In the early getting-to-know you stage of dating, it’s not unusual for there to be some miscommunication. However, how one handles these hiccups tells you a lot about the person’s thinking. This is a good thing, as if their thinking is 180-degrees off from yours, you learn early that you aren’t a match.
Today I received a call from a nice potential suitor, with whom I’d exchanged a few emails and had a good, lengthy first call last week. He is intelligent, a good conversationalist, articulate, and clear on what he’s looking for. At the end of that first conversation, he said he liked our conversation very much and wanted to meet me in the next few weeks when he visits some clients in my area, a 2-hour drive from him.
I said that was a great idea. We agreed that if one of us had the itch to call the other in the interim, to feel free to dial the other’s digits.
Clear, right? Transparent, right? We both thought so.
His call today was prompted by another women from the same site “chewing him out.” After an initial conversation with her, he also left it that he’d call when he arranged his calendar to be in her area. In the second call, however, she chastised him for not calling sooner nor arranging to meet her immediately. He was taken aback.
He was concerned that he might not be meeting my expectations either and didn’t want to blow it with me. I explained that I was fine with how we left it. Had he pressed for an immediate meeting, he might have appeared a bit desperate. I assured him that if he was as clear with her as he was with me, she was being needy, not him being neglectful.
After the initial shock when I’ve received calls similar to the one he received, I’ve been grateful that the man showed his true colors so early on. I consider it ducking a big bullet as we know how much time and emotional energy we can invest in someone who seems like they might be a good match for us. By seeing the mismatch early on it saved us a lot of energy.
I was impressed at this man’s taking responsibility for ensuring he and I had the same understanding. I think it takes a strong person to broach what could be an awkward conversation.
When I was beginning to date five years ago, I now see how my neediness and loneliness could have prompted expectations like the woman who’d chewed out my new friend. I didn’t know how relationships evolved and thought that if a man was interested in me, he should be pursuing me, damnit! And fast! And if we didn’t quickly go to talking every day, I thought he was a player or just not that into me.
Now I realize that relationships take time to build. If a man starts calling me every day and we haven’t even met — that’s a red flag. Whenever that’s happened, it’s spelled trouble. And if I expect him to call every day and then chew him out for not doing so, something’s wrong — and generally it’s with my expectations.
Have you had someone chastise you for not meeting their expectations early in dating? If so, did you continue to see them or call it quits? Have you ever chewed out someone for not behaving like a sweetie when you’re really just getting to know each other?
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I don’t think I’ve dated anyone with unreasonable expectations about calls and emails (or anything else for that matter). If we click, we will have a lot of contact. If we don’t, the relationship never gets going. Until a relationship gets going, I’m not calling or emailing much. I think it’s a waste of time.
I find that expectations are ultimately a set-up for disappointment — i.e., hard to be disappointed if one chooses to have no or low expectations.
I’m pretty laid-back and non-needy; I’d be seeing red flags all over if a scenario like the one posted were to happen. I am curious, though, about whether our expectations come more from how we’ve been treated in the past, or from an internal pre-set level.
I’m relaxed, cool and calm.
I don’t do drama nor stress.
So if I see the woman being too needy early, I’m gone.
I mean, the running away from her like I stole her purse…kind of gone.
Now a days along with needy, I’m on the lookout for crazy.
The Crazy stock has gone way up these days.
I was sad to read Katie’s post. Living with no or low expectations, alone, is resigning one’s self to a life of disappointment. Disappointment that better things didn’t happen, even if you did not expect them. I prefer to Hope for the Best, but Expect the Worst. Then, I strive for better things to come, but am not devastated if they do not.
Do our expectations come from nature or nurture? In this instance, unrealistic expectations, I think they come from how the person was treated in the past. I’m guessing they lacked loving care and attention as a child, and that loss causes inappropriate attachment to other people. In a few cases, it could be biological, as an expression of psychiatric condition.
Don’t be sad, Richard. I have much hope. A better way of describing my outlook might be “profound contentedness with myself and my life.” Many delights surround me daily, and I watch for them and celebrate them. Each delight brings joy. It is anything but a bleak, resigned existence. Hope can still co-exist with choosing to have minimal expectations of others!
DG’s post caused me to think about the source of our expectations. The internal wiring in each of us differs, and Mike’s comment about being on the lookout for Crazies reinforces that. Crazies tend to have SERIOUS expectation problems. Whether one is born that way, or learned it along the way, is an interesting question. I guarantee that I was trained by my passive-aggressive husband to have no expectations of him, or else he would withhold whatever it was; that was how he maintained control in our long marriage. Now that I am away from that dysfunction, I have regained hope.
Yikes. Got off-topic again. DG asked what we do with expectation differences in dating…
Seems like one of the biggest expectation issues is what each person is looking for long-term. Some people are content with a dating relationship and do not want any kind of commitment beyond that, and others of course are looking for a life partner.
That can be a difficult discussion to have early on because it can put a lot of weight on a relationship.
I think no expectations can be a good thing. That just means you aren’t looking for anything specific, but are willing to see what materializes. It’s not giving up.
The only expectation I have is that I expect the other person to treat me decently and be honest. Beyond that we’re talking wishlist stuff, things I’d like to see in a partner. Wishes aren’t expectations, though.
I agree with Katie—a man I’ve just met with major expectations and pressure to contact him/email/call/see him extremely frequently? Major red flag. This is typical of men who are extremely controlling in relationships.
These and many other things discussed on this site (heavy come-on’s on a first date, tricking someone into paying for something they didn’t intend, no reaction to you tripping and falling in their presence, etc) are huge red flags IMO, indicating that the person doing them either has no clue or wishes to ignore/thinks their above appropriate social behavior. Either way, it means that you’ll regret getting into a relationship with that person.
Personally, after years of dating/being married to men who I kept making excuses for but whose behavior got worse and worse and more embarrassing/abusive the longer our relationship continued, I’ve had it up to here with dating advice (not from this site of course) that urge women to “give the guy a break” and overlook a man’s social blunders. So I’m drawing the line more rigorously now about much of this stuff. Sometimes I confront the guy on the spot (“why were you so mean to that waitress?” or “I like you but your constant texts are creeping me out” ) and his reaction to my directness is very helpful to figure out whether he’s an undateable or just sweetly clueless.
I can relate on a number of issues. For starters, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have some expectations when it comes to dating. And as Richard indicated, our expectations might be colored a bit by how we’ve been treated in the past. How we are raised also has something to do with what we expect from other people. I was raised with loving parents who I got along with “most” of the time and who taught me to do what I’d say I’d do and follow-through with things, don’t leave people hanging, and don’t be late or make someone wait on you. All of those qualities translate to what I also expected in a dating relationship. If there is no chemistry, then there is none and you move on. However, you don’t lead someone on for weeks or months knowing that it’s a no-go. I see that scenario played out many times when it comes to online dating. Or, the guy (or gal) is simply waiting for a better offer. Either way, it’s using someone just so you aren’t sitting home on the weekend which I think is wrong on so many levels. At the same time, I’ve had my expectations too high and always got hurt. Then I lowered them and still got hurt.
So….like some others, I’m not too interested in dating right now and have no prospects. Am I jaded? A bit bitter? Most certainly I am and it’s not without reason. It’s due to the game playing & dishonesty I found when dating someone but I especially found that to be true with online dating. I don’t look back at any of it with fond memories.