-maintenance conversation gets wrong. The opposite of a low-maintenance woman is not a demanding woman. It is a woman who is honest about what makes her feel loved, respected and secure.

She might still be wonderfully independent. She might spend Saturday night reading alone, pay for her own dinner, travel without anyone holding her hand and have an entire world that exists beyond her relationship. She might also want someone to bring her coffee in bed.

These things are not contradictions. A woman can carry her own suitcase and still appreciate someone offering to carry it. She can solve her own problems and still want someone to sit beside her while she does. She can survive perfectly well alone and still want to be loved extravagantly. Perhaps we should stop treating those desires as evidence of weakness. The healthiest version of independence was never supposed to mean becoming so self-sufficient that nobody has to consider you. It was supposed to mean having the freedom to choose people without being trapped by your dependence on them. That is a very different thing. So perhaps the question is not whether women should be low-maintenance or high-maintenance. Perhaps we should retire the vocabulary altogether. A woman is not a car. She does not require a maintenance schedule. She is a person.

She will have needs that change. She will have bad days. She will occasionally be unreasonable. She will sometimes want attention and sometimes want to be left alone. She may be independent one afternoon and desperately need a hug that evening. She may say she is fine and later realize she was not. She may grow, change her mind, raise her standards and discover that what she once tolerated no longer feels acceptable.

That is not a malfunction. That is being human. The strange rise of the low-maintenance woman tells us less about women than it does about what society finds convenient in women. We praise the woman who asks for little because she is easy to accommodate. We admire the woman who never complains because she never forces us to examine our behaviour. We celebrate the woman who needs nobody because her independence allows everyone around her to remain comfortable. But perhaps the woman we should be celebrating is not the one who needs the least. Perhaps it is the one who knows herself well enough to say what she needs without shame. The woman who can love deeply without disappearing into someone else. The woman who can give generously without giving herself away. The woman who can say yes without fear, no without guilt and enough without apologizing. She does not need to be low-maintenance. She needs to be allowed to be human. And if that occasionally makes her inconvenient, perhaps the inconvenience is not hers to carry.