Some people build up walls around themselves. Others layer on a moat along with the wall. Others have no walls and no filters. A party filled with extreme people like can either be a complete disaster or a fun social psychology experiment. And, becomes it happens naturally you won’t need to go through IRB approval. That’s a bad science joke. Just ignore.
Now while those extremes exist, it does not mean that a comfortable medium point exists. For example, we do need to have boundaries. Where we set those boundaries is up to each of us and where and what is dictated by the norms. However, once you set those boundaries there are two things you should keep in mind. 1) You can change your set boundaries. They can evolve as you evolve. 2) Never feel uncomfortable or embarrassed protecting said boundaries. You set them for a reason.
Categories: Culture, identity, mental health, Psychology, society, women
psychologistmimi 
damn right ! 😉
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I came into this retirement community of about 350 people as the only novelist, the only writer of fiction (the memoirists claim factual accuracy; me, I’m not so sure about them).
And was immediately besieged with request for ‘a little something’ for the newsletter, for the daily Assisted Living broadsheet (just a couple of jokes, please), and had to move fast.
I have resisted all but allowing them, during the pandemic, to use drabbles I had already written (something I regretted almost immediately because of their inability to handle formatting without hand-holding).
Since then, I claim illness and a major novel in progress, and tell them what my fee is if they really feel they need my input – because of how much time it takes me to make myself available for someone else’s project, time and energy which comes out of a meager store.
They don’t bother me any more – and manage just fine without using their only novelist as an apprentice clerk.
I get pleasure out of noticing everything and anything, and using it in fiction, and boundaries is just one more of those things. Of humans.
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Oh wow. Good for you on the boundary setting. I was just mentioning a similar example in my own life. Sometimes limits just have to be placed and that’s it.
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YES. Great post.
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