As of lately I feel like I have had a lot of issues with people and their idea of boundaries. This seems to be happening at my job a lot and just random places like the store and the mall. First of all no offense to anyone in my life this is just something I'm starting to notice. I feel like it is important to have boundaries. I will give you a slight pass if it's an age thing, or if it's a disability. That's OK...but at some point the other person should look around and realize with one wrong move that they could be making out with me...LOL.
The first group of people who seem to not be able to see the bubble I placed around myself, sometimes our beloved elderly demographic seem to just lose sight of their space. I feel like there is a lot of touching and talking and all this is being done about an inch away from just sitting on my lap. I am very friendly but I have huge issues with small spaces...How can I politely tell your grandma to please back up about 90 ft...LOL. I'm just going to start wearing a hula hoop around my body as a shield, but some of these people may just walk right through it.
Now the second group of people seem to be coming from our Caucasian middle aged sisters...LOL. Now anyone who knows me knows that I have a variety of people in my life, all walks of life, all races, I have no cut cards but there is starting to be a trend here. The funny thing is my Caucasian friends don't seem to have this problem, this is coming from women in their late 40's and up. I don't know if this is a historical issue, maybe in their sub conscience they feel like they are running us, but I will politely just suggest they watch Underground...LOL.
Picture this: You are minding your own business, getting work done, and all of a sudden someone decides that it's a good idea to not only just walk into you space without an invite but to sit down, pull a chair up about an inch away from my face and then ignore the fact that I'm eating lunch. Continues to talk to me about what SHE wants, and makes phone calls to ask questions, (by the way all this is BEHIND my desk and my computer). So I reach inside myself and decide I am not going to KOYA her today, I'm gonna breath and keep my composure. I feel like this, do you go behind a cash register (where someone is ringing you up) and purchase your items? NO!!! This isn't a self service computer. So what you aren't gonna do is sit here, interrupt me, and touch my computer to try to force me to fix something on the project now. This isn't the BIG HOUSE. I am not on your schedule. You are not my boss. I told you nicely that I would get to it after my break that I didn't take until 2:30pm. For some reason this person just acted like I wasn't speaking. I didn't get loud but I did become very short with her. This is like the third time I have had this issue. My time, job, skill set is important as well, so please do not act like other people don't matter. Don't keep crossing lines that are clearly drawn. The whole time I was thinking would she do this to anyone else, or is it just people that she feels are below her? Another moment with another person at another time just really did something to my soul. This time it was a physical boundary. They were looking for something and this person decides to come in spin my chair around to see something, mind you I don't know her, she didn't ask to come in, and she didn't let me know she was going to spin my chair around WHILE I WAS IN IT! She is constantly missing cues from people all the time. She doesn't see when the person has checked out of the conversation because it's been 30 min. She walks into peoples rooms and just stands there as if she is looking for someone but can't see them. It is the weirdest thing ever. This makes me laugh now because I just can't believe that there are people in this world that think this type of shit is appropriate.
Maybe I am missing something. Maybe it's a respect issue. I'm using these as examples of course I have met many people of different races who have different boundary issues, but these were new for me. I was thinking to myself WWKD? (What would Koya do?) This came to me last night after I was reading my friends blog and we talked about college and how I was so out spoken and how in high school I never spoke up for myself. She was so shocked because I was constantly encouraging my group of friends to speak up for themselves because it was their education. I was so socially terrified in high school, and my first college and at some point I just didn't want to be a victim any longer, I wanted to be my best self advocate. She reminded me that I taught her and others to stand up for themselves and never take anyone's shit. She said it was always a WWKD moment. I don't think she understands how much I needed to hear that. I think there is fine line of defending yourself and disrespecting someone. I am really protective of my personal space and we all should be, everyones energy shouldn't be invited into your world. But what do we do when someone doesn't have the ability to understand personal boundaries.
