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Expectations. Often I exceed them - especially work-related stuff. Sometimes I'm oblivious to them - especially relationship-oriented stuff. Almost invariably the fact that I do not meet them leads to at best surprise, at least confusion and at worst anger.
At my last psych session the counselor bought up the question of what my expectations of affection look like based on my childhood - eg how I saw my parents relating to each other, how they treated us kids. And the answer is that I don't have any. I mean I recall seeing my parents hugging once, and I recall I had to ask what they were doing / why. Beyond the fact that as a kid I wasn't interested in such things the reason for this seems to be that there was no other context in my life for how adults related to each other. Life just was.
Most of the adults I can recall were (or seemed to be) in stable paired relationships. The ... isolation for lack of a better word ... also meant I never got to see kids older than me going through the stages of discovering relationships, and being a loner at a single-sex school and simultaneously over and under-developed socially for my age group left me not privy to anything they may have been doing. Even years of watching KAOS relationships come and go hasn't left me any the wiser.
I have discovered that what expectations I do have do not match up well to those of others. With work for instance it is how fast and to what standard a task can be / should be completed. It seems that people just don't expect high standards, which is a sad comment on society.
With relationships it's how long one can have known someone and still be allowed to be romantically interested in them before doing something about it. (And for that matter who gets to do the doing something about it). My minimum time for deciding that someone is worth courting seems to be longer than the socially expected maximum time period where it is acceptable to express that you might be interested.
I also don't understand what is expected in a reaction to signals that someone is interested in me.
Or upset with or pleased with or .... Going back to childhood I clearly remember not being comfortable in new situations because I didn't know what was expected of me and i wasn't good at finding out. Especially around adults who really did seem to have expectations that I didn't understand (but I guess other kids did?) and may have become scarily (to a kid) upset when I didn't do what was expected of me. This still holds true in a lot of ways. I really don't like upsetting people. I don't like the way it makes them feel, I don't like the way it makes me feel and I really don't like the little vindictive part of myself which enjoys upsetting and hurting people. And since I'm not good at divining the underlying causes of someones bad mood it could always have been me.
Getting back to the point - which is I just don't know the expected responses. Society (culture) has Expectations of how you act to diffuse a situation / express an apology / hold your ground and society (culture) has Expectations of how you respond to someone who eg flirts with you to show interest or disinterest. In (my experience of) the first case not responding appropriately typically aggravates the situation (hence my habit of serious conflict-avoidance) and in the second not responding appropriately is regarded as not interested. Which could only mean missed opportunities but more problematically results in a case of mixed signals if later I do express interest. Because another Expectation has now been set up that I am not interested.
To be honest at this stage of my life I'm not interested in trying to learn the correct responses any more. I just want to be me and I would really like to meet someone whose expectations match my responses or vice versa. Because "faking it" is not me and never has been. I do of course fake it, every day. I have learnt enough to get by. They say this, you say that. They react like this, you just back off the situation before it gets out of your depth. And never ever admit that the things you want are at odds with everyones' expectations of you, including your own.
At my last psych session the counselor bought up the question of what my expectations of affection look like based on my childhood - eg how I saw my parents relating to each other, how they treated us kids. And the answer is that I don't have any. I mean I recall seeing my parents hugging once, and I recall I had to ask what they were doing / why. Beyond the fact that as a kid I wasn't interested in such things the reason for this seems to be that there was no other context in my life for how adults related to each other. Life just was.
Most of the adults I can recall were (or seemed to be) in stable paired relationships. The ... isolation for lack of a better word ... also meant I never got to see kids older than me going through the stages of discovering relationships, and being a loner at a single-sex school and simultaneously over and under-developed socially for my age group left me not privy to anything they may have been doing. Even years of watching KAOS relationships come and go hasn't left me any the wiser.
I have discovered that what expectations I do have do not match up well to those of others. With work for instance it is how fast and to what standard a task can be / should be completed. It seems that people just don't expect high standards, which is a sad comment on society.
With relationships it's how long one can have known someone and still be allowed to be romantically interested in them before doing something about it. (And for that matter who gets to do the doing something about it). My minimum time for deciding that someone is worth courting seems to be longer than the socially expected maximum time period where it is acceptable to express that you might be interested.
I also don't understand what is expected in a reaction to signals that someone is interested in me.
Or upset with or pleased with or .... Going back to childhood I clearly remember not being comfortable in new situations because I didn't know what was expected of me and i wasn't good at finding out. Especially around adults who really did seem to have expectations that I didn't understand (but I guess other kids did?) and may have become scarily (to a kid) upset when I didn't do what was expected of me. This still holds true in a lot of ways. I really don't like upsetting people. I don't like the way it makes them feel, I don't like the way it makes me feel and I really don't like the little vindictive part of myself which enjoys upsetting and hurting people. And since I'm not good at divining the underlying causes of someones bad mood it could always have been me.
Getting back to the point - which is I just don't know the expected responses. Society (culture) has Expectations of how you act to diffuse a situation / express an apology / hold your ground and society (culture) has Expectations of how you respond to someone who eg flirts with you to show interest or disinterest. In (my experience of) the first case not responding appropriately typically aggravates the situation (hence my habit of serious conflict-avoidance) and in the second not responding appropriately is regarded as not interested. Which could only mean missed opportunities but more problematically results in a case of mixed signals if later I do express interest. Because another Expectation has now been set up that I am not interested.
To be honest at this stage of my life I'm not interested in trying to learn the correct responses any more. I just want to be me and I would really like to meet someone whose expectations match my responses or vice versa. Because "faking it" is not me and never has been. I do of course fake it, every day. I have learnt enough to get by. They say this, you say that. They react like this, you just back off the situation before it gets out of your depth. And never ever admit that the things you want are at odds with everyones' expectations of you, including your own.
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Probably not a lot of help or comfort...
Date: 2012-08-12 11:47 pm (UTC)From:I've never considered this aspect of things. I may have to consider it from now on if it becomes relevant.
High standards at work is something I also see an issue with, even if it's usually the casual employees around me at my job.
"Correct" responses is a construct. I've been happier since I decided to stop trying to follow other people's expectations.
Re: Probably not a lot of help or comfort...
Date: 2012-08-12 11:55 pm (UTC)From:Yeah but you keep yourself even more socially isolated than I do :p
Unfortunately these constructs are what keeps society functioning for the most part. Commonly understood signals, a language (often non-verbal and "osmosed" in the formative years) of negotiation.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-13 06:47 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-08-14 06:18 am (UTC)From:Time away does have the known effect of resetting expectations somewhat; our brains will strip down and re-build the mental model to match who they have become rather than perhaps dis-regarding incremental changes we don't feel "fit" with the current model (which our brains are very prone to do).