Relationships involving asymmetric vulnerability have an ambiguous normative status. On the one hand, such relationships often strike us as problematic because they involve asymmetric vulnerability. On the other hand, asymmetric vulnerability is a condition of many relationships that we value. This generates a dilemma: it seems that relational egalitarians must either claim that we should eliminate asymmetric vulnerability – but this would be to foreclose valuable social relationships – or maintain that relating as equals is possible despite asymmetric vulnerability – but this threatens to undermine relational egalitarianism’s political bite. This paper explores how relational egalitarians should address the tension between vulnerability and equality. While the tension might not be fully resolvable, I argue that egalitarians have a range of strategies to reduce it and grappling with the ambiguous status of human vulnerability may help us to better understand the nature of relational egalitarianism.