The Pretending Costs More Than the Transaction
JULY 6, 2026
The mountain creates the moment of recognition, but recognition alone does not change a life.
Pick a relationship you've been telling yourself a story about. Name what's actually happening. Then choose.
Last week my sister Haviland and I went falconing at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs with two other people and a master falconer. Our hawk's name was Maverick.
We took a walk through the property. Maverick flew ahead of us, sat on tree branches, watched. He kept an eye on the five of us. The food bag the master was carrying got something closer to devotion.
That was the whole relationship.
I'm not criticizing the hawk. He wasn't being dishonest. He knew exactly what the relationship was. He was there because the food was there. As soon as the food situation changed, he would be somewhere else. He wasn't pretending it was anything more than that.
I keep thinking about that.
Most people don't let themselves see relationships this clearly. There's a whole vocabulary that makes the “food bag” invisible.
You call it networking when the colleague only texts when they want something. You call it friendship when someone reaches out only when their company needs your audience. You call it commitment when the board member is locked in until the equity vests. You call it investment when the advisor stays "really invested in your success" until the retainer clears.
The hawk isn't lying. We often are.
Transactional relationships aren't the problem. Every adult life has them. The grocery store clerk and the dentist and the kid who mows your lawn. Some relationships run on a clean exchange and everyone's better off for knowing it.
The cost shows up when you call a food-currency relationship something else. When you confuse access for love. When you mistake usefulness for loyalty. When you build something important on the assumption that the bird is there because of you, and not because of the bag.
The harder question is the one most people don't ask.
Which relationships are you in for the bag?
Not the strangers. Not the work transactions. The ones you've been calling something else. The ones where you've been getting fed and telling yourself it's love.
For what it's worth, I've had to ask this about my own relationships more than once. Some of the answers were uncomfortable. A few were a relief. None of them made me a worse person for asking. I just had someone locally reach out in Denver to get together and I just asked: are you selling me something, do you need coaching, is it legitimate connection? And he thanked me for the clarity when he answered.
The hawk didn't have to ask. He was clear about what was happening. Most people aren't. We need the bag too much to be honest about it, telling ourselves stories about loyalty and connection that fall apart the moment the food bag goes somewhere else.
The reframe is simple. The honesty matters more than the transaction.
Honesty makes a relationship choosable instead of just inhabited.
Maverick was free in a way most people are not. He wasn't being noble or wise. He just wasn't lying to himself about what he was doing there.
The rest of us follow the bag too. We just call it other things...
Key idea:
Honesty about a relationship is what makes you free in it. A relationship you've misnamed cannot be chosen. It can only be inhabited.
Take away:
Pick a relationship you've been telling yourself a story about. Name what's actually happening. Then choose.
Build your movement:
Name one relationship in your life honestly. Out loud. To someone.