Your ‘boundaries’ might be ruining your friendships

Everyone is setting boundaries these days, but friends are starting to wonder what it is costing us

Everywhere you look, people are talking about boundaries; how to set them, how to keep them, how to walk away when they are crossed. The message is everywhere: in therapy reels, pastel quote cards, and late-night group chats about “protecting your peace.” The urgency feels justified.

For many young adults, the injuries of childhood – neglect, control, invisibility – were never named or healed. Studies show that Millennials and Gen Z report higher rates of trauma than older generations.

Research from Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child finds that younger adults score higher on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE), meaning they grew up with more instability and stress.

Unlike their parents, they talk about it openly. They post about family dysfunction, therapy, and the boundaries they are learning to set. Vulnerability has become a shared language. But in learning to guard themselves, many have built walls that no one knows how to open.

The cracks show most clearly in friendship. At first, boundaries helped people feel safe after years of being overlooked or overextended. But as the idea spread online, the meaning began to shift. “I know it is important to have boundaries,” said Alina, 25.

“But sometimes it feels like everyone is walking on eggshells. One wrong word and it is over. I miss when people gave each other more chances.” Her unease captures what has changed, emotional awareness has grown, but so has the fear of getting hurt.

Psychologist Dr Amnah Khan sees this pattern daily. “People are far more aware of what hurts them now,” she said. “That is progress. But it can slip into avoidance. We have begun to see discomfort as danger. And connection and comfort cannot always coexist.” What was meant to protect people from harm is now leaving many more isolated.

Social media makes it easy to cut people off the moment things feel uncomfortable. You can block, mute, or unfollow instead of working things out. Over time, that same habit seeps into real life: friendships start to feel temporary, as if people can be replaced just as easily as accounts online. It is a strange paradox: a world more connected than ever but full of people who feel completely alone.

This is not just a digital problem; it reflects the reality we live in. In most big cities today, people move fast and live alone. The pace rewards self-reliance more than connection. Work spills into nights, rest becomes a privilege, and exhaustion is treated as a personal failure instead of a structural one.

Sociologists call this the privatization of struggle: when collective issues like burnout or loneliness are reframed as personal problems to be solved through “self-care.” As Astra Taylor writes in The Age of Insecurity, “The language of self-care thrives when collective care erodes.”

When institutions no longer hold people up, they start trying to hold themselves together. Boundaries become both a coping tool and a symptom of a culture that has forgotten how to share the load. That is why balance matters. Boundaries are not the problem. They protect time and help people rest.

But they were meant to give space, not build distance. Friendship has never been a perfectly equal exchange. It bends, it forgives, it changes. “When boundaries become rigid, they leave no room for repair or difference. In protecting our peace, we risk building lives that are quiet but lonely,” said Dr Amnah.

That loneliness comes with a cost. Decades of research from Harvard’s Study of Adult Development show that the strongest predictor of long-term health and happiness is not wealth or success, but the quality of one’s relationships. Loneliness, the study found, is as harmful as smoking or alcoholism.

Pulling back can bring relief for a while, but over time it narrows the world. “Community gives you something self-care never can,” said Dr Amnah. “The reassurance that someone will meet you halfway.”

Older generations often sense this loss more clearly. “We did not talk about boundaries,” said Naeem, 60. “We fought, we sulked, but we stayed. You did not cut people off for no reason.” His version of friendship was not perfect, but it carried the belief that love could survive effort and that staying, even when it was hard, was part of what made it real.