A friend’s husband has a habit that baffles her. Whenever someone invites him to an event he doesn’t want to attend, he weaves an elaborate story about why he can’t be there — even if he barely knows the person.
“He gets so caught up in justifying himself,” she told me, bewildered. “Why does it matter? Why do you care? You’ll probably never see them again!”
I sympathize with the guy. Like many of us, her husband got the message that any “no” requires an airtight alibi, lest we be judged as selfish, unhelpful, or snobby. These beliefs can run deep, forming a moral framework in which one’s time is owed to anyone who claims it. The only acceptable defense is a prior commitment.
I’m not sure this structure was ever healthy, but it certainly made more sense in a world of small, tight-knit communities living in one geographical place together.
In our contemporary era of distributed connectedness, the practice of constructing a detailed excuse for any refusal is not only exhausting but actively damaging. It drains your mental and emotional resources, trains you to discredit your personal needs, and reinforces the belief that your time belongs to everyone except you.
My self-care hack: “Elisabeth’s Razor”
In my work supporting professionals setting healthy boundaries, I developed a heuristic to short-circuit this tendency that draws on the insights of evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar. Best known for “Dunbar’s Number” theorizing that humans can only maintain about 150 friendships, the Oxford researcher combines neuroscience, network analysis, and anthropological records to understand the natural limits of interpersonal bonds.
Dunbar’s research illustrates that we really can’t be there for everybody. No matter how “connected” technology appears to make us, there are hard limits on each person’s social world. While individuals differ, in approximate terms people can:
Share unrestricted intimacy with just one or two people
Rely on about five people to race to their emergency
Maintain trusting emotional bonds with ~15 people
Stay in regular, ongoing contact with ~50
Attract ~150 to their wedding or funeral
The core of my heuristic is the ~15-person circle. Dunbar uses the example of “exchange of childcare” to illustrate the extent of cooperation at this level, which includes friendships as well as family bonds.
These are the people you trust with what is most precious to you. They know and care about your struggles. They are a steady source of practical and emotional support. Let’s call them your “inner circle.”
Elisabeth's Razor:
You don't owe an explanation for a “no” to anyone outside your inner circle.
The theory I’m putting forward is that unless someone is deeply invested in helping you navigate your life, how you schedule your time is none of their business.
Within the inner circle, sure, let those closest to you know why you are saying no. That honest discussion can strengthen your relationship. On a practical level, your supervisor is probably also an inner-circle confidante concerning your work hours.
But when anyone else makes a request you choose not to fulfill, you are free to use a simple phrase like:
“I’m not available.”
“I have a conflict.”
“I can’t make it.”
Why?
Because you do not owe the details of your obligations, hardships, and tradeoffs to people who aren’t supporting you through them.
And, it’s important to note, most people who aren’t that close to you are not asking for, and do not want, a detailed tour of your private priorities and travails.
At the farthest extreme, when you spill these confidences to people who wouldn’t even come to your funeral (much less your barbecue or baby shower), you might violate their boundaries by imposing an inappropriate level of intimacy.
And in that gray area of the 50 or so people you talk/write to regularly and perhaps work with, although an explanation for a “no” can soften the blow, it does so by communicating that you (a) really want to do the thing and (b) desire a close relationship in which you share lots of private details.
If only (a) is true, try: “I wish I could. Please ask me again.”
But if you actually don’t want to do the thing, you will save yourself and the person asking a lot of future discomfort by not pretending it’s your dream come true.
When I showed this framework to my friend Brad Barrett, he had an intriguing insight about the concentric circles. I mapped what he described in this image:
Like a champagne tower at your 150-person wedding, when you focus energy, time, and attention on yourself and those closest to you, you wind up generating benefits for everyone downstream. But overfocusing on those at the fringes — which, I argue, we do not only when we take on their time commitments but also when we emotionally connect with them through detailed explanations for refusing — we draw resources away from our basic needs and our most meaningful relationships.
Try these three phrases out
Simple, polite, honest, direct.
“I’m not available.”
You need not have something else on the calendar to be unavailable. You are only available when you make yourself available.
“I have a conflict.”
If you don’t want to do the thing, that’s the conflict.
“I can’t make it.”
You can’t make it happen because you can’t sacrifice your rare and precious time to something that does not matter to you.
You may be surprised at the response. The most common feedback I get when people implement these and other phrases from my guidebook “50 Ways to Say NO” is their shock at how little pushback they encounter. That’s not because my phrases are uniquely powerful (though they work), but because most people in most situations do respect clearly stated boundaries.
This makes sense in light of Dunbar’s model. Logically, the complement to a hard-wired limit on close bonds is an instinctive willingness to back off when a boundary is asserted. Because we can only sustain so many relationships, we are likely primed to conserve effort by disengaging in the presence of a “not available” signal.
Likewise, some good news about contemporary hyperconnectivity is that people outside your inner circle are really not relying on you. Not only do they have their own inner circle, they now have many ways of reaching out to others in their extended network. They can even find the ones who actually want to do the thing, if they are not misled by false implications of interest and future availability.
I emphasize this point because if you struggle with saying no, it’s probably because you are warm-hearted and generous like my friend’s husband. But trapping someone in a pretense of willingness is not a kindness, because it actively subverts their mission of finding the right people for the job/event/project.
So, if not for yourself, then for the sake of your fellow humans and their limited emotional bandwidth, I hope Elisabeth’s Razor helps you have mercy and just be — neutrally, honestly — unavailable.
More Resources
🚫 50 Ways to Say NO — Go-to phrases to protect your boundaries and why they work. Also available as a card deck.
Journaling On-Ramp: If journaling is a commitment you want to honor this season, I’m offering a way to make that easier. Join the 21-day Journaling On-Ramp series by January 31, and you’ll also get access all semester to Writing Hour — a live, facilitated space that holds your writing time for you.
More info here: Join the Journaling On-Ramp.
I swear, finding this article today felt like Big Brother finally figured out how to read my mind and change my feed according to my thoughts. Now I have to find a way to bring this fantastic peace of life advice in front of my eyes every six months or so. Thank you!