Some people treat friendship as a transaction. It’s a tool for manipulation.

It happens at any age and some people are particularly pushy about it.

See why the person in this story drew a line and kept them behind it.

AITA for refusing to help my friend with their project because they didn’t respect my boundaries?

I’m a freshman in computer engineering, and I’ve been working really hard to get my grades up and stay on top of my assignments.

I’ve got a pretty packed schedule, but I’ve been doing my best to stay organized.

Time is about to factor in here.

A few days ago, my one and only close friend Alex reached out and asked me for help with their project.

They’re not in the same major, but they knew I had experience with coding and some of the concepts we’d learned.

I said I could offer some guidance, but I was really busy and couldn’t give them too much time.

I told Alex that I could help them brainstorm and point them in the right direction, but I couldn’t do the work for them.

Well, Alex kept insisting that I should just do a little more, like helping with debugging or even writing a few lines of code.

Enough was enough.

I repeatedly told them that I couldn’t, but they didn’t seem to get it.

Eventually, they said something like, “I’ve helped you out before, so you owe me.”

That comment really rubbed me the wrong way.

I’m all for helping out friends, but I felt like they were disrespecting my time and effort.

I ended up telling them that I couldn’t help anymore, and they got upset, calling me selfish and saying that I was being “unreasonable.”

Now, I’m wondering if I overreacted.

Should I have just helped them out because he helped me in the past and he was my only close friend in the university, or was I right to set those boundaries? AITA?

Here is what people are saying.

It will serve him well!

Cheating is wrong. Cheaters are usually jerks.

Scrabble is better online.

Or maybe he shouldn’t be in this program.

It’s so wrong.

What a friend.

Not.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.