Me And My Monkey
Good afternoon Friday;I was reading a topic that raises a good question about how prepared one needs be to enter a relationship. I am broadening that topic, of course, because I apply and extrapolate the questions raised there to myself. Am I ready for a relationship?
Well, am I?
I guess the answer depends upon what others judge to be criteria. We could be all self-actualized gurus atop Maslow’s mountain of needs but that knowledge is worthless if we sit in a sari atop the pyramid alone, in my opinion. In the simplest terms, I suppose we are ready for a relationship whenever we feel we are ready. But does my opinion alone mean I am ready?
Probably not..
With only 500 words for this blog, I have to skip over my personal musings about what makes a healthy relationship. So let us just agree that having a shared vision on life, if not an entirely lockstep opinion about how to travel that vision, is important in a relationship to be healthy. A more important concern than the physical decay, which happens to the individuals regardless of relationship, is the less certain intellectual amelioration that can happen together in a relationship. My idealized relationship sees myself hobbling along, all gray-haired and weathered, like a Shar-Pei dog, holding hands with my partner who is also seasoned by life and has lost some of her elasticity in places that once bounced in youth. I know this might be just me but it informs my current opinion I share with you.
I do not want to lessen the affect a youthful bounce has upon me so please keep that in mind, ladies.
The answers I keep coming back to while ruminating on the question(s) the forum asks me is that the question cannot be answered alone. Are you ready? is not the question for the basis of a healthy relationship. Much like that old saying the master will appear when the student is ready, the question here is: are we ready? Do we fit together? Are we going the same place in life? Will our relationship contribute different viewpoints to broaden our intimate, individual perspectives, and open us to further explore unknown vistas of a life lived in a Technocolor ™ panorama?
I know a dysfunctional relationship can “broadening my understanding of life” but I would rather look upon a colourful field of wild flowers, or grazing deer, or a sunset across a low horizon than inhale a smoldering distopian garbage of miscommunication and misunderstanding just to say I made love in such a place. Recognising the difference in these two places does take self-knowledge so, clearly, that much can be done alone. But I am focused on functional relationships that involve two self-aware people. That does not mean that these two self-aware people are ready for a relationship together – though the correlation is there.
So what is the expectation(s) I place upon myself; and the expectation(s) placed upon me by others? What is more important in a long-term relationship: my expectations or those of my partner? I would say neither but I also recognise both inform our self-awareness to what I and you can contribute, and, to what I and you need from a relationship. Our expectations can change over time because of personal development or due to situations beyond our ability to control. However this underscores it is the knowledge of how we fit together that is paramount. I am confident, in such a case, that you and I (we) can resolve whatever material or philosophical barrier confronts us (our relationship) – so long as we are intellectually and emotionally honest with ourself and each other, and the monkey on our back.
In fact, Tom Walters - @TomWaltersCTV - filed a story about a monkey on last night’s news….
Comments (4)
Expect for the worse and hope for the best as what some would say.
No one would typically expect a child to write an opera but Mozart did.... and as we get to know another person, as we get to know ourselves, we should expect our expectations to change, going up in some cases and going down in others. Expectations are relative and personal. Meaningful to share in relationship dialogues.
This is a different situation to having a discriminating palate, which simply indicates what level of taste someone is accustomed, and willing to accept. I would not go into a relationship expecting the worst or the least - even if just to avoid disappointment. That is too close to a self-fulfilling prophesy for my taste. That is where a discriminating palate comes into the equation, I think. But that is not to say, “Mileage does not vary,” because everyone’s experience is relative to oneself.
Be willing to see the good in everyone but avoid projecting good onto anyone.
That is so true. IME, equally true, but sometimes much harder, is to avoid projecting not-good onto someone. Occurs for instance, when meeting the sibling of someone you don't like at all, or a member of a group you did battle with at the last Town Council meeting, etc.
Yes, I, too, find it difficult to avoid projecting my bad experience, emotional transference, onto others. It is an uphill battle where the incline increases proportional to the number of my broken relationships. But we endure.
Others do not emotionally survive this process, which may be reason for deleting or hiding their profile and avoiding kind words of respect in reply to unwanted attention. Disowning our responsibility for our relationship experiences is easier than owning them, making them part of the pronoun I, or accepting compliments when we do not feel worthy of them. These persons have seen it all.
I think the balancing act is in trusting ourselves. We may have, in fact, seen it all but we must never believe it unless we want to limit our opportunities that lay outside of our experience. Ultimately, that is why I am here. Maybe why others are here as well.
My religious beliefs are as an agnostic but, not having grown up in a bubble, I recall the words of Jesus reported in Matthew 10:16 - “be as cautious as a serpent and as innocent as a dove.’ I also recall, just this morning, that none of us are perfect.