I'm not convinced setting clear lines is a net positive. A line means digging your heels in. The act of setting a line makes you resistant to change: you anchor your values as they are today, and it comes at the cost of tomorrow.

Domestic violence is an obvious line to set, but are you really going to cut a good friend off for not repaying a loan? I would argue that the former is a net good (protects people from abuse) while the latter is a net harm (causes people to abandon their friends when times are bad, without helping to get repaid). I would also argue that most lines fall into the latter category.

Setting lines to protect moral, philosophical, or political beliefs seems even worse, because it's preventing you from changing your mind about those things. Once you've set a line, you can't adapt to change as easily. Having criteria for changing your mind is a band-aid over the problem, because those criteria are set by you as you are today, and they're biased by your current beliefs.

"setting a line" really means having solid principles to deal with situations. it doesn't mean you have to be rigid, but it does mean you have to proactively think about what you want and what is acceptable, so you have something to fall back on when situations get complex

I think this article is a pretty good complement to ask vs. guess culture https://jeanhsu.substack.com/p/ask-vs-guess-culture

in my experience, people from ask-heavy cultures will only respond to clear lines. otherwise they will just keep pushing. if you have people in your life who are very good at recognizing soft boundaries, you don't need this skill with them, but it will be helpful for people who ignore soft boundaries.

I agree, and the point I challenge is the blog post's first:

> Lines Will Move Further Away If They Aren’t Defined

Is that necessarily a bad thing?

Sometimes I think some line is important, then I move closer to it, and realise the line is less important to me, and so I'll be less cautious of it.

Some might say "slippery slope!" or "boiling a frog!", but I think of it as me updating my values as I learn more.

Some people are prone to black-and-white thinking, and so I can see why they might be drawn to hard lines.

Setting lines (or 'boundaries' as is the popular word in today's pop psychology) is not something you should do lightly. At the end of the day, a boundary is an ultimatum you're setting on someone else's behavior. Treat it that way. Sometimes ultimatums are necessary. Sometimes they're toxic. Don't be that person with a minefield full of unnecessary boundaries you expect everyone else to dance around and jump through as a condition of interacting with you.

Most people don't treat their line setting as holy scripture. Besides, nobody stops you from putting your actions on a sliding scale.

Did your good friend not repay his loan? Okay, what's the size of the loan, and how did they react when you reminded them? What's the circumstances surrounding the loan itself - did they borrow for the down payment of a mansion, or did they borrow to buy cheese?

Also, if you're treating your life as a game theory set piece then perhaps that's a place where you should start making changes. Just sayin'.

>Domestic violence is an obvious line to set

is it? the example given for things implied to disallow are playful pinching/punching.

Even the author's implied choice of line is suspect here.