Saturday ramble

I've been thinking about something all week, but I haven't had a chance to ramble to you about it until now. I've been thinking about it in terms of my disappointing post-speed-dating date, and in the aftermath of having run into someone that I once thought I wanted to date. I've been thinking about it in terms of being so different from my mother.


My mother has--and has always had--a very strong personality. It manifests itself in her relationships with other people in that she expects people to yield to her. In other words, her strong personality oppositely attracts weak personalities and repels strong ones (with a few exceptions). I'm one of the exceptions, because, well, she's my mother. But, as you know, she not only drives me up the wall but goes out of her way to beat down whatever parts of me stand up to her.

My strong personality manifests itself in the opposite way: not only do I not expect people to yield to me, I don't want them to. I can really only be around people who can hold their own against my strong personality. Otherwise, I feel like I'm overpowering the relationship (and, unlike my mother, I don't want that dynamic). Similarly, I'm a talker... but I need other people to talk, too.

Years ago, a friend of mine who is also a talker urged me to date quieter men. It worked for her. She thought I needed someone who could absorb all the talking, not demand too much attention. But I don't need that. I need someone who'll talk back to me.

All this, in the context of how significant others shape you in response to them. I was never interested in BE in any way, but I also couldn't stand the person I was in response to him. He said dumb shit, which brought out the judgmental side of me. He--like RM--gave me inappropriate gifts, which put me in the position of being ungracious. F., an ex, did his best in putting me in a bunch of roles I never want in a romantic relationship: mother, nag, drill sargent, [anything] police. And even when I refused to fill those roles, he still saw me in them, because that's what he expected from a significant other. Which is the flip-side of all of this: not only do I not want to overwhelm someone, I don't want to deal with his resentment in response to being overwhelmed. I don't want to mother or nag a significant other, nor do I want to be perceived as such and treated accordingly.

Roles matter. So what informs the roles you fall into? Does--as many would argue--the courting process shape the relationship roles? I'm prone to thinking it does. I don't not pursue men because I'm afraid they'll think I'm too forward; I don't pursue men because I don't want to be in a(nother) relationship where I'm responsible for all the initiative. Although I've somehow ended up in a number of those, in spite of not pursuing, so maybe that's not the issue.

How do you know when someone's deliberately being an ass, and when he just doesn't know any better? I'd given F. the benefit of the doubt, thought he was just passively inconsiderate. Later, I thought he was deliberately punishing me for holding to my own terms. Where I'm going with this is, even the ostensibly quiet guys can try to control you, and they'll be manipulative about it. For example: do you remember that Modern Love column I linked to a week or so ago, by the woman who responded to her husband's mid-life crisis with, "There are times in every relationship when the parties involved need a break. What can we do to give you the distance you need, without hurting the family?”

I've done the same thing, without saying it. Everyone--in casual, budding, and long-term relationships alike--is entitled to their doubts and uncertainties, or just to time without the other person. But that entitlement comes with an obligation to pursue those things with minimal disruption to the other person's life. You need to go diving, or to watch basketball, or to take a break? Fine. I won't be sitting by the phone waiting. But, more than once, a man who has declined to make me a priority has expected me to nonetheless make him a priority. To be immediately available when he's snapped out of it. Or to hold my own plans hostage to his whims. Which is how I realized that it didn't matter if these dudes were being dicks on purpose or merely clueless; their intention didn't change my reality, and I wasn't going to deal with it or make excuses for them. And it's not just me; I've seen many women go through the same thing.

If I'm going anywhere with this--and it is a ramble--it's the idea that there's a right kind and a wrong kind of work in a relationship. Accommodating bad behavior is the wrong kind; it just keeps you in a doomed relationship. So is accommodating behavior that's not objectively bad, but is bad for you, in the sense that it pushes you into roles you're not interested in. The way to stay out of those roles--as I've learned the hard way--is not to step or get pushed into them in the first place.