Maintaining integrity by enforcing your own personal boundaries

We talk a lot about maintaining frame. And I think there is one particular aspect of maintaining frame recently that I've come to realize is uniquely important - and it relates to our personal boundaries.

We must have a strong, concrete sense of what we are, and are not, willing to accept in our interactions with people. I think a lot of people enter social interactions without a strong sense of this, and that can be dangerous - it allows us to get caught up in the momentum of the social interaction and pulled deeper into something that we don't really want, more deeply than we would have gone if we'd thought about where our own limits lie.

This is true not just with women but in all areas of life.

It is true in our jobs - when we are asked to do things that are beyond our personal sense of ethics or duty. We should know what we are willing to do, and where the line is drawn. Remember that "I was following orders" is not an admissible defense of soldiers who committed a war crime. It's always up to you to know what's appropriate and what is not. Alternatively, a lot of people keep jobs they hate because they think they have to, or they want the money. If you are willing to trade your time and happiness for enough money, that's your choice - but the important thing to remember is that it is, in fact, your choice. You always have another choice. You have the ability to decide what rules you want to follow in life. You have the ability to decide if the money is worth it or not. Never forget that.

It is true in friendships - when friends ask from us favors that we aren't really comfortable with. Where do you draw the line? What are you comfortable doing for someone? You should know - and once you know, don't let someone push you past your line. It's yours.

I travel a lot and I can say that the vast majority of scam artists and people who take advantage of tourists is a result of people's natural habit of compliance. Compliance is a dangerous habit. Doing what someone prompts you to do in an authoritative matter will, categorically, leave you vulnerable. This can happen in even a somewhat mild scam - where pushy taxi drivers waiting outside a station will charge you 10 times the price of a normal taxi driver - or a truly harmful crime, where someone tries to lure you out of a public area and into a private area, where you can potentially be killed with no witnesses. In all of these situations, the best defense that you can have is to learn to stop this instinct of compliance, and to draw your own boundaries for what you feel comfortable with. If you're in a hurry and don't care if you get price gouged on the taxi, then get in. But do it purposefully, and knowing that it's within the boundaries that you decided to set.

I recently left a job which had a very toxic environment. The effects of this continue to linger in my mind. But I can't blame them - because I chose to sacrifice my own sense of boundary by tolerating a toxic work environment. And I shouldn't have done it. Most of us, if we are real professionals, can find a new job if we really want to. And I could have, too. But for various reasons I allowed my boundaries to be violated and now I am paying the price. It wasn't worth it.

It isn't worth it with women, either. Does a girl try to manipulate you? Does she text other people in front of you? Does she expect you to buy her stupid shit? Does she whine about something trivial? Does she disrespect you? How did she disrespect you? Does this fall under the line of what you're willing to tolerate? If you're willing to let it slide, great. If it crosses your line, give her the boot. Decide where your line is, make the line clear to her, and enforce it. Even if you get fewer women this way, you'll get BETTER women this way, and you will feel better about what you get. All the time I see guys put up with intolerable shit from women. It gets joked about all the time the things that men have to put up with, it's the standard fare of most comedians, even guys like Patrice O'Neal. I get the joke, but honestly, I can't relate. Doesn't matter how long I've been with a girl, if she behaves this way I don't stick around. End of story. So I have no such anecdotes about what kind of shit I have to put up with from women... because I chose not to.

I tend to have very good relationships with women because I never hesitate to cut off a girl who crosses my line even a little bit. Does it limit my options? Sure, quite a bit, because there are a lot of things that I don't want to have to tolerate. This my decision and I accept that. Does it increase the value that any given girl adds to my life? Absolutely. My filtering process of knowing where my boundaries are allows into my life only high-quality women who do not create drama (high quality according to what I know that I value). And these women appreciate my attention more, because they know that it doesn't come unconditionally. And when they cross my line, and they know I will enforce it, they try very hard to correct themselves - because they also appreciate a man with integrity. And if they don't appreciate a man with integrity?

Then fuck 'em. It's better to do without than to sacrifice your integrity to get something. At the end of the day you have to keep your pride.

I see a lot of people who get caught up in relationships with authoritarian-minded peopled and entirely sacrifice their well being in doing so. Especially with abusive family members. I've known so many people with an abusive father/mother/relative and they do not stand up for themselves, do not take control of their life or try to improve their situation because they feel that this other person has the ability to violate their boundaries.

No one has the innate right to violate your boundaries. Not your mom, not your dad, not your girlfriend, not your boss, not anybody. You must draw your own lines, you must follow them, and you must be willing to remove anything from your life that violates your sense of integrity.

In my observations and experiences this is an absolutely integral part of self-respect.

tl;dr decide your own boundaries for what are willing to accept in all areas of your life, and follow those boundaries. You will be better off for it.