I’ve been disappointed with myself lately. More so than usual. Given how often I feel I could do better (at this, that, and the next thing) I suspect I would have made a good Catholic. I have the confession part down, but I’m not great at the whole praying, penance, attending church, and general religious stuff. For the past month, I’ve been pretty lax in my reading and writing. I haven’t been doing as many walks, and exercise has been more miss than hit. I’d love to blame it on freelance work or job searching or interviews or hanging out with my friends when I can or whatever else takes up my time. All of those things are factors, but I had plenty of time today and did very little with it.
But… that’s not why I’m disappointed with myself. I’m disappointed because I’ve spent the better part of the last year to year-and-a-half working through some of the issues from my last relationship and tonight I feel like I fell into an old pattern. More specifically, I’ve been working on being the person I want to find – being a little more carefree, especially when it comes to how I structure my time and how I react when plans change. If I have one trigger, or family of triggers, it’s what I’d call lack of consideration for others. People who seem oblivious to the other people around them bother me. I probably pay too much attention to the people around me and am probably too deferential – I try not to be in anyone’s way or waste anyone’s time. This becomes particularly vexing for me when plans fall through. I have enough trouble dealing with my own paralysis about doing the many things I want to do and should do. Almost every night I struggle with wanting to walk, wanting to see the sunset, wanting to be around people, wanting to chill and have a beer, wanting to read, wanting to hang with friends, etc. etc. I will almost always put spending time with a partner or friends above all of the other things I might want to do. And while I try not to expect that level of consideration in return, I secretly expect it. And when plans don’t work, I sometimes shut down.
Tonight I was supposed to hang with my friend Stacy. We started making loose plans in the early afternoon. I think because I had spent so much time in the car, by myself, driving these past few days, I was itching to be at an outside bar people watching. Our initial plans were that she’d be home a little before six and had a few things to do but could meet wherever. Then she texted to say she won’t be home until after six and could meet up at 7:30. So what I initially thought would be dinner and drinks was turning into maybe a drink out somewhere. I should mention that there are certain bars that I feel comfortable going to by myself and others where it feels more like a group atmosphere. The places we were talking about were all the more group atmosphere types of place and I was hesitant to go early and wait. The next text came around 6:30 or so saying she was just heading home. I had thought about going somewhere on my own and having her meet me there, but now, 7:30 seemed like it was going to be a stretch. As time wore on, I became more and more resigned to staying in and a little resentful that I didn’t just do my own thing (walk, sunset, bar downtown). At 7:30 she texted to say she was done and we could hang out if I wanted to. I gave it a minute or two and said I think I was in for the night. By this point, it felt like it was too much effort, like I had already put off doing other things waiting for our plans to coalesce and had finally given up. But it also felt like I was being spiteful – even though I genuinely didn’t feel like going out anymore (as though the moment / opportunity had passed).
In my last relationship this would have been a blow up. Though I think we hold our partners to higher standards than we do our friends and so the affront would have felt more personal then. Nevertheless, I was surprised that I was starting to feel frustrated by the situation. That hint of frustration made me feel like I haven’t made progress on this particular trigger. And so, tonight I found myself feeling disappointed on my lack of progress, and disappointed with myself for not having just done my own thing. I know I have a tendency to put my life on hold for other people, to make time and space for them, sometimes at the expense of my own interests. I justify it by being proud of my accommodating nature. I sometimes think I should do less of that type of waiting and rearranging – not as a punishment to them but as a way to honor myself…. and maybe that’s the crux of the problem. I seem to view not making time for others as a form of withholding and as a form of punishment – both when I do it and when it’s done to me.
I suspect I know where I internalized this association of canceling and not making time as withholding (time, love, affection) and as punishment. I can’t remember a particular instance, but I feel like there were times that my dad may have cancelled on coming to see us as a way of punishing my brother and me, or that even if it wasn’t done as a punishment, a cancellation felt like one. I know there was a time when he didn’t talk to my brother for a few months because he got bad grades. I’m sure if asked, he would say that maybe he withheld, but it was only temporary and in the moment, and that we knew that he loved us.
Oddly, tying some of this together is an article I read earlier today on why avoidant types avoid the things they deeply desire – why they run from relationships. The author used this example:
Look at this example of classical conditioning with my dog. Cocoa loves spending time with my son and loves walks. When my son calls him while inside the house, Cocoa comes running with excitement. When it is time for a walk, he gets so excited that he sometimes bolts before my son can get the leash on him. He runs across the street and my son calls him with a loud, sharp voice commanding him to come back. But Cocoa doesn’t come. He either keeps sniffing the neighbor’s yard or he might freeze in the middle of the street. Now, if Cocoa was a thinker, he would realize that this behavior might mean no walk today. He loves my son and walks, so why is he being avoidant?
The answer? He has become classically conditioned to associate the command to come with feeling anxious and scared and reacts by freezing or running away.
Before he learned this avoidant behavior, Cocoa considered the command to come a neutral stimulus (NS). But when he finally came, my son would yell and scold him: “Bad Cocoa!” Obviously, my son is scolding the dog for running off, not for coming—but the dog doesn’t know this. He just knows that loud command to come = punishment (an unconditioned natural stimulus, or UCS). The unconditioned response (UCR) to being punished is fear, anxiety, and resultant freezing or running-away behavior. So, after conditioning (i.e., learning) has occurred, the now conditioned stimulus (CS) of yelling to come leads automatically to the conditioned response (CR) of freezing or running away.
Hal Shorey, Psychology Today
As for my friend… I know it wasn’t a personal affront. She’s heading out of town in a day or two and has a lot of things to get done. And I don’t think my deciding to stay in was seen as anything more than what it was: me being an old man and deciding I no longer wanted to go out.