Social boundaries in life

Social Boundaries in life

You have to consider a lot of things when you set your boundaries. Is it a soft general dislike or is this a hardcore " I can't continue living like this " thing ? Is the person able to consent to what your demands might be ? Are your requests reasonable for the situation at hand? Are you willing to follow through with your demands under pressure ? Are you willing to escalate the situation if hardcore boundaries aren't respected?

Example : Your name is Ben and someone keeps calling you Bean

Maybe you don't mind it sometimes but somebody keeps spamming it every time they see you.

You know they respect you as a person.

They are the funny jokester so it's possible to get them to stop but they will use humor to deflect and / or other people might not see the issue if you bring it up in front of them.

You know anger or annoyed ness in response to jokes can be seen as uncool / killjoy but your willing to be seen as a killjoy temporarily if it means they call you Ben .

Solution: say " dont do that " ( in your own words ) with a smile if the jokester calls you Bean. Then if they ask " why?" you can say " yeah its annoying when you call me Bean every time you see me. Switch it up and call me my name sometimes "

After that , you can correct them if you are nice but ultimately if they continue to call you Bean you can choose not to engage with them by ignoring them when just when they call you Bean or not engaging in any conversations with them in the future

Social Boundaries in cohousing

It's a bit different when you live with someone and you're a part of an intentional community but usually you can be a tiny bit more on the blunt side if you so choose. In the Bean / Ben fiasco , id say focusing on I feel statements like " When you call me Bean ALL the time I get annoyed. Ben is fine like 60 % of the time. " Then if the behavior continues just correct them privately and bring a person along to help mediate to get to the root cause of why they habitually call you Bean. I think if you live in cohousing , the social dynamics make it so that confrontation/resolution is usually a common goal when it comes to dealing with neighbors.

But yeah it's sometimes nothing you can do. Sometimes it's better to be cordial and not speak much outside of small talk if personalities clash too much. It's life

Until next time 😎

NJcohousing on Facebook and Instagram