From an award-winning professor and psychologist, a guide to turning exhausting relationships into fulfilling ones.

Do your relationships ever make you feel overwhelmed and frustrated? Are you stuck in relationships at home or at work that constantly drain your energy? Do you spend all your time helping other people, only to feel like there’s no one left to help you when you really need it?

To fix these relationship woes, we’re told we need to do more: make more friends, attend more events, and join a bowling league or two. But what about those of us who simply feel exhausted?

In It's Okay to Leave Early, University of Washington professor Ryan Fehr argues that for many of us, the problem isn't loneliness. It's social burnout. The good news is, social burnout isn't destiny, and there’s a clear path out. It’s Okay to Leave Early teaches you how to build a social life that gives back more energy than it takes, including how to:

- Embrace your alone time and turn it into a source of peace and restoration.
- Connect at networking events, parties, and other large gatherings without feeling overwhelmed.
- Break away from over-helping and self-silencing.
- Prompt the people in your life to show more care, concern, and curiosity.
- Manage the people who fuel your social burnout most—narcissists, cynics, instigators, and stonewallers.


We can’t solve social burnout by adding more. It's Okay to Leave Early helps you make better decisions about who gets your time, what you owe the people around you, and how to create energizing relationships, so you can build a social life that leaves you feeling genuinely connected to others.