Recently, I asked a woman I admire for help with my business. I wasn’t expecting a polite no to make me feel like I didn’t belong.

It was a perfectly respectable rejection with healthy boundaries and sufficient warmth and reassurance. Nobody did anything wrong, which weirdly made the whole thing more irritating. I have spent years scraping the unsolicited advice off my Bali life. Like black mould, in Bali a coaching offer will grow on any carelessly dropped mention of a problem. Yet the one time I actually asked for help outright, the universe developed a sense of humour.

I’ve had plenty of no’s. Like a true Ubud fairy I choose to believe the cheerful little Instagram incantations promising that redirection is divine and closed doors are cosmic quality control for my life. This time, instead of fairy dust, it was fear and doubt somersaulting through my mind. This polite no had a suspicious amount of derailing power. If all I wanted was strategy, there are enough books, podcasts, God help me, coaches, and enough AI to sink this island.

I realised what I actually wanted was to know if there was still such a thing as a village. And whether the village had looked at me and decided I don’t belong.

Feeling Like You Don’t Belong

Modern life is becoming extraordinarily efficient at selling us what villages once gave away for free. You can still be cared for, but now you need to book it. Childcare, meal plans, someone to listen to you, someone to look after you when you are sick, someone to drive you to the airport, do your shopping, clean your house, mentor you, show you around town, rub your tired body, someone to hold your hand and look into your eyes. All pre-packaged and available for a price.

It seems to me we are just trying to buy back the village.

Heart-hungry bules like myself, terribly independent, terribly lonely and oppressed by the omnipresent pricetags, flock to Bali longing to be adopted by a village. But the village doesn’t particularly care about your heart, nor is it especially moved by your loneliness. Being the survival machine that it is, it just wants to know if you are going to stick around and what you bring to the potluck.

It was Bali that cured me of romanticising the tribe. The community here is indeed beautiful and generous. It also has sharp teeth and tall fences. Not everything offered is free, and not everything that feels like warmth.

You can stop romanticising the village and still miss it. In fact, losing the fantasy doesn’t seem to reduce the longing at all. It just makes you less picky about where you look for it. When you’ve spent enough time being a proudly independent, (read overburdened) woman, outsourcing care and trying to piece together a sense of belonging, you end up projecting village roles to random people you happen to bump into. 

Perhaps this is the trouble with trying to buy back the village. Once you’ve spent enough money trying to reconstruct community, you start massively projecting your longing onto the random people you happen to bump into. 

Which brings me to a deeply impolite question.

Why did one woman’s no feel like village gates shutting?

She never volunteered for the role. She wasn’t a council of elders or a tribal gatekeeper. She was simply another woman with her own life, her own obligations and, presumably, her own people asking things of her. Yet I somehow made a village out of her.

And I don’t think I would have expected the same from a man. A man’s no would have been disappointing, but contained. A woman’s no somehow landed me into the territory of belonging. Into sisterhood. Into the small, embarrassing fear stuck between my teeth that there is a pretty village somewhere that doesn’t want me. That I don’t belong.

Women supporting women is a beautiful idea. So is world peace. The operational details, however, are still in beta testing.

The deeper question isn’t whether that woman should have helped me at all.

Maybe it’s whether we’ve started asking ordinary people to carry responsibilities that once belonged to a whole community.

If the village has gone, who are we appointing to replace it?

Can a woman say no without betraying the sisterhood?

And do we owe each other anything at all? 

From MWB
This essay left us wondering where the village went.
Have you ever felt excluded from one? Found one? Built one? Lost one?
If you have a story, we'd love to hear it hello@modernwomenbali.com.
Perhaps rebuilding the village starts with admitting we're all looking for it.