I will disappoint you. You will disappoint me.

It’s not a threat. It’s not a dare. It’s just math. It’s baked into the bread of being human. Like gravity, or the way socks disappear in the laundry. It’s going to happen. Repeatedly.

And yet, every time someone lets us down—or we let someone else down—it still feels like a betrayal, like they broke some unspoken rule: Don’t be human around me. Be perfect. Or at least perfectly attuned to my neuroses and unspoken needs.

The thing is, disappointment is just expectation in a bad mood.

We go in with an idea—of how someone should act, how we should feel, how life shouldunfold—and then life licks its finger, flips the script, and says: “Oh honey, no.”

And it shows up everywhere. Friendships that start off as magic and fizzle into awkward text messages and unmet needs. Business partnerships that begin with vision boards and coffee-fueled ambition, only to unravel over missed deadlines or one too many vague emails. Family relationships packed with history and landmines. Romances that go from fireworks to passive-aggressive sighs and silence. Any relationship where we’re brave enough to connect is a relationship where we risk getting hurt.

Because the closer we are, the more we expect. And often? We never said what we were expecting in the first place. We just hoped they’d guess. We assumed they knew. And when they didn’t—when they dropped the ball or forgot the thing or didn’t show up the way we needed—we quietly logged it under See? I knew I couldn’t count on them.

We don’t want to admit it, but even the best of us disappoint the people we love. We forget the date. We flake out. We say we’ll call and don’t. We lose our temper. We miss the moment. We withdraw. We show up too late or too loud or not at all. And sometimes, we’re on the receiving end of it. And it sucks. It stings. It bruises the soft underbelly of trust.

So what do we do when it happens? How do we not throw the whole relationship in the trash?

We start by loosening our grip. Not on standards, but on the fantasy. The idea that people—especially the people we love—will get it right every time. We remind ourselves that being human is not a performance. And no one’s reading our mind, no matter how many hints we think we dropped.

We get curious. We say the thing. We listen. We allow the awkward pause. We acknowledge what hurt and why. We ask if there’s space to try again. We stop pretending we’re above disappointment, and instead, we learn how to meet it with honesty and grace.

And no, it doesn’t always mean the relationship survives. Sometimes the gap is too wide. Sometimes the hurt goes too deep, or the pattern’s too old. And sometimes, that’s the most loving choice—to walk away with your dignity intact and your heart still open.

But sometimes? The best parts of love—whether in friendship, family, business, or something a little blurrier—live on the other side of that mess. When you sit down together, look at the wreckage, and say, “That hurt. Let’s figure out why. Let’s try again.”

Preferably over snacks. Because most emotional processing is easier with snacks.