My situation mirrored
@samspade's pretty closely--though I had other experience beyond that. Basically, in my pre-SS, pre-game LTR, I had extremely strong boundaries--but those boundaries were from a place of trying to preserve a narrative about the girl and about myself and preserving how other people viewed me since I valued
their opinions about me above my own. There were a lot of things that I perceived as "disrespectful." But since all of those narratives were false, those boundaries were meaningless. There were too many of them to realistically enforce and I'd react emotionally to when those boundaries were crossed, since it threatened the narrative and I didn't really have the self-belief that I had other, easily realizable options. When someone can cross one boundary and find out it's meaningless, they'll cross other ones lol and eventually things got to the point where I had no choice but to walk away.
After finding SS, I fell into the whole don't let people "disrespect you," only pursue high IL girls, next first ask questions later stuff. Instead of reflecting on why boundaries matter and which boundaries are really important to begin with, I doubled down on the boundaries themselves and adopted another false narrative I needed to preserve. But I'd still feel sh1tty when those boundaries were crossed, even if I removed myself from that situation. Eventually, though, through pushing my comfort zones and meditation and just having more life experiences, I realized that I had just replaced one set of narratives for another and I still wasn't authoring my own life. So I dropped them (as best I could--the ego has a way of always finding its way back).
Also, things shifted when I got to the point where I did have options--I just didn't care as much. I had too much going on and I started living more in the moment--I'd be glad when girls would flake out because it just meant I could go out and meet other ones and I could always just hit them back later if I felt like it. Or if a girl said/did something disrespectful it'd be funny to me because I'd be, "Wow, she's really missing the picture." I quit caring what girls did on their own time. I realized I was fully, 100% responsible for my own emotions and my own view of myself and quit giving priority to other people's perception of me. Like how could someone possibly "disrespect"
me--who are they that I would put that much value on their opinion to begin with? What's funny though, is that once you get to that point where you don't really need anything from other people, 1.) People start chasing your approval and 2.) People stop disrespecting you or testing your boundaries to begin with. I'll still get light sh1t tests here and there, but I can't remember the last time anyone really disrespected me. Since it doesn't really matter, I give people a lot of leeway to be themselves. I'll call people out if they say/do things that go against my values, but even that's really rare and more like a one and done than something I have to monitor or look out for.
