Move over, Madison Avenue marketing gurus!
This local branding phenom has come up with the perfect communications hack to shift ordinary self-centredness into aspirational boundary-setting. By simply re-classifying his utter disinterest in ever helping any of his loved ones, for fear of temporarily inconveniencing himself, 34-year-old back end software developer Grayden Clements has gone from “lazy jerk” to “self care king”!
Friends, family members, and even neighbours of Clements are agog at his ability to shift the narrative that he is a selfish ass who resents ever having to help others.
“The sidewalk out in front of our apartment needs to be cleared whenever it snows,” explains upstairs neighbour of Clements, Sheila Venderson, 48. “I noticed that I was always the one doing the shovelling, but when I talked to Grayden about it, he explained that he ‘couldn’t have that conversation at the moment in order to promote physical and mental well-being’. So I guess he’s got me there.”
Despite having a non-demanding job, zero dependants, and an apparently lack of engrossing hobbies, Clements has a knack for re-framing any socially-acceptable request for help as a direct imposition on his own mental health. A quick survey of Clements’ social circle reveals that any request to help friends move, visit elderly relatives, or even sign an office birthday card are deflected with vague affirmations of “practising mindfulness” or “paying attention to my body”. Hello life hack!
It’s not just middle-aged neighbours praising Clements’ slick talent for weaponizing therapized language! Even his immediate family can’t get over how the single, childless man manages to take any simple request for assistance, and judo-flip it into a guilt trip on the asker.
“I asked Grayden if he could watch his 4-year-old nephew for the afternoon while I get an MRI that I’ve been waiting 12 months for,” explained Clements’ sister, Madison Chin-Clements, 31. “He told me how it was important for him to set healthy boundaries to know his own limits, and honour those limits.”
“And also that he was playing Arc Raiders online that afternoon,” added Chin-Clements, as she searched online for a babysitter.
Reached for comment, Clements himself responded (via text) that he “upon reflection, I have found past experiences with question answering to be draining, difficult, and negative.” Hours later, a follow-up text noted that he was busy “focusing my energies in order to better notice and attend to my own needs.” While a quick look at Clements’ instagram story revealed that he was at home re-watching John Wick 2, one cannot help but admire the utter balls required to reclassify a refusal to answer the telephone as a radical act of modern self-affirmation!
In a related story, several of Clements’ ex-girlfriends described how he labelled his aversion to wearing condoms also as “self care”.
