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Respecting Personal Boundaries
(06/27/2006) by Joy Davidson
Larry’s friend, Amy, always greets him with a warm hug and a firm kiss on the lips. Amy’s twin sister, Emily, isn’t as effusive as her sister, so she usually welcomes Larry with a swift brush of her lips against his check. Occasionally, Larry confuses one twin with the other – although not for long. When he mistakenly wraps Emily in a tight bear hug, he knows by the way she stiffens and pulls backward that he has accosted the wrong twin. Emily doesn’t blame Larry for his error, but she does react instantaneously, telegraphing that he has crossed an invisible line.
This is the line we refer to as a "personal boundary."
We’ve all transgressed boundaries and we’ve all felt discomfort (sometimes even grave offense) when someone does it to us. Whether it’s the guy sidling up too close in the supermarket check-out or the gal speaking loudly on her cell phone in a cozy restaurant, we all feel the impact when a boundary is breached.
Boundaries in casual social interactions are dictated both by cultural convention and personal needs. Boundaries in intimate relationships are more complex and nuanced; they are like the psychic or emotional equivalent of a person’s skin – which itself is the physical boundary that separates them from the rest of the material world. Like skin, our emotional boundaries indicate where our "self" ends and another’s self begins. Power dynamics in close relationships are often exposed by noting which partner is more likely to sneak across the other’s borders of self and steal little bits, like a child sneaking candy from the drugstore rack. A healthy sense of self means that we are able to invite others to meet us at the edges of our boundaries and theirs; we can get close, but are unlikely to get so enmeshed that we let our loved one’s emotions – especially their anxieties – spill into us and become our own. We can hold steady when upset, and not succumb to urges to control others in order to relieve our own discomfort. Tall order? No doubt. That’s why self-development is an ongoing process that only ends with our final breath.
It’s easy to recognize boundary problems in people who don’t know how to draw lines in the sand – people who can’t say "no" or speak up for themselves. But some people’s lack of a strong and true self manifests in just the opposite way: they are quick to penetrate the boundaries of others, treating intimates as undifferentiated self-extensions. We all know people like this, who act as though they are the center of the universe, and we might even presume that their egotistical behavior is evidence of self-esteem –- but we’d be wrong.
There is a natural progression in the way that our relationships with others evolve out of our relationship to ourselves. People who seem so full of themselves that they trample on others’ boundaries are actually quite empty and lost inside, compelled to latch onto others in clumsy disregard of the cues and social conventions that implore "keep your distance." When confronted, their shame at being caught forces them to don heavy defensive armor. They are the kings and queens of self-justification.
Such people are often drawn to locales where boundary confusion already exists, and where they can transgress with relative impunity. One such place is cyberspace. The anonymity that the web affords, along with its dreamscape quality, makes it a perfect borderworld.
Whether we dabble in online relationships, in computer gaming, in erotic webcam encounters, or even discussion lists and newsgroups, if we relate on the internet we exist in a dimension that is part "real" and partly a projection of our imagination. Anywhere that the real and the imaginary intersect is a hybrid space, a quasi-dreamworld, where boundary crossings are as natural as clicking a mouse, even among people who are otherwise scrupulous about respecting others.
Why does that happen? Because when you are in a dream, you are at the center of a galaxy of your own making. Just as movies and TV shows play out largely upon the internal screen of your psyche, online relationships evolve in a virtual space where we may become swept up in the illusion that thoughts can be transmitted without speaking and minds can meld as one. If you are using an avatar to traverse the gameworld, blurring the boundaries of self and self-extension is the goal – but when real people merge with elements of your imagination, identities that should be preserved instead get lost or dissolve. In cyber-sexual encounters, especially, where the headiness of strong erotic sensation is mediated by the wall of a two dimensional computer screen, individuals can seem like mere projections of your fantasy life. The person on the other side becomes someone you conjured up in your dreams. It’s all too easy, then, to push past the limits of your cyber-partner’s comfort zone, say something offensive or depersonalizing, and cause real hurt to someone of flesh, blood, and feeling.
Of course, the very same thing can happen in ordinary time. You needn’t be a repeat boundary offender to transgress; anyone can be oblivious to another’s "self" on occasion, just as anyone can distractedly whiz through a red light at an intersection. However, given that a crushing boundary breach can be as damaging as running a red light, it’s crucial to begin repairs quickly. Here are some steps for boundary first aid, in both virtual and ordinary worlds:
* Apologize. Profusely. Better to fall all over yourself to make amends than to be perfunctory. Reparations require humility.
* Ask yourself: would clearer parameters have kept you from blundering earlier? It’s not too late to negotiate better boundaries for the future. Be sure that all activities are mutually agreeable before you dive in, and monitor your tendency to bliss out on fantasy and lose touch with your partner’s humanity.
* Pay close attention to the other’s subtle style of communicating discomfort. How does their body language or tone of voice change? Check in with them more frequently. Ask, "are you sure you’re OK with this? Do you want to talk about it further?"
* Remind yourself frequently that there is a very real person on the other side of the screen – or the table, or the bed. If you are being intimate, you need to be responsible for treating partners with respect and even gentility.
* If you recognize that you are a repeat-offender, center-of-the-universe type, think about getting some counseling. You already know that your armor is heavy, and you don’t trust easily, but if you can overcome your resistance to self-exposure, enormous growth is possible.
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