Matching appreciation

This has been my weekend to catch up on house stuff (and yard stuff starting today: it was just too windy yesterday). I opted to give Pandora a break and listen to some spoken-word, and on came this relationship consultant. Most of what she said didn't make a lot of sense to me, but one concept really, really clicked. She talked about figuring out what you have to give and want to give in a relationship, as well as what you want out of a relationship, and then figuring out whether that matches with what the other person wants to receive, and what they have to give. Otherwise, there's a disconnect, and people feel unappreciated even though they are giving.

What was remarkable was that she went on to provide examples that were straight out of my roommate saga.

Now, I have moved on from the roommate saga. To be clear, I'm still sufficiently scarred so as to not even think about getting another roommate, regardless of the pay freeze and threat of government shutdown (and the rise in property taxes that has added nearly $200 to my monthly payment). That said, roommate is but an annoying memory. Nonetheless, when a situation begs for a roommate-based analysis, I'm not going to walk away from it.

She--Alison Armstrong--went on to say that, for example, you may love to surprise people, but for some people, surprises are a nightmare. RM loved to surprise me--it wasn't so much a nightmare as, I don't give a f* about the things you think are going to surprise me, like seeing you in your whites. I think surprises can be awesome when they work, or presumptuous when you don't know someone well enough to make sure that whatever the substance of the surprise is works for them. RM also missed the mark with gifts--especially after I specifically asked him to stop giving me gifts. There he was, expecting appreciation, and demonizing me for not rendering any, and there was I, wishing he'd stop giving me stuff. The only gift I wanted was to be left alone, and that was the one thing he was unwilling to give. Am I succeeding in making my point? The issue isn't RM's cluelessness, but that disconnect that develops when someone refuses to understand that another doesn't want what he is trying to give.

Another example that AA gave was, you may love to share home-cooked meals with people you love, but your partner just likes restaurants. It's not just a shared interest thing; there's going to be a deeper fault in the relationship because one party will be unable to give.

Anyway, her talk brought to mind a couple of other scenarios, one years-old and one recent. I think I've written about this guy I kind-of dated many years ago who really, really wanted to help me carry my groceries. Even though I was the one with the car. And was otherwise quite happy to carry my groceries on my own. Now that I think about it in the context of what this woman is saying, other elements of that 'relationship' make sense--there were other times where he was very insistent in offering to do things that were very unappealing to me (such as drive my car back to my house the next day so I could drink more at the party we were at), and his insistence would just infuriate me, because I felt that he wasn't listening.

On a less intense note, I've continued to collect fence-building estimates, and the range is actually impressive--the two highest are twice as high as the lowest. But I digress. The very professional gentleman who provided the highest bid emphatically informed me that the foreman of his crew speaks English. Which is not a bad thing to figure your customers might care about; it just happens that I don't. Similarly, there's nothing inherently good or bad about the specifics of what any person might want to give (well, the pearl earrings that RM tried to give me were inappropriate, but that's a bad example). It's more an issue of being open to the fact that what one sees as a wonderful gift may not be what another wants (conversely, one may be utterly blind to simpler things that another really wants). And pushing for the other person to appreciate something just because you're giving it--and I'm not talking here about one-time, material gifts, in which case you should just appreciate them, provided they are appropriate, because they are given. On the level of the Gifts that one brings to a relationship--home-cooked meals, housework, financial security, etc.--it's so important to make sure that both people in that relationship are happy to receive what the other is willing and able to give.