CAUTIOUS BOUNDARIES

As I was leaving the gas station today, one of my favorite shy little nebbishy guys came in. I went around to his truck and kibitzed with him about the big honking industrial-strength riding mower on his trailer – he mows lawns for part of his income. I joked about climbing in the trailer and getting a ride. After he pumped his gas and got ready to leave the station, he said, “Climb on in” and I was caught unready when I realized he meant it. I kind of lamely said, “Oh, I’m just going down the street”, but I realized even as I said it that I didn’t know where in me this declining of his offer was coming from.

As I walked down the street to the bus stop, I realized that I actually had no good reason for turning down his friendly offer. He obviously enjoys all our little interactions, so I think he would have been tickled to give me a ride. And I’m limping a little today from a bruised foot, so a ride really could have been helpful to me.

So why did I turn it down? Some of it felt like my old psychologist “professional boundaries” – like it would have been somehow crossing some line that would be improper to cross. But it’s been 20 years since I did that kind of work, and my intervening management consulting work had way looser boundaries. There was every good reason to be more of a friend with these clients.

But this is a gas station, for god’s sake. Why the hell am I talking about professional boundaries?! Partly for the same reason that drove also some of my psychologist boundaries – to keep myself safe. I have since had a therapist who, after she has known a client (like me) for a good long while, has – in certain instances, like with me – developed very good friendships with them. Part of me still kind of wonders how she does it, but she does - and it works, for her and for me and for at least one other now mutual friend.

So what am I trying to keep safe? Mostly the same stuff that drives excessive caution and control wherever these pop up in my life. I feel like I have stuff to hide, that I need to keep my persona (the self I present to the world) pretty solid, unshaken by too much spontaneity. Standing behind the gas station window, I have a role that makes it safe to be relatively spontaneous. Out on the same side of the window as my customer, I don’t quite know how to behave. I don’t trust that just “real” and “human” will be enough.

I don’t want to make too big a deal of this little interaction. No real harm was done. David may have felt just a little rebuffed and disappointed, but I doubt very much so – and there will be lots more opportunities to express that I like and value him. And, as I waited at the bus stop, another of my favorite customers came along and I got to have a nice little visit with him – which totally indicated to me that there was no mistake, that everything was just as it was meant to be.

But I like the little bit of reflecting I have done here about “cautious boundaries”. I think that next time I might like to observe my inclination toward caution and control, and perhaps have a little more freedom to act from a more truly conscious, more flexible place.