This morning I woke to a slight epiphany, or more accurately, I gave consideration to more potential evidence that what we dislike in others are sometimes the things we dislike in ourselves. The sequence of thinking went as follows (with lots of room for error because who really knows how the mind works, and it was 6am):
I’ve been asked (quite a few times) if I have friends or family out here. Three people I’ve met on dating sites have asked, this guy John at a bar asked, the bartender at the bar asked…
I’m pretty sure I understand the impetus behind the question. People don’t usually just up and move across the country to a place where they have no network, no place to live, and no job. A lot of assumptions can be made about the types of people who make such decisions – they’re flighty, they’re adventurous, they’re running from something, and so on. If pressed, I tell people what I’ve been telling myself – I’ve decided to go where I think I’ll have opportunities (for work, for friends, for a partner, for joy, and for inspiration). If the conversation gets really deep, I also share how uncomfortable I am with the notion of chasing the sun (the futility of actively seeking: a partner or joy or happiness). The truth is, with the exception of the friends I made there, I didn’t feel like I was living my best life in State College, and after a few years, I decided to do something about: risks be damned.
The questions about having friends and/or family out here (a support network) hit home because I’ve read enough relationship and personal well-being advice to know that we are, for the most part, social beings who thrive on connections. The current Surgeon General of the US has declared loneliness an epidemic and wants to address it. In the dating scene, not having outside friends and interests is a huge red flag. For me, ever since having a serious relationship end because “I was too needy,” I’ve been hyper aware of what my social needs are, how I try to meet them, and whose energy I draw from in my attempts to have those needs met. Not having a network out here could put undue pressure on any relationship (or friendship) that I form, and I’m trying to be mindful of that potential pitfall.
The epiphany at 6am this morning was that the person who left because they felt suffocated may have been projecting on to me some of her own frustrations over unmet needs. She was a transplant from the west coast. She did not have a network of local friends and family. She had not, as best as I could tell, found her way into a sense of community. And maybe she needed those things or felt trapped in a relationship because she didn’t have those other things in place as additional outlets. Maybe she felt inhibited from going out and building those relationships. By contrast, I had lived in that area my whole life. I didn’t need to invest time in building out a network of friends. I already had friends and could choose to spend time with them or not. The difference might have been that I didn’t feel like I needed that network and could freely choose the relationship – and when I (perhaps unfairly) expected it to be reciprocated, it felt controlling.
While I can only speculate, she may have felt like her only choice was the relationship – which, of course, could end up feeling like no choice at all – like being forced to be overly reliant on one person. Sometimes, I get frustrated with myself when I continuously go to the same well in an attempt to meet my own needs. I’ll begin to think I need to diversify my “emotional revenue streams.” But historically, that has not been the way I’ve thought. In my most serious relationships, of which I’ve only had a few, I go into “every chance I get,” I’ll spend it with you mode.
At times, this partner said she didn’t want the same co-dependency she saw in her parents marriage. An honest conversation around that issue would have revealed that I didn’t want that either. I’ve since come to the conclusion that dependency in a relationship (effective dependency) is natural and healthy. It’s what we mean when we say things like “I need you to support me on this” or “thank you for being supportive.” Going forward, what I’m looking for is someone who doesn’t end the conversation based on their fears of what we might become, but instead takes the bold steps to acknowledge those fears and asks how might we avoid this. To be fair, I too have been guilty of acting on my fears as opposed to sharing them in solutions-focused ways. It’s always a learning process, unless, of course, one or both people decide they’d rather not learn.
Now, as an east coast transplant with no network, the shoe is on the other foot and I’m trying to be mindful of where I’m stepping. (I feel like there’s a “pile of poo” joke in there somewhere but am too lazy to work that angle.) I’ve spent the better part of the past few years trying to be more emotionally self-reliant and less dependent on others. But I’d be lying if I said I’m great at being a loner or that I don’t need other people and connections (both strong and weak).
My issue, after years of reflection and self-diagnosis, is that I’m not always good at balancing those needs or drawing on multiple emotional revenue streams. When I’m in a deeply committed relationship (or friendship), I tend towards not needing a lot of other connections. I didn’t make many friends in college because I roomed with one of my best friends from grade school/high school. In every serious relationship I’ve had, I’ve tended to focus most of my attention on the other person as my primary sense of joy and wonder (which is endearing at first until it’s not). In stark contrast to that, when I’m flying solo, I’m good-time Matt who is friends with everyone. And the problem is that people who first meet me (at bars and on dating sites) meet good-time Matt. As my sense of fulfillment shifts in a relationship and I become smitten, I tend to shed the weaker connections or neglect the friendships. It’s not quite as stark as Superman and Clark Kent, the two sides of me have been seen in the same room, but for most of my life, I have heavily favored the one side over the other. I’ve developed the skill set of being able to talk with just about anyone, but for a long time, I suspect those skills were employed as a coping mechanism to keep me from being bored with myself (or worse as a way of falling in love with myself and my story over and over again). Let me get other people to like me because I’m not getting that same dopamine hit on my own.
I’ve thought and written about these things before – which maybe makes the 6am thinking more of a re-visitation than an epiphany. I think most of us, at one point or another, realize that our lives are out of balance – sometimes in big ways and sometimes in lots of small annoying ways. We realize that we need or want more than what we’re getting. It’s frustrating when our “needs” (and I’m working to change my language here and use the word “preferences” more often) aren’t being met. Often, we lack the vocabulary to express those frustrations in productive ways. Often, we lack the trust and safety in our relationships to take the critical (but kind) look in the mirror. Often, we struggle to accept AND as opposed to OR thinking. I am responsible for taking care of my own needs/preferences AND I rely on the people in my life (partner, family, friends) to bring me joy and happiness.
In that previous relationship mentioned earlier, I met that person when she was just starting to date after having spent a few years doing internal work and mourning the losses of her husband and mother. She was slowly building a new network in a new city. She had just started a new job. If the 6am thinking felt like an epiphany it’s probably because I’m in a very similar situation and I’m sensing the skepticism from other people when they ask if I have friends or family out here. I’m also aware of how I’m trying to counter that skepticism by saying that I’ve spent years learning to be better at meeting my own emotional needs. I have spent years doing the self-work, but I also know that the real test happens inside of a relationship and not in the theoretical spaces in our heads.
To that end, I think most failures in love are failures of imagination, patience, grace, and timing. Sometimes, we become fixated on the disappointments and fears, and we fail to imagine different outcomes and different conversations. Sometimes, we enter a relationship thinking we’ve done all of the self-work only to discover things we didn’t realize were issues. sometimes, we fail to see in others the all of the variations of humanity (their best and their worst). Sometimes, we tend to overestimate our own ability to grow and change, and when that growth is painful, slow, or non-existent, we place our frustrations on others (they’ll never change, this will never get better, they are this, that, or the other thing). When placing or receiving blame/criticism (and not the constructive kind), I go back to what Big Al told our third grade classroom – when you point the finger at someone else, you have three other fingers pointing back at you. With continued compassion, understanding, and grace (my new personal mantra) all of these behaviors makes sense. This is what humans do. We’re needy and distant. We’re kind and cruel. Our capacities, preferences, triumphs, and disappointments are not terribly different from each other. We simply fail to see ourselves both in and through the eyes of the other person.
Perhaps ironically (and tangentially related to this subject), I’ve found myself hooked on a new song that I’ve been boppin’ along to here on the streets of San Francisco. It’s “Every Chance I Get” by Dan Auerbach (of the Black Keys). It’s got a “Spirit in the Sky” sound – which is a decent guitar groove. The irony part is in the chorus of the Auerbach song: “Every chance I get / I want you in the flesh / to love you and hug you my pet / every chance I get.” It’s precisely that type of “every chance I get” thinking that’s gotten me in trouble in the past…