We often talk a lot about personal boundaries, but we forget the main thing — they must be well protected from those whom we do not want to let in. And from close, beloved people, you should not protect your territory too zealously, otherwise you can find yourself on it all alone.
Hotel in a resort town. Late evening. In the next room, a young woman sorts things out with her husband — probably on Skype, because his remarks are not heard, but her angry answers are loud and clear, even too much. You can imagine what the husband is saying and reconstruct the entire dialogue. But after about forty minutes, I get bored with this exercise for a novice screenwriter. I knock on the door.
«Who’s there?» — «Neighbor!» — «What do you want?!» “Sorry, you are talking too loudly, it’s impossible to sleep or read. And I’m somehow embarrassed to listen to the details of your personal life. The door opens. An indignant face, an indignant voice: «Do you understand what you just did?» — «What?» (I really didn’t understand what I did so terrible. It seems that I went out in jeans and a T-shirt, and not even barefoot, but in hotel slippers.) — “You … you … you … You violated my personal space!” The door slams shut in my face.
Yes, personal space must be respected — but this respect must be mutual. With the so-called «personal boundaries» often turns out about the same. Overly zealous defense of these semi-mythical borders often turns into aggression. Almost like in geopolitics: each country moves its bases closer to foreign territory, supposedly to protect itself more reliably, but the matter may end in war.
If you grimly focus on protecting personal boundaries, then all your mental strength will go to the construction of fortress walls.
Our life is divided into three areas — public, private and intimate. A person at work, on the street, in elections; a person at home, in the family, in relationships with loved ones; man in bed, in the bathroom, in the toilet. The boundaries of these spheres are blurred, but an educated person is always able to feel them. My mother taught me: «Ask a man why he is not married is as indecent as asking a woman why she does not have children.» It is clear — here we invade the boundaries of the most intimate.
But here’s the paradox: in the public sphere, you can ask almost any questions, including private and even intimate ones. We are not surprised when an unfamiliar uncle from the personnel department asks us about current and former husbands and wives, about parents, children, and even about diseases. But in the private sphere it is not always decent to ask a friend: “who did you vote for”, not to mention family problems. In the intimate sphere, we are not afraid to seem stupid, ridiculous, naive, even evil — that is, as if naked. But when we come out of there, we fasten all the buttons again.
Personal boundaries — unlike state ones — are mobile, unsteady, permeable. It happens that the doctor asks us questions that make us blush. But we are not angry that he violates our personal boundaries. Do not go to the doctor, because he gets too deep into our problems, it is life-threatening. By the way, the doctor himself does not say that we load him with complaints. Close people are called close people because we open ourselves to them and expect the same from them. If, however, gloomy focus on the protection of personal boundaries, then all mental strength will be spent on the construction of fortress walls. And inside this fortress will be empty.