I find the terminology confusing because asking for more “benign boundary violations” sounds like wanting strangers to do things that breach social boundaries that are not personal boundaries, yet the examples refer to friends and partners, not strangers. It doesn’t make sense to say these are examples of “benign boundary violations” for close relationships though. Boundaries for friends are different for boundaries for strangers, so such behavior wouldn’t be considered boundary violations.
I think of it differently: within any relationship, there is a space that you are generally allowed to explore without first asking for explicit consent. (“Allowed to explore” meaning that mistakes are tolerated.) You still need to negotiate your boundaries within this space, but it’s done via informed guesses, non-verbal cues or slow escalation, rather than directly asking someone for their answer.
When someone tries an interaction (e.g. ruffling your hair), there are two levels to look at:
Is it ok that they explored that interaction space, e.g. are you ok with them trying friendly physical touch?
Are you ok with the action e.g. are you ok with having your hair ruffled?
Being too explicit when asking for someone’s consent implies that you don’t consider the action to lie within the permitted exploration space for the relationship, and therefore that you think that your relationship is more distant (like how you would preface a personal question with “Can I ask you a personal question?” for a stranger but not a friend). Daring to try something that violates social norms (e.g. ruffling someone’s hair) implies that you think you are in a close enough relationship to justify the attempt, even if turns out that the other person doesn’t like it. If it is indeed a close enough relationship, the other person can always accept the attempt while rejecting the specific action.
I think a typical way of handling individuals who have needs that are violated by social norms would carving out spaces for people with different needs, like having quiet carriages on trains, or providing vegetarian options on a menu. We can also be more accepting towards people who try to carve out their own spaces. For example, if someone needs alone time to recharge and thus chooses to sit separately from the group, the group accepts this rather than complaining about anti-social behavior.
This seems very reasonable to me. This post and the whole conversation has been an eye opener for me, because I never realized that other people had porous boundaries—mine are rock solid and super strict. For instance I would never have independently come up with the idea of “exploration space”—for me, in all of my relationships, there is exactly none. No guessing. Only asking. It would not have occurred to me that there are people—indeed, apparently the majority of people—for whom this is not the case! It’s rather mind-boggling. But then, I’ve never understood human intimacy and always been extremely ambivalent about it, so it makes sense that I wouldn’t have picked up on things like this—I’ve never experienced any kind of interpersonal intimacy at all and tend to actively avoid it.
I find the terminology confusing because asking for more “benign boundary violations” sounds like wanting strangers to do things that breach social boundaries that are not personal boundaries, yet the examples refer to friends and partners, not strangers. It doesn’t make sense to say these are examples of “benign boundary violations” for close relationships though. Boundaries for friends are different for boundaries for strangers, so such behavior wouldn’t be considered boundary violations.
I think of it differently: within any relationship, there is a space that you are generally allowed to explore without first asking for explicit consent. (“Allowed to explore” meaning that mistakes are tolerated.) You still need to negotiate your boundaries within this space, but it’s done via informed guesses, non-verbal cues or slow escalation, rather than directly asking someone for their answer.
When someone tries an interaction (e.g. ruffling your hair), there are two levels to look at:
Is it ok that they explored that interaction space, e.g. are you ok with them trying friendly physical touch?
Are you ok with the action e.g. are you ok with having your hair ruffled?
Being too explicit when asking for someone’s consent implies that you don’t consider the action to lie within the permitted exploration space for the relationship, and therefore that you think that your relationship is more distant (like how you would preface a personal question with “Can I ask you a personal question?” for a stranger but not a friend). Daring to try something that violates social norms (e.g. ruffling someone’s hair) implies that you think you are in a close enough relationship to justify the attempt, even if turns out that the other person doesn’t like it. If it is indeed a close enough relationship, the other person can always accept the attempt while rejecting the specific action.
I think a typical way of handling individuals who have needs that are violated by social norms would carving out spaces for people with different needs, like having quiet carriages on trains, or providing vegetarian options on a menu. We can also be more accepting towards people who try to carve out their own spaces. For example, if someone needs alone time to recharge and thus chooses to sit separately from the group, the group accepts this rather than complaining about anti-social behavior.
This seems very reasonable to me. This post and the whole conversation has been an eye opener for me, because I never realized that other people had porous boundaries—mine are rock solid and super strict. For instance I would never have independently come up with the idea of “exploration space”—for me, in all of my relationships, there is exactly none. No guessing. Only asking. It would not have occurred to me that there are people—indeed, apparently the majority of people—for whom this is not the case! It’s rather mind-boggling. But then, I’ve never understood human intimacy and always been extremely ambivalent about it, so it makes sense that I wouldn’t have picked up on things like this—I’ve never experienced any kind of interpersonal intimacy at all and tend to actively avoid it.