Sometimes it's tricky pinning down people's boundaries and knowing if it's okay to say something or if you're just about to overstep the mark and get them fuming.Some people's boundaries are very flexible. You can be as controversial or teasing or flippant as you like and they'll take it on the chin and respond in kind. I guess they're self-confident enough not to feel too threatened by something "excessive".
Other people have such tight boundaries it's very easy to cross them with a chance remark and find you've somehow gone too far, broken some unstated expectation and caused sudden offence. Often they won't tell you what you said wrong, they just quietly rage and seethe and you wonder what's going on.
They discreetly rebuff you and distance you and you keep rerunning the sequence of events wondering what it was exactly that triggered the negative reaction. Was it that criticism of their favourite author? Was it that coolness about their job? Was it some impression of over-familiarity? The more you think about it, the more puzzled you get.
My father's boundaries were very rigid, and I was forever incurring his abrupt wrath. Sometimes he would point out the offending remark, and usually I was mystified. The remarks seemed harmless enough to me. So harmless I can't for the life of me recall any of them. Maybe I was enthusing about socialism, or lambasting one of my teachers, or being sniffy about some TV programme. Who knows?
But it's always odd when an apparently cordial relationship inexplicably turns frosty. You just think "So what was all that about? Was it me? Was it them? Was it something in the air? Was it global warming?"
Who put the fly in the ointment?
