You're not going to succeed at steps #6 and #7 in situations as dire as what the author describes without practicing a bunch. You have to choose low stakes, real situations to gain experience:

* a cashier asks you if you want to round up by donating to charity

* a friend asks if you want to do an activity with them, and you do not want to do that activity with them

* someone suggests splitting the check down the middle, but you only had a tiny side salad

* etc.

You can of course handle these however you want. But if you want to learn to set a line when it's important, you should have already practiced in a dozen or so cases like this, without apologizing: No, thank you / No, I'm not into that / I'm leaving enough to pay for my tiny side salad plus a nice tip

Practice doesn't guarantee you won't buckle in tough situations. But you'll definitely buckle if you don't.

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.

More from the pasture: The herd has settled. The chestnut mare is boss, and she's a good alpha. My paint mare is second. The old draft horse gelding is third, and the grey is fourth. Today I went into the pasture to catch the paint. I call her, and she comes to me. But chestnut boss comes up and herds the paint away from me. So I have to have a talk with the boss.

I make eye contact with her, and walk up to her. She glares at me, but doesn't show hostility. I wave my hands a little at waist level, and she backs up one step. That's a mild submission, and all I needed. Now I can halter the paint mare. The boss mare watches closely, but does not interfere.

As someone else says, handling horses will teach you about setting boundaries in a very practical way.

Playfully rough intercourse might be the best ever, or turn out quite horrible at the wrong time; the only difference being subtle difference in mood of the parties involved. Same for using somebody as an emotional trashcan, or making a semi-offensive humorous joke about somebody. There's no objective truth.

Boundaries are very fluent and dynamic, depending on moods and trust between parties. Knowing when to give in and being able to walk those rough edges is often what makes life interesting and people good partners and friends.

email contents: Hey, btw im not ur friend anymore. regards, not your friend

(People are fuzzy and while game theory is fun and even sometimes useful, this kind of stuff skeeves me out and I think it lures “smart” people in and gets them to empower the SBFs of the world. My altruism is ineffective and I’m happy that way.)

The hard line trigger almost always happens in a wider context. You often want the wider context, but it's impossible to fully define. Let's try a few examples from the article:

"Hard line: Annual raise is 0%" -> What if it comes with a much larger stock grant? Or additional paid time off? Or something else you value? Will you really just mechanistically quit?

"Hard line: A friend doesn’t repay an $X loan" -> really? What if, say, they lost their job? You want to make friendship contingent on your friends employed. There's a reason there's an adage saying "Don't loan money to a friend, you might need to decide whom you like more".

"Hard line: A government blatantly violates a constitutional amendment" -> Not even waiting for a court decision? What if it's Abraham Lincoln suspending Habeas Corpus? Or Wilson enforcing the espionage act, if that's more your political leaning? What if the government first repeals the amendment - will you be pro-slavery if it's made legal?

The world isn't a series of if-then statements. Even a hard line requires more than a single condition - at best, that condition reminds you to re-evaluate where you are.

The line is “It’s not necessarily helpful to be clear about lines.” combined with “who the hell are you to tell us how to live, kiddo?” with a little bit of “let’s all silently agree that each human should be defensive and prickly at all times instead of ever being soft and accommodating to their friends and family and colleagues.”

Some will downvote this comment just because I am being trying to be clear about my lines right now, which proves my point. If popularity matters to me, I need to do more smiling and shrugging.