OK. This is one of my most toxic qualities and has caused serious issues, specifically with other ND people, particularly femme ones. This is NOT something I should be ok with and something I need to work on.
But I do want to talk about WHY it happens.
There are two main reasons why when someone presents me with a boundary, I might try to “argue” or “negotiate” the boundary.
- The boundary doesnt make logical sense to me, so I feel that if I merely explain why it doesnt make sense to me I can argue them out of it. The fact that its a deep discomfort that doesnt have to make sense does not occure to me in the moment.
- A lot of the time its not even because I’m not willing to respect the boundary, its because I want to fully understand their reasoning, so I"m trying to draw that reasoning out more through discussion. Which comes off as “arguing”.
Its also worth noting as Ive said before that boundary drawing has to be very clear with me for me to get it usually. White lies and subtle hints and stuff is completely unhelpful to me.
Ive also been in the position of thinking that the misunderstanding behind a boundary was “cleared up” and therefor thinking its ok to resume the behavior, without actually being given the go ahead to do so. And the person now feels uncomfortable drawing lines with me again because I argued last time (which is a manifestation of THEIR ND), and it just spirals.
The problematic effect this has is that it discourages the person from drawing boundaries with me again. This has led to nasty situations for me multiple times.
Oooooo yeah Ive had huge problem with the “secrets that arent specifically defined as secrets” thing. I dont have many if any serious secrets (though I do kinda hate being talked about behind my back, if its negative) so I just dont tihnk about it with other people’s things.
Actually that reminds me of another time I blew past someone’s boundaries when they tried to get across to me that it was a boundary, but I didnt get it because they were too “nice” about it. My first time lmao. I told tons of people a ton of details about that, and some of it got back around to her. And she didnt even want people knowing we hooked up at all X_X . And when we were just hanging out at the computer after, and I was about to make a post jokingly hinting at it, she like uncomfortably said I shouldnt, And I just blew past it and didnt get it.
Uuuuuuugh.