A phone call of expectations

Yea, so maybe I overreacted a little over the phone call thing last night...... :p But I still think this cartoon quite aptly describes the difference btw how men and women make decisions... as we have all noticed in work and school.... Women have to talk it all out, and go through all the possible 1001 scenarios, and men, in the words of the immortal nike, just do it.

As always, after doing something stupid connected with the DF, [think of the DF reloaded...] I'll wake up the next day, and wonder, what the hell was I thinking last night??

After all, even though he didn't answer my call, [till very, very late at almost 12, he sent me an SMS starting with "Oops..." (^^!)] I could have made other plans. I could've called other friends, [I tried Jules, but he was studying for his exams] I could've gone out by myself, [which I eventually did] I could've done a number of things that wouldn't have required his company.

Why would I get so upset over one unanswered phone call? After all, it's not as if he's sleeping around with other women when he missed my call... [for which I would commit murder...] And I didn't think I would get so upset if one of my friends had missed my call or not replied my SMS... [though then again, most of my friends DO call back or reply promptly... hmmm....]

Perhaps the difference boils down to the expectations we have of people, and especially the ones close to us. In this day of instant connectivity and conveniences, we are more expectant of instant replies. After all, how long can it take a person to key out a reply to an SMS?

Of course, that's assuming the person even received and read the SMS in the first place. (^^!) Which is a bit of a problem in itself. If a friend doesn't answer our SMSes on the first few minutes after sending, what are our responses? We assume that maybe she's busy, or maybe she's at work, in which case she cannot answer the phone. If it's really urgent, we try calling her.

If our boyfriends don't answer the phone....? Suffice to say, I've heard of some women for which it constitutes grounds for breakup...... (^^!)

Of course that's a bit extreme lah... but the point being that I think we hold our significant others to higher expectations than those we impose on our friends.

And why do we do so? Well, think of it as a return on investment. We invest significantly higher emotional investments into our relationships than our friendships. The hurt that comes out of a breakup is significantly higher than the hurt of a friendship broken, or forgotten. With so much at stake, we want to know that we're getting something back for all that effort put in maintaining the relationship. And by golly, is it that hard to reply an SMS??

After all, if the man is to be our potential spouse, and the potential father of our children, [i may be jumping the gun here a bit, but it's for the sake of argument...] we want to make sure that he's worth all this time and effort and love we're putting in.

So then, we subject the poor guy to various mental and emotional tortures that we wouldn't normally subject to our friends. [from the POV of the guy, I think it constitutes torture...] We want to make sure that he lives up to our expectations of what we think a good mate should be.

And how many times have you heard from your friends, "I couldn't continue the relationship with him. He has such disgusting hygiene/habits/insert other funny reason here! I couldn't imagine myself marrying him!"

More seldom do you hear, "I couldn't continue the relationship because I expected too much out of him, and he couldn't live up to those expectations." which I would feel would be a more honest reply than the guy's poor dental hygiene :D

But then again, on the flipside, I know of guys who also subject their girlfriends to all kinds of unheavenly expectations. IE the guy I heard of [not my friends, don't worry] who said that his girlfriend had to be a dashing beauty with a supermodel body, despite the fact that the guy in question has the face of a pig and the body to match. (^^!) So I guess the expectations-argument works equally on both sexes.

Well, I guess I'll just ride it out and see how. One thing good about this relationship, it helps you look at stuff you never would have considered before, and helps you discover things about yourself you never knew before either. [Like now, I know I expect my DF to answer SMSes. Which is a problem, because the guy is not an SMSer.... (^^!) and which is something either he or I have to work with...]

And in the end, it's up to the two of you to work together to find out what works. :)