Friendship, Boundaries and the Guilt of Saying No

Sometimes, boundaries in your friendships can feel like a lose-lose situation. On one hand, if you’re constantly making time for your friends and putting your own needs aside, you’re burning yourself out. But if you’re saying no to your friends too often, you feel like a bad friend. It can be hard to have healthy boundaries and say no while also being supportive and there for your friends. 

As post-secondary students, we all have busy lives and a lot of battling priorities. Sometimes it’s hard to socialize after a long day of classes and potentially work, be in clubs or both. It’s important to be able to communicate with the people in your life that you need time for yourself and tell them maybe you bit off more than you can chew and now need to cancel plans. Having said that, I know we all dread having a friend disappointed in us or feeling like we’ve let them down because we have to prioritize ourselves. 

On the flip side, I’ve seen a lot of videos recently poking fun at the “friend with ‘healthy’ boundaries”. The person who is constantly cancelling plans last minute or not willing to help out their friends. The person who says things like “I’m not coming, I need a mental health day” or “I just need to protect my peace” while actively inconveniencing their friends. There’s a fair argument being made here. It’s frustrating to have a friend who is like this all the time. 

But maybe we’ve lost the plot a bit here. 

I think there’s a difference between having healthy boundaries and expecting your friendships to accommodate you without any consideration for the other person. Just as it’s unfair to expect your friends to always be available when you need them, it’s also unfair to expect them to be endlessly understanding when you’re repeatedly unavailable for them. 

Having boundaries doesn’t mean you never inconvenience anyone, but it also doesn’t mean you have to be available every time someone needs you. Sometimes being a good friend means showing up when you’d rather stay home. Other times, it means being honest that you don’t have the capacity to show up at all.

I think that’s where the guilt comes in. We sometimes treat feeling guilty as evidence that we’ve done something wrong, when really, it can just mean we’re uncomfortable disappointing someone. You can feel bad that your friend is upset and still know that you made the right decision for yourself. However, if you’re constantly cancelling plans or leaving your friends to figure things out without you, it might be worth asking whether your boundaries are actually protecting your well-being or simply making it easier to avoid difficult conversations.

Friendship requires consideration in both directions. Your friends should respect that you have a life outside of them, and you should respect that their time, feelings and needs matter too. That doesn’t mean keeping score or forcing yourself to say yes when you mean no. It means making an effort to communicate, follow through when you can and acknowledge when your choices affect someone else.

Maybe the goal shouldn’t be to become the friend who always says yes or the friend who never feels guilty saying no. Maybe it’s to become the friend who can say no without feeling like a terrible person, but who can also be counted on when it matters. 

• boundaries
• college
• friends
• mental health
• relationships