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The Culture of Self-Protection – When Self-Care Turns into Emotional Avoidance

By Katherina Manolakis

You have dinner plans with a friend that you haven’t seen in ages and shortly before you start getting ready you receive a message from them. “Sorry, but my social battery is dead for today. I’m gonna have to cancel.” You reply: “Sure, enjoy your Me Time,” and try your best to seem unbothered. But if you’re honest with yourself, you do feel disappointed. You had been looking forward to spending a nice evening together with your friend that you specifically kept your schedule free for.

Situations like these are becoming more and more common in times of so-called “boundary culture” and the rise of self-care discourse online. Cancelling plans last minute, emotionally withdrawing from others or avoiding uncomfortable conversations are no longer necessarily seen as inconsiderate, but rather as signs of self-respect and prioritising one’s own well-being. And while setting boundaries and taking mental health seriously are important and necessary developments that were often overlooked by previous generations, the line between healthy self-protection and emotional avoidance is becoming increasingly blurred. Social media constantly encourages us to cut off anything that feels emotionally draining thus pushing the hyper-individualistic online mindset. As a result, emotional distance is increasingly framed not only as acceptable but as psychologically healthy and even empowering.

It doesn’t take long scrolling through TikTok or Instagram before encountering today’s most important self-care mantras such as “protect your peace”, “choose yourself always” or “I don’t owe anyone anything”. While these ideas can play an extremely important role in helping people overcome difficult situations such as toxic relationships or emotional manipulation, social media increasingly promotes a version of self-care centred entirely around the individual.

Instead of accepting (occasional) discomfort as a normal part of life, we frame it as unhealthy and toxic, so we never actually have to inconvenience ourselves and don’t need to leave our comfort zone. We cancel plans frequently at the last minute because we need “Me Time”, we avoid conflict to “protect our peace” and look away when a stranger needs help because “we don’t owe anyone anything.” And to justify our unsocial behaviour we overextend the use of therapy language to make it seem as if we simply practice boundaries and proudly put ourselves first while actively neglecting the relationship with our fellow human beings. But the truth is: Healthy relationships can’t exist if everyone believes they owe nothing to anyone.

As a student at a commuter university and a commuter myself, I know that staying inside your shell rather than putting yourself out there is a very common experience for many students – myself included. I started studying at the peak of the Covid pandemic in 2020, which made for a rather isolating and lonely introduction to student life. So once the strictly online Zoom sessions ended and we were finally allowed back into classrooms, I was extremely excited to socialise, make new friends and experience the kind of student life you see in movies.

That excitement quickly faded when I realised that university life was nowhere near as social as I had imagined. I would enter classrooms shortly before lessons started only to find everyone sitting in complete silence, avoiding the seats directly next to each other and staring into their phones instead of making conversation. Even after an entire lesson of group work, the social interaction rarely went beyond a few sentences about our coursework before everyone hurried off to catch their train home or avoid rush hour.

And to be fair, I was very much part of the problem myself. Once I realised making friends was harder than I expected, I quickly retreated into my comfort zone. The thought of starting a conversation with someone new or asking my classmates whether they would like to grab a bite genuinely intimidated me and instead of giving myself a push, I emotionally withdrew.

Thankfully, things changed over time and I eventually found close friends and even a bigger friend group throughout my studies. But I have realised that it takes effort and vulnerability not only to make but also to maintain friendships: Whether it means staying after class a little longer despite the upcoming rush hour, asking someone if they would like to learn together for a test or taking an extra train on the weekend to go meet your university friends. Sometimes sacrificing your own comfort temporarily is necessary to form a genuine connection which improves your life permanently.

Fortunately, there seems to be a growing awareness about the emotional avoidance and lack of effort encouraged on social media too. The popularity of phrases such as “everybody wants a village but nobody wants to be a villager” reflects an increasing frustration with a culture that encourages self-protection while simultaneously leaving people lonelier than ever before. Of course, learning to set boundaries and protect ourselves from genuinely harmful situations is important. But somewhere along the way, many of us started treating vulnerability and putting in effort as things to avoid rather than necessary parts of human connection.

Meaningful relationships cannot survive if everyone constantly prioritises their own comfort above all else. That’s why after all that “self-care” talk, it is so refreshing to see people online finally stepping outside of their comfort zones and challenging themselves to go the extra mile for others. And maybe that is exactly what more of us should do – not only for the people around us, but because genuine connection and community are ultimately what make life feel meaningful in the first place (even if it means taking an extra replacement train just to see your friends).

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