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"setting a line" really means having solid principles to deal with situations. it doesn't mean you have to be rigid, but it does mean you have to proactively think about what you want and what is acceptable, so you have something to fall back on when situations get complex

I think this article is a pretty good complement to ask vs. guess culture https://jeanhsu.substack.com/p/ask-vs-guess-culture

in my experience, people from ask-heavy cultures will only respond to clear lines. otherwise they will just keep pushing. if you have people in your life who are very good at recognizing soft boundaries, you don't need this skill with them, but it will be helpful for people who ignore soft boundaries.

I agree, and the point I challenge is the blog post's first:

> Lines Will Move Further Away If They Aren’t Defined

Is that necessarily a bad thing?

Sometimes I think some line is important, then I move closer to it, and realise the line is less important to me, and so I'll be less cautious of it.

Some might say "slippery slope!" or "boiling a frog!", but I think of it as me updating my values as I learn more.

Some people are prone to black-and-white thinking, and so I can see why they might be drawn to hard lines.

That is how you get Enron and generally how you get involved in fraud. That is how you create atrocities. Social approval from peers comes first, lines are moved, always because something that is approved by friends.

It is not about slipper slope, you are not falling, you are simply consistently making decisions based on what people around you approve. If you dont have lines, you dont have values. You are just doing what is easy or socially approved right now.

Likewise, every right granted to every minority has occurred because people have remained more open minded than "Set the Line Before It's Crossed".

> Social approval from peers comes first, lines are moved, always because something that is approved by friends.

I hope so! It would be too much for someone to figure this out all by themselves.

Should lines have been set in 1500? 1800? 2026?

This is also how you get a romantic relationship and friendships: you stop being uptight about everything and treat the other as a stranger, and start being more relaxed with bounderies reserved for strangers.

A lost art today, where narcisism is "everybody else is toxic" and boundaries for everything is the norm.

Narcissist do very well with and around people without boundaries. The contact with a narcissist is exactly the situation where you need them the most.

Also, in fact, you can have friends and boundaries. If you cant, you need therapy.

> are you really going to cut a good friend off for not repaying a loan?

In my experience nobody asks me, their friend, for a (nontrivial) loan unless they've exhausted more conventional lines of credit. Bank loans, credit cards, getting their parents to bail them out.

The friends who I'd rely on to pay their debts don't need $500 from me to help cover their rent this month. And the friends who are already struggling with credit card debt ain't good credit risks, and don't need more debt added to the pile.

I'd sooner just gift them the $500 in the first place.

I just loaned a friend $1k for rent and I have no idea whether he'll ever pay it back. I agree that it's healthier to think about it as a gift that may or may not make its way back.

Not being repaid is possibly a reason not to lend him any more money. I don't see it as a reason to cut contact with him, though.

It's about framing, really. Alice and Bob go into a building. They walk out of the building, but Alice is $500 richer. What happened in the building? We have zero idea. We can project all sorts of assumptions as to how Alice walked out of there $500 richer, but based on the information given, you'd be inventing details as to why.

Thus, if you read this comment, you owe me $5, payable via nothing, because money is a construct anyway. So if you can afford to, give your friend a monetary gift. If they can't repay you, and you can't afford to not have that money, then you can't afford to lend them that money and you have to learn to say no.

I feel like the moral dilemma is less significant if you're in a position to give out loans as gifts.

The moral dilemma might be more significant if the amount is large enough to worry you.

Suppose a close friend needs $50k for medical treatment, but it's $50k you had saved to pay for your child's university, and they promise to pay you back gradually so it's in time for your child to start university, but meanwhile they don't pay any back, and instead spend their income on a fancy car. I think it would be challenging to remain friends with that person.

I generally think it's better to phrase it as a gift.

My motto, is that people have helped me a lot in life, with time, resources and sometimes money.

If I loan money, I explicitly do not expect to be repaid, and will generally say, pass it on.

Also it's often not the loaner side who cuts off contact. But if the person who receives the loan cannot repay it, and every time they talk to you, they feel guilty and think about it. They might just start avoiding you.

Setting lines (or 'boundaries' as is the popular word in today's pop psychology) is not something you should do lightly. At the end of the day, a boundary is an ultimatum you're setting on someone else's behavior. Treat it that way. Sometimes ultimatums are necessary. Sometimes they're toxic. Don't be that person with a minefield full of unnecessary boundaries you expect everyone else to dance around and jump through as a condition of interacting with you.

> a boundary is an ultimatum you're setting on someone else's behavior

No, it's not.

A boundary is something you're saying about your behavior. "If you use racist language at me, I will have to end this conversation."

And much, much worse than someone with "a minefield full of unnecessary boundaries" is someone who has boundaries they don't tell you about.

You should only set boundaries that are real boundaries for you, not just whims or arbitrary decisions. But if you do have boundaries—and everyone does; if you think you don't, then you just haven't had someone cross them (or haven't realized that's what happened when they did)—you must communicate them in contexts where there's a real chance of them being crossed.

To do otherwise is unfair to everyone else and to yourself.

I'm not sure how that example differs from an ultimatum.

To me, the difference is positive vs negative acts.

An ultimatum says “you must do X or else I will do Y”

A boundary says “you must refrain from X or else I will do Y”.

I guess my question is: What's wrong with an ultimatum over things that are actually egregious enough to need a hard boundary? It seems like you're stuck on the word "ultimatum", as if there's nothing that could possibly be acceptable to give an ultimatum over.

I mean...I'm a pretty easygoing guy overall. My boundaries are things like, "If you come up and scream in my face, I'll tell you to sod off." "If you punch me, I'll probably shove you back." Reasonable boundaries for other people might be "if you grab my butt, I will report you to HR", or "if you ask me to work unpaid overtime, I will refuse (and report you to HR/the NLRB)".

It seems like you think "people setting boundaries" looks like telling your coworkers things like "never ever speak to me in anything but the most respectful tones" or "if you ask me about my personal life, even the tiniest bit, I will call the police". Except in extremely unusual circumstances, "boundaries" like that are actually people being abusive of their coworkers.

That is just playing the world games. Your re-interpretations changed nothing on the substance.

> you must communicate them in contexts where there's a real chance of them being crossed

I think this falls under de-escalation, and there's lots of approaches.

Communicating boundaries, or stating if-thens, can be an escalation in some situations.

Steering the conversation/situation away works in some situations.

Non-verbal communication can work, and be more tactful: it allows an accidentally-offensive person to recognise, pull back and show support. This smoothes out conversations, and is common enough that it's expected for many.

For groups of people that use non-verbal communication less, then perhaps explicitly stating things is the only option.

But don't be surprised if non-verbal communicators interpret it as combative!

"Wow, Foo got upset quickly at me, and in front of others. [Why didn't Foo make it clearer that they were getting uncomfortable [using non-verbal methods]]".

Most people don't treat their line setting as holy scripture. Besides, nobody stops you from putting your actions on a sliding scale.

Did your good friend not repay his loan? Okay, what's the size of the loan, and how did they react when you reminded them? What's the circumstances surrounding the loan itself - did they borrow for the down payment of a mansion, or did they borrow to buy cheese?

Also, if you're treating your life as a game theory set piece then perhaps that's a place where you should start making changes. Just sayin'.

>Domestic violence is an obvious line to set

is it? the example given for things implied to disallow are playful pinching/punching.

Even the author's implied choice of line is suspect here.

What is "playful punching"?

I'll know it when I see it

Not sure if you're being genuine but a playful punch is absolutely a thing, example: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/_91jzDH4V5Q

If you think someone might be a DV risk that seems like a reasonable line as long as your expectations are clear.

> Ruben, Lou’s boyfriend, playfully pinches her, then playfully punches her, then seriously pinches her, then seriously punches her, and so on. Each time she convinces herself that her domestic abuse line wasn’t crossed, ultimately leading to her getting full-on abused.

If I start by not liking playful pinches and said so, you should stop doing them. That is the initial situation. But in this (made up) story, she moves then line and tolerates them, because he is not stopping and she does not see it as a red flag.

You outline an ideal but in my estimation probably 20% of people actively let others “set their lines” for them. They are so used to deferring decision making or suppressing their own feelings on the matter that they lose the ability to do it entirely. Maybe for them this article is a step in the right direction.

This next part is woo-woo, take it for what it’s worth.

When getting my massage license we had a whole day talking about how many people have chronic pain because they suppress negative emotion and it ends up on their body. Think “grin and bear it”. It turns out “bearing it” is a physical process in your body with negative consequences. You probably know someone like this who is very agreeable and also has very bad headaches, gut problems, strange pains/“fibromyalgia” symptoms. They’re always chasing a medical reason for their discomfort but maybe their discomfort is that they are holding in a lot of resentment instead of “holding their line” as the article puts it.

Stress is /always/ manifested physically in the body—what would it even mean to be stressed out but also totally physically relaxed? And as it turns out, letting other people stomp all over your intentions is very stressful.