We all have that one friend who passionately loves her boundaries.

She’s the friend who politely declines a cheeky Thursday night birthday margarita because feeling even slightly dusty will “sabotage her 5am pilates class”.

The friend who is ruthlessly “protecting her peace” right when your long-term relationship spectacularly implodes, you get made redundant, or life just feels a little too much, and what you really need is someone to come over, eat a tub of ice cream, and sit in the chaos with you.

We’re wrapping ourselves in this flawless, impenetrable bubble of our own personal goals, our sleep hygiene routines, and our sacred me-time, that we’ve completely lost our ability to do the hard, messy stuff for friends.

But that’s the thing about being a good friend: it is supposed to be a bit inconvenient, messy and occasionally annoying.

If you’ve spent any time on TikTok or Instagram over the last few years, you’re likely fluent in the language of therapist talk.

We know our attachment styles. We know how to identify toxic traits. We casually throw around words like “gaslighting” and “narcissist” to describe someone who may not act exactly the way we want in a situation.

And of course, we know how to set “boundaries” Oh, do we love a boundary.

But lately, I’ve been thinking we’ve overcorrected.

In our collective (and highly valid) journey away from being chronic people-pleasers, have we swung the pendulum too far in the exact opposite direction?

Instead of learning how to navigate the messy, uncomfortable reality of human relationships, it feels like we’re using therapy language as a get-out-of-jail-free card to avoid being a good friend.

Therapy talk in itself isn’t that bad; it’s how we are applying it.

We’re prioritising ourselves to the point of complete isolation, and we’re using psychological jargon to justify it.

Used properly, it can give people the vocabulary to understand experiences, communicate needs and finally step away from genuinely damaging relationships.

Clinical psychologist Phoebe Rogers says psychological language can also be used as a weapon, particularly when someone adopts the terminology, like “narcissist” without understanding what it actually means.

“No, not everyone’s a narcissist. They’re really not. It’s a very specific, small group of people,” she says.

“Or they’re saying, ‘They’re gaslighting me,’ and I say, ‘I don’t think you’re using that correctly’.”

Sometimes your friend is not gaslighting you. Sometimes she simply remembers the conversation differently.

Sometimes a delayed text message is not evidence of emotional abuse.

Sometimes the person was at work, overwhelmed or staring at the message thinking, I’ll reply properly later, before immediately forgetting it existed.

None of that means we should tolerate consistently harmful behaviour.

Rogers says boundaries are absolutely appropriate when someone repeatedly makes you doubt yourself or your perception of reality, when nothing you do is ever good enough, or when the relationship is always conducted entirely on their terms.

“There’s a certain cohort of people that you actually can’t have a conversation with because it won’t be valuable, it won’t be resolved, there won’t be reciprocity or empathy,” she explains.

In those relationships, protecting yourself is reasonable and sometimes essential.

But one instance of thoughtlessness is not necessarily a pattern.

A mistake is not automatically manipulation. And a difficult conversation is not always a threat to our wellbeing.

Rogers believes our increasing disconnection may be making us more hypervigilant about the behaviour of others.

“We’re becoming more hypervigilant or hypersensitive to people’s behaviour,” she says.

“Because of that disconnection, we get a very black-and-white image. We don’t stop to think: ‘What’s going on for that person? Why are they like that? Are they okay? What’s my part?'”

It’s much easier to diagnose someone else’s toxic traits than to ask whether we communicated clearly, or declare that a boundary was crossed, than to consider whether the other person even knew it existed.

And it’s far more comfortable to cut somebody off than to sit across from them and say, ‘This hurt me, but I want to understand what happened’.

And, frankly, the internet rewards the dramatic interpretation.

No one is going viral for saying: “My friend disappointed me, so we had a slightly awkward conversation, realised we had misunderstood each other and both apologised.”

But that is what healthy relationships often look like. Not endless peace, but repair.

We seem perfectly willing to do this work in romantic relationships.

We accept that partners will sometimes irritate us, misunderstand us or require sacrifice.

We move schedules around. We attend events we don’t particularly care about. We listen to the same workplace grievance for the seventh consecutive evening.

Yet we often treat friendships as though they should survive solely on convenience and good vibes.

Rogers says some people become so focused on their own goals, careers and responsibilities that they lose sight of what is happening in the lives of those around them.

“We’re still in this hustle culture and achievement culture, trying to get ahead, with a cost of living criss, and the need to earn more,” she says.

“We get so tunnel-visioned and stuck in it.”

Of course, people are genuinely busy. Many of us are exhausted, overworked and financially stretched.

Showing up for a friend does not always mean spending money, cancelling important commitments or abandoning your own needs.

Sometimes it is a phone call or bringing over a bottle of red wine to share.

Remembering the date of the job interview they were nervous about.

Asking a second time if they are okay, after the first answer sounded suspiciously cheerful.

“It often doesn’t have to be huge,” Rogers says. “It’s just showing up.”

And showing up isn’t only beneficial for the person receiving the support.

Rogers often reminds clients who worry that they are burdening their friends that people can gain something meaningful from being allowed to care for someone.

“This person in your life gets a lot out of being that good friend and support to you,” she says.

“It actually makes them feel good and it deepens the connection.”

Letting someone help us requires vulnerability.

So does admitting we need more from a friendship.

So does telling someone they hurt us without immediately labelling them toxic and deleting their number.

“To let people in, you have to take that risk and be brave and be vulnerable,” Rogers says.

This brings us back to “protecting our peace.”

It sounds lovely. I, too, would enjoy peace, preferably somewhere in the South of France, with an Aperol spritz and no unread emails.

But life is not particularly peaceful. Neither are most meaningful relationships.

“There’s not always peace,” Rogers says.

“But there’s such a richness and growth that comes from hard conversations, and an understanding of each other in another way. There’s a real beauty in that.”

When we avoid every difficult interaction in the name of self-protection, we might avoid pain, but we also miss the possibility of repair, intimacy and a friendship becoming stronger because it survived an uncomfortable moment.

“That’s a lost opportunity,” Rogers says.

We have become accustomed to not showing up to a wedding or birthday dinner before we even ask the person involved a single question.

Rogers’ advice is far less dramatic.

“Just be brave,” she says. “Have a talk.”

Friendship is a two-way relationship.

We cannot expect deep community while remaining permanently protected from inconvenience.

We cannot complain about loneliness while refusing to risk vulnerability.

And we cannot demand endless understanding without occasionally extending it to somebody else.

So, before diagnosing your friend, cutting her off or informing the group chat that you “don’t have the capacity right now”, perhaps we just need to talk.

Boundaries matter. But so do grace, accountability and giving people the chance to surprise us.

Sometimes protecting a friendship will disturb your peace.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the friendship is bad.

It might simply mean it’s real.