Boundaries are a vital part of our daily lives.
Whether it’s deciding on a romantic partner or where someone puts their hands when you dance, it is important to have a clear understanding of your boundaries – and the limits of others.
So what happens when your boundaries aren’t just ignored, but mocked?
That was the issue facing Redditor and Original Poster (OP) denisennp when they came to the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for judgment.
She asked:
“AITA for yelling to be let out of the car when my boyfriend’s dad turned on the one feature I asked him not to?”
OP got right to the setting.
“I spent last night with my boyfriend’s family, We’d gone out to dinner, and his dad was gonna drive.”
“So my boyfriend, me, his parents, and his brother all squeezed into his dad’s car, and we went to the restaurant.”
“I had a few drinks, and his dad had two, since he was gonna drive.”
Everything was fine, until…
“But on the way back his dad started asking me ‘you work on self-driving cars, yeah?’ (I do, I’m a systems engineer and have job hopped between a handful of autonomy companies.)”
“He started asking me how I liked his Tesla, and I joked ‘just fine as long as you’re the one driving it!’ And he asked me what I thought about FSD which he’d just bought.”
“He asked if he should turn it on. I said ‘not with me in the car,’ and he then laughed and asked how I was still so scared when I work with this stuff every day.”
The situation escalated quickly.
“I was like ‘Uhh it’s because I…’ But stopped when he pulled over and literally started turning it on.”
“I was like ‘I’m not kidding, let me out of the car if you’re gonna do this,’ and my boyfriend’s dad and brother started laughing at me, and my boyfriend still wasn’t saying anything.”
“His dad was like ‘It’ll be fine,’ and I reached over my boyfriend’s little brother and tried the door handle which was locked.”
“I was getting mad, and probably moreso because I was tipsy, and I yelled at him ‘Let me the f*ck out”‘
“My boyfriend started trying to tell me to calm down because I was drunk and I told him that it didn’t f*cking matter, I’d be outta here sober or drunk.”
“He told me to stop cussing in front of his little brother, and I told him to tell his dad to cut his sh*t out, and I wouldn’t have anything to cuss over.”
“His dad was like ‘fine, I didn’t realize it’d be suuuch a big deal’ and drove home normally, but things have been tense as hell.”
“We got back to his house, and he was mad at me for ‘overreacting’ the first time I met his family altogether.”
“I got angry and was like ‘I’m not the one who decided to do the ONE THING that I said I’m not comfortable with in the car, just after I asked him not to, to laugh at me”‘
OP tried to explain her viewpoint.
“He said that his dad used the car a lot, and it was fine, and I asked him (since we’re both rock climbers) if would he ever get on a route with his carabiner that doesn’t lock?”
“What if someone says they do it all the time and it’s fine?”
“He was like ‘absolutely not, but that’s different,’ and I was like ‘it’s literally not, just like we don’t know any climbers who’d do that sh*t, nobody in my field that I know would stay in that car.'”
“He got mad and told me to go to sleep, I was drunk.”
“But honestly today I woke up sober and I stand by what I did, like I wasn’t comfortable with what was happening and my boyfriend’s family all laughed and started trying to do the one f*cking thing I said no to?”
“Like whatever that thing is, it’s f*cked up.”
She was left to wonder,
“AITA for yelling at my boyfriend’s dad to let me out of the car?”
Having explained the situation, OP turned to Reddit for judgment.
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided: NTA
There were automatic driving horror stories.
“NTA.”
“I owned a Tesla but recently sold it before the birth of my son because the autopilot started ‘malfunctioning’ for lack of a better word.”
“Live in CO and tons of bikers here.”
“My car was AIMING at them instead of letting me give them space.”
“I’d try and grant extra space and ensure no oncoming traffic but go slightly in the opposite lane.”
“Car VEERED towards the biker.”
“Scared the absolute hell out of me. No thank you.”
“Idk why it did that beyond thinking I was being unsafe but it trying to control things when I was 100% acting safer was enough for me to decide I’d never be comfortable with my son in the car.” ~ Conspiring_B*tch
“My friend drove a Tesla.”
“She and her 3 children were killed when her car veered into the path of a big rig. Everyone believes it to be a car malfunction” ~ Burningrain85
“I drove a rental that has these ‘safety’ features.”
“I’ll never use them. I tried to pass a car on the interstate but when I accelerated the car braked. I could’ve been rear-ended.”
“My vehicle has the automatic engine shut off when I stop at a light. Also hate that; the second or two it takes to restart may be the difference in avoiding an accident or getting hurt.” ~ rpbm
Some pointed toward willful ignorance.
“NTA.”
“I’m very curious, kind of astonished even, that no one in his family asked you WHY you feel as you do.”
“You are a freaking systems engineer on these cars and you refusing to be in one while it is in self-driving mode should’ve been a HUGE indicator that the technology is flawed or Tesla is flawed.” ~ Realistic-Animator-3
For others, it was a simple matter of consent.
“Yeah…”
“While I agree with all the NTA responses, a lot of them seem to be focused on what the car was doing or her being an expert (both of which are valid) as does her argument with her bf after the fact.”
“But personally, when she demanded to be let out the car, and they refused and laughed and had the doors locked…”
“That is f*cking terrifying and in no way okay.”
“While I haven’t had it happen in a car specifically, I’ve had men block the door (read: the only exit) during an argument/disagreement because they want to keep arguing and I want to get away and it can be absolutely terrifying to be trapped like that.”
“Her bf and his dad really need to understand that and the massive line they crossed.” ~ Dinosaursdeservelove
“Immediately NTA.”
“When someone tells me to let them out of my car, I don’t hesitate.”
“If it makes you that uncomfortable then he should have just waited until you weren’t in the car” ~ bluewolf6000
“I would have been pulling out my phone showing OPs bf that I would be dialing the cops because they were trapping me against my will.”
“And if they didn’t want to let her out as a drunk woman who’s alone for her safety then they should respect if she doesn’t feel safe (especially if she knows this sh*t well)!”
“It’s like they just thought it was funny to scare her while she was trapped and didn’t listen to her feedback about it.”
“I’ve been in situations where I was ‘forced’ to stay and listen or be exposed to things I wasn’t comfortable at and was laughed at/invalidated for being fearful.”
“And literally it happened after I had said I wasn’t okay with it moments before.”
“I 100% would have called the cops if they child-locked me in because I would be afraid 100 fold for my safety” ~ Twit_The_Twin
“THIS.”
“The issue at hand is not so much sexism, while that definitely is at play here. The issue is that they made fun of her for enforcing a boundary.”
“Not only that, but his first move upon learning of this boundary was to immediately attempt to violate it.”
“Why? BC it’d be funny to make her uncomfortable.”
“AND THEN, acted like she was the one out of line for trying to remove herself from the situation. It’s only funny if everyone is laughing, especially the person deemed the butt of the joke.”
“NTA” ~ aarnalthea
She did return to remind everyone of her point.
“I’m not trying to get into fights about who my favorite billionaire is or isn’t.”
“Take that somewhere else if you want fanboy arguments. (Tho for the record my answer is none of them)”
Boundaries aren’t just for romantic partners or for specific social situations.
Boundaries allow you to define the spaces where you feel comfortable and leave behind anything that doesn’t.