My parents were incredibly unforgiving people. Passive aggressive. Angry. You’d know they were mad at you when they stopped speaking to you, but wouldn’t tell you why. They could hold grudges FOREVER.
I do NOT want to be like them, and have worked hard at this, but sometimes it’s confusing.
Lately I’ve been finding myself less and less tolerant of people when they’ve crossed boundaries.
A couple of examples:
On Tuesday my (does-not-pick-up-on-social-cues) neighbor asked me for a ride (two rides) so she could have her car worked on on Friday. Thursday evening I messaged her and asked her exactly what time she needed me on Friday. She responded that she’d decided to take the bus so I was off the hook. (I have no idea when/if she was going to tell me this updated information if I hadn’t messaged her.) In that moment I wrote her off and I’ve been (immaturely) attempting to avoid her ever since.
Today I had a date with a guy who was nice enough, but at one point as I was telling him my experience with this freaking amazing massage therapist who has given me my life back, he started telling me I probably should have gone to a sports medicine chiropractor instead and they would have had MT’s they could have sent me to. He has absolutely ZERO idea of what my issues are/were. This kind of unsolicited you-should’ve-done-this-instead advice/criticism makes me snort fire.
When we said goodbye he obviously wanted a hug so I tried to give him a quick “half hug” but he didn’t get it (or didn’t want to) and he gave me a full on hug for probably 10 seconds like we were BFF’s or sleeping together until I finally pulled away from him. I have no intention of seeing him again, and I’d been considering it before the unsolicited advice and clueless hug.
So, how do I know if I’m being too hard on people like my parents were or if I’m having good boundaries? I didn’t tell either of these people I thought they were out of line. Do I owe either one of them an explanation? Am I being evasive if I ghost them with no explanation? I don’t have the energy for this shit.