Saturday ramble Part I

I rambled last week about trying to talk to one of my friends about the amicable, appropriate demise of a short relationship. That ramble was about Not Listening, but I have a related ramble about indicator issues--which is what sparked the conversation that I came to regret.

Specifically, what sparked the conversation was coffee grinds--even more specifically, the coffee grinds the dude I was then-dating had splattered all over the counter. The splattering in and of itself did not faze or annoy me, but it made me wonder at the time whether in the long run, this kind of thing would make me crazy. This was not the first splattering-like incident with that dude, and I was starting to wonder--among the other things that were not working--whether his level of practical unhelpfulness, which I could overlook on an incidental basis, would be corrosive in the long run. As I tried to explain to my friend who kept interrupting, I would have been more likely to overlook it entirely had everything else been going right. In fact, I only brought it up because we were talking about how couples manage tension--whether by bickering, avoiding, etc.

You can (and should, under the right circumstances) overlook those things, but you have to admit that they won't go away and they'll only get more frustrating with time. What's a non-incident when you're enjoying a leisurely morning becomes a major headache when you're trying, for example, to get kids out the door.

In the dude's case, the coffee grinds were just coffee grinds, but sometimes that kind of thing is an indicator of a deeper issue. I thought about how I was rarely annoyed with RM on a practical level; I was infuriated by his inability to listen. I mean, I didn't love taking his food-mess trash out of the uncovered bin in the kitchen and moving it to the covered one in the utility room, but what I really fucking resented was that I'd asked him to throw anything with traces of food out into that other bin many times and he never listened. Similarly, I didn't resent him for not taking out the trash the one time I asked him to; I resented his posturing--his "just let me what I can do to help" followed by radio silence and a stare when I said, "I'm running late, could you take out the trash."

But back to not listening, because if there is one thing IRFR (I really fucking resent) it's not listening. As Marshall Goldstein puts it--I'm paraphrasing, since I can't find my copy of his book--it's a form of disrespect. In addition to any practical consequences, it makes the other person feel disrespected, if not gaslit. I still remember this guy who tried to date me in grad school--and I have no other reason to remember this guy. He pursued me intensively and simultaneously alienated me by demonstrating a persistent unwillingness to listen. At one point during finals, he'd asked me if I was interested in going with him to a book fair somewhere in Rockville. I said I needed to get out, but I also needed to do something outdoorsy--a short hike--to clear my head. So we'd agreed, or so I thought, to a quick trip to a book fair, followed by a hike. Except the book fair took forever to get to and then he wouldn't leave--and he knew this was not part of the deal because he kept apologizing profusely. We stayed until I threatened to leave him there and make him bus or cab home with all the books he'd bought. At that point, it was too late for a walk and my afternoon was shot. And I was bitter. Even more so when he tried to make up for it by offering me favors I didn't need ("let me help me carry your groceries"/"fuck you"). It was such a blatant display of disrespect and selfishness.

Shortly after that--i.e., after finals, when I went up to Boston for the holidays--my mother accused me of unbridled selfishness. As you may know, mom absolutely loves to delegate (not so much ask for) favors, and they have to be done her way, in her time frame, etc. This one favor was doable--she wanted me to take back with me a pair of boots to give to a friend of hers in the DC area who was making a trip to Russia. Except I forgot to put the boots in my luggage. There was just so much crap in the guestroom even then that they blended in. I felt mildly bad, but this was not the end of the world. Mom could mail them. But she had a meltdown, complained about how now she'd have to go to the post office (which was not far, and she was not working), and how this wasn't about the boots; it was about how I was self-absorbed and never thought of anyone but myself. I tell you this to say, sometimes the thing really is just about the thing.