I’ve been thinking lately about what it actually means to care for someone. Not the performative kind of caring that looks good to others or makes us feel virtuous, but the real thing. The messy, uncomfortable, sometimes thankless kind that doesn’t always come with a pat on the back.
True caring, I’ve come to realise, is less about grand gestures and more about showing up consistently in small ways. It’s about prioritising someone else’s wellbeing, their autonomy, their dignity, even when it’s inconvenient for us. Even when it means we don’t get to play the hero.
The Art of Actually Listening
Real caring starts with listening, and I mean properly listening. Not that thing we do where we’re already formulating our response whilst the other person is still talking. Not waiting for our turn to fix everything or offer solutions they never asked for.
I think of my friend Tanya, who went through a brutal divorce last year. For months, well-meaning people kept telling her what she should do: “You need to get back out there,” “You should try online dating,” “Have you considered therapy?” What she actually needed was someone to sit with her on her sofa whilst she cried into a mug of tea and said the same things over and over again. She needed to be heard, not fixed.
True caring means recognising that sometimes people are closed off for good reason. When someone puts up walls or seems hesitant to accept help, there’s usually a story there. Perhaps they’ve been burned before by someone who promised support but delivered judgment, or offered help that turned out to be superficial, or worse, found their private struggles shared or used against them later. Maybe they’ve learned that accepting help often comes with strings attached, with expectations they can’t meet.
The Trap of Being the Saviour
I’ll admit, I’ve fallen into this trap more times than I care to count. There’s something seductive about swooping in to rescue someone, about being the person who has all the answers. It feeds something in us, doesn’t it? Makes us feel useful, important, needed.
But true caring isn’t about us feeling good about ourselves. It’s not about earning validation or proving what good people we are. When my brother was struggling to quit smoking, I spent years trying to be his saviour. I’d hide his cigarettes, throw away ashtrays, send him articles about lung cancer, even spoke to his girlfriend about staging some kind of intervention. I’d book him appointments with his GP without asking, buy him nicotine patches he never requested. I convinced myself I knew what was best for him, that my love and determination could somehow override his own relationship with cigarettes.
The turning point came when he finally told me, in no uncertain terms, to back off. “I know you think you’re helping,” he said, lighting up right in front of me, “but you’re not. You’re so busy trying to take my cigarettes away that you’ve never once asked me why I smoke them.” It stung because it was true. I’d been so focused on the smoking itself that I’d completely ignored what was driving it, the stress from his job, the anxiety he’d been carrying since his last relationship ended badly, the way cigarettes had become his five-minute escape from everything.
When Caring Means Stepping Back
Sometimes the kindest thing we can do is give someone space. This goes against every instinct we have when someone we care about is struggling. We want to do something, anything, to make it better. But respect for someone’s boundaries is perhaps the purest form of care there is.
My neighbour Mrs Chen taught me this lesson without meaning to. She’s in her eighties and fiercely independent, but I noticed she’d stopped tending her garden, which had always been her pride and joy. My first instinct was to march over and offer to help, to insist she let me sort it out. Instead, I simply mentioned that I’d noticed the beautiful roses weren’t getting their usual attention, and asked if everything was alright.
It turned out she’d developed arthritis in her hands and was embarrassed about not being able to maintain her garden to her usual standards. She didn’t want help, she said, she just needed time to figure out how to adapt. So I waited. Months later, she knocked on my door to show me the new long-handled tools she’d bought and to ask if I’d like to see how she’d redesigned her flower beds to be more manageable. She’d solved her own problem, in her own time, in her own way. My job was simply to let her know she was seen and valued, not to rescue her.
The Partnership Approach
Real caring is collaborative. It’s recognising that helping someone is a partnership, not a one-sided rescue mission. It means being open to feedback, even when that feedback is difficult to hear. It means admitting when we’ve got it wrong and being humble enough to accept that we might not always know what’s best.
When my teenage nephew was struggling with anxiety, I initially tried to solve everything for him. I researched therapists, bought self-help books, suggested coping strategies. He became increasingly withdrawn and resistant to everything I suggested. Finally, he said, “You’re treating me like a problem to be solved, not like a person.”
That stopped me in my tracks. So I changed my approach. Instead of coming up with solutions, I started asking questions: What does the anxiety feel like? What makes it worse? What, if anything, makes it better? What kind of support would actually be helpful? It was a revelation to discover that he already had insights into his own experience. He just needed someone to listen and to trust his judgment about his own life.
The Quiet Revolution of Respect
True caring is revolutionary in its ordinariness. It doesn’t look like much from the outside. It’s making tea without being asked when someone’s had a difficult day. It’s remembering that your colleague struggles with crowds and quietly suggesting a smaller venue for drinks. It’s asking “How are you really?” and then actually waiting for an answer.
It’s also knowing when to show up and when to stay away. When to speak and when to listen. When to offer advice and when to simply witness someone’s experience without trying to change it.
I think about this whenever I hear people talking about checking on the friends who always seem to have it together, or when someone starts listing all the ways you should support someone who’s grieving. Well-intentioned, certainly, but they often miss the point. Real caring isn’t a checklist or a one-size-fits-all approach. It’s about paying attention to the specific person in front of you and responding to what they actually need, not what we think they should need.
The Long Game
Perhaps most importantly, true caring is about the long game. It’s not a sprint or a dramatic intervention. It’s the slow, steady work of showing up consistently over time. It’s being there for the mundane Tuesday evening crisis as well as the big life-changing moments. It’s understanding that caring for someone is an ongoing commitment, not a project with a clear beginning and end.
My friend Tom has been supporting his partner through chronic illness for five years now. When people ask him how he does it, he always says the same thing: “I don’t think about doing it forever. I just think about today.” That’s what true caring looks like in practice. Not the grand romantic gesture, but the daily choice to prioritise someone else’s wellbeing alongside your own.
What It All Comes Down To
In the end, true caring is about seeing people as they are, not as we wish them to be or think they should be. It’s about offering support without strings attached and respect without conditions. It’s about understanding that whilst people may not always know what to do, they often know better than anyone else what they’re afraid of, what’s holding them back, what they’ve tried before that hasn’t worked. Our job isn’t to fix or change them, but to help them explore those hidden fears and barriers without judgment, to listen without rushing to solutions, to resist the urge to take control even when we’re convinced we know better.
It’s not always comfortable. Sometimes it means sitting with uncertainty, accepting that we can’t solve everything, looking honestly at our own motives and asking whether we’re truly concerned for someone else or just trying to ease our own discomfort at seeing them struggle. But it’s in this discomfort that real connection happens, where trust is built, where the other person feels truly seen and valued.
True caring asks nothing of the person receiving it except that they exist. It expects nothing in return. It’s care without agenda, support without ownership, love without conditions. And perhaps that’s the most radical thing of all.
