@unspeaker
It's not like people would become more understanding any time soon, so you have to state explicitly what you do not like. Of course fixing it at a later stage when they already got the wrong idea that you find it acceptable ain't easy — but not impossible and it's still better course of action than blaming yourself in retrospective for what you could've done. And it's better than relying on substance of any sort for short-term relief. Little-by-little it's possible to fix anything.
@unspeaker
Damn, I still ended up giving unsolicited advice 😅, but I think I know what you're talking about and I think this has happened to me more times than I wish it had. True — acting more bold and establishing where you want to be with people early on might make some of them not like you, but in the long run it's a better strategy than getting along with the wrong people, ultimately losing motivation for it and sliding into a "bad state" of sorts.