The broader social ecosystem is more important but also more difficult to grapple with, so let’s start small. Would you like me to do things that are definitely boundary violations but that I expect to be benign[1]?
You teased at an answer to that question, but I don’t think you gave anything definitive. You said that your culture should have medium-sized responses to transgressions that end up not being benign, and so ought to incentivize what a potential actor believes to be a benign boundary violation, but you didn’t quite go the distance and say that you want people in your life attempting what they believe to be benign boundary violations. It sounds like from your bachelor party request that you’d like that from people close to you, but what about acquaintances?
I absolutely personally want people to violate the social boundaries at me, in places where they genuinely expect that the social boundary is way overcompensating for me personally and that the [action] they’re considering will not violate my personal boundaries.
I want people in my life, acquaintances included, to try to play in the actual space I have available, not (via their good intentions) make me feel like I’m isolated from them and everything by a ten-foot bubble.
My generic social contract is “I will adhere to a policy of forgiving well-intentioned first-offense missteps where people genuinely couldn’t have known, in order to purchase your willingness to Try Things. In places where I can’t afford to absorb first-offense missteps, I’ll consider it my own responsibility to proactively inform, the same way I would if I had a lethal peanut allergy. Your primary responsibility in turn is to listen, and update, if I clarify a boundary.”
More broadly, on the social level, “I will defend others in what I perceive to have been well-intentioned first-offense missteps where they genuinely couldn’t have known, from attacks which tend to take those missteps in bad faith and chill/deter people from Trying Things At All.”
The broader social ecosystem is more important but also more difficult to grapple with, so let’s start small. Would you like me to do things that are definitely boundary violations but that I expect to be benign[1]?
You teased at an answer to that question, but I don’t think you gave anything definitive. You said that your culture should have medium-sized responses to transgressions that end up not being benign, and so ought to incentivize what a potential actor believes to be a benign boundary violation, but you didn’t quite go the distance and say that you want people in your life attempting what they believe to be benign boundary violations. It sounds like from your bachelor party request that you’d like that from people close to you, but what about acquaintances?
In expectation not more unpleasant than stubbing your toe or a light turning red on you while you’re driving, although with possibly wide tails.
I absolutely personally want people to violate the social boundaries at me, in places where they genuinely expect that the social boundary is way overcompensating for me personally and that the [action] they’re considering will not violate my personal boundaries.
I want people in my life, acquaintances included, to try to play in the actual space I have available, not (via their good intentions) make me feel like I’m isolated from them and everything by a ten-foot bubble.
My generic social contract is “I will adhere to a policy of forgiving well-intentioned first-offense missteps where people genuinely couldn’t have known, in order to purchase your willingness to Try Things. In places where I can’t afford to absorb first-offense missteps, I’ll consider it my own responsibility to proactively inform, the same way I would if I had a lethal peanut allergy. Your primary responsibility in turn is to listen, and update, if I clarify a boundary.”
More broadly, on the social level, “I will defend others in what I perceive to have been well-intentioned first-offense missteps where they genuinely couldn’t have known, from attacks which tend to take those missteps in bad faith and chill/deter people from Trying Things At All.”