Boundaries - How People Treat You

People treat you the way they think they can treat you.

You communicate (either consciously or unconsciously) that it’s appropriate to treat you a certain way.

And setting up proper boundaries is the best way to communicate how you will or will not be treated.

One of the places where boundaries get violated the most is over text or messages.

This is because people aren’t able to see your body language or physical presence, they’re not able to hear your tone, and maybe you misinterpret what they mean.

Honestly, I find myself having to enforce boundaries over the phone more than in person.

For example, I have a cousin who’s on a road trip right now across the country…

He texted me to let me know that he is going to be in Phoenix in the next 2-3 days, so I offered to give him a place to stay.

He then hits me up saying, “I’ll stay with you for two weeks.”

My response was “I can host you for a few days.”

Kind of a big ask on his part, and it wasn’t even an ask, it was a statement.

Do I think it’s a bit rude? Yeah, but that’s my view of it, he may not think it’s a big deal at all.

I don’t need to blow up on him and I also don’t need to give him what he asked for.

You don’t need to react.

I don’t want to host someone for 2 weeks, so I just told him straight up what my boundaries were.

Another instance of this was the other night a girl texted me something I didn’t appreciate her saying…

It was kind of disrespectful, it was kind of playful, but regardless I didn’t like it.

That doesn’t mean I should cut her off entirely or that I need to blow up on her, I still think she’s great and I’ve had a lot of fun with her thus far.

You don’t need to react.

So I just told her, “Please don’t talk to me like that” and just left it at that.

I don’t add LOL or an emoji because I want this person to know that I'm being serious.

Does it add a little bit of tension to our conversation?

Yeah, but so does me being talked to in a way I don’t like.

I had this happen once with one of my friends who’s a doctor…

I was asking him to get me a prescription for Modafinil and I was kind of half joking and half being serious.

He said he wasn’t going to do that, and I jokingly said, “Wow! And I thought you were my real friend!”

And he responded back, “Not cool Nick.”

I knew right away, okay it doesn’t matter that I was joking, I should apologize because clearly, he didn’t appreciate it.

This is how a normal person will respond if you enforce a boundary: they apologize and don’t do it again.

But what happens if they don’t respect the boundary?

Maybe they’re a bit slow and didn’t understand you didn’t like what they did…

Or maybe they want to see if they can get away with it…

Again, you don’t need to react, but you totally can put them on the spot.

“Hey, I’ve already asked you once to not do that. Is there a reason you think it’s okay to continue to talk to me like that?”

Either that person is going to apologize at that moment because it was a genuine mistake on their part…

Or they’ll show you their true colors and continue to disrespect you, and that’s where it’s three strikes you’re out.

First Violation - Please don’t do that.

Second Violation - Ask them a question about their behavior

Third Violation - Cut off communication

Honestly, if you just handle it on the first violation you probably won’t have to deal with it again.

And it’s a very rare circumstance that someone continues to disrespect your boundaries past the second violation.

Now there are levels to this…

If someone walks up to me and spits on me…

Yes, they’ve violated my boundary, but I’m not going to say, “Hey please don’t do that.”

No, that’s a fist fight.

What I’m talking about is verbal communication, and even then that has its levels to it too.

Sometimes people don’t deserve the graciousness that comes with moving someone from first violation to second to third…

I’ll never forget this one girl calling me at like 8:30 PM at night as i’m about to head to bed…

I answered, “Hey what’s up?”

“What are you doing tonight?”

“About to go to bed, what about you?”

“Are you a loser? Why are you going to bed so early? What are you an old man?”

*in the background her friend goes “yeah what are you Nick, some loser old man?*

“That’s so lame”

I just hung up the phone right then and there and cut off communication.

Context: I connected with this girl on bumble literally one night before this happened and we hadn’t even met up yet.

Annoying, rude, and not something I’m going to put my energy into.

Boundaries…

Use em’.