I am a VERY social person. Fortunately or unfortunately, I like and need to have people around me. Granted, sometimes I like the silence and peacefulness of my home, alone. But really…I’m a Leo. I like conversation. I like activities. I have alot of friends, and several very close friends. But in general, I know a fair amount of people…even in my short time in Portland. So there are a million choices of things to do on any given day.
This is quite different from my girlfriend. She would rather spend time alone. Or with 1 of 3 or 4 close people in her life.
I admire this about her. I admire that she is happy spending time alone, doing her own thing. She is kind of a misanthrope. And not that I don’t enjoy alone time also, but I need much less than she does. Most of the time, this is perfect. I spend time with friends and she has her alone time and then we meet in the middle.
But sometimes, it just irritates me.
See, I think I have unmet expectations. Ones that I have set-up and probably not even told her about. This is a habit I am working on fixing.
Example: I want to go to an event. I want her to go with me. She does not like crowds. But I don’t always like going alone to events. At one point, some friends said to me, “Do you actually HAVE a girlfriend?” because she would never want to socialize. She has definitely been working on this…and it is better. But sometimes I hate having to try to convince her to go somewhere with me. I want her to want to go.
And here is where I think I have the expectation. Because it is not how I operate, I don’t understand how awful or hard it is to just go with me. I’m not asking for a million bucks or to be fed from a silver platter… just go with me.
I also know this is SO far out of her comfort zone. So how much can I push her out? Because I have very different comfort zone levels, most of the requests she has of me, I can meet. My memory sucks and I can be absent minded or a space cadet. She prides herself on her fantastic memory. So, of course it drives her crazy that I cannot remember that she told me she has a Dr appt at 2:30pm 2 weeks from now on Thursday afternoon. I may remember the DR part but not the day and time…yadda.
So in her defense, she would say…”why can’t you JUST REMEMBER?”
So, we compromise. And I try to not expect that she will agree to go with me. Or understand that she would rather stay home. And she tries to be patient when I don’t remember that she got new vitamins last weekend at GNC while she was out getting dog food because the old ones were potent enough. I may remember that she got new vitamins but I won’t always remember all the details.
It’s certainly become much better in the 2 years we’ve been dating. And therapy helps tremendously.
Compromise is not always easy…but I’m learning it is a very good thing.
