The Lowering Of Expectations

I actually was a big Mad TV fan back in the day. It’s cool that Ms. Swan became Lois on Family Guy. It’s also maddening how few people realize that. Hm.

Written before about the expectations of friendship, which is an article that oddly performs well for me, and as I’ve gazed at my life over the past six months, I feel like my expectations are generally too high, and I need to lower them.

That sounds bad on surface, so let’s try to explain what I mean and not play the victim card. It might be a tricky line to walk. I will endeavor.

First step: People in your life are seasons. That’s a Kanye lyric, but it’s true, which is rare for a Kanye lyric. Adulthood gets divergent in a million different ways, notably kids vs. no-kids and where you settle for career. There are other factors, which sadly now include politics, vaccinations, culture wars, etc. But people grow and grow apart in different ways. I’m 40, no kids. Most people around me at 40 have an eight-year old. If I had an eight-year old right now, I’d potentially have some dad group or whatever. I don’t. That’s a divergence. That’s how life works and is. Maybe when you were growing up, your best friend lived down the block. You still might be best friends, but she might be in Sacramento and you’re in Boston. That’s a different dynamic. Different dynamics require different expectations. I have someone I consider a good friend in Rochester, NY. I live in Fort Worth, Texas. He has 2 kids. I do not have kids. I am not going to fly 1,200 miles every weekend to hang out. That would be preposterous. So, the expectation set is different for, say, someone who lives 0.7 miles from me.

What of the person 0.7 miles away? Now I think you get to the people level, i.e. the individual person and what they are capable of. I take friendships pretty seriously and I want to exchange texts and learn about your life and get your takes on different stuff in the world. First off, not everyone wants to do that. A lot of people want to go to work, eat a nice dinner, play with their kids, watch something on streaming, and maybe get their genitals touched by a partner. I read an article once, which I quoted here, that said the goal of adulthood for many (esp. men) is to find a partner and a family, not more friends. I mostly agree with that in terms of, I think that’s how most people think. I’ve never really thought that way, so maybe I’m on the outside looking in there. Second, I used to post a bunch on Facebook — trying to reduce that now — about life situations. I’d anonymize them, but if you knew who it was about, you knew who it was about. As a result, I got about 10 people in my life who are like “I can’t talk to you about serious shit, or else you’ll post it on Facebook!” I think that’s a childish narrative — I have thousands of stories and have posted maybe 11 on Facebook in 40 years of existence — but hey, it’s how people think about me, so I need to own my flaws there.

Back to the 0.7 miles friend, though. Some people just want to maybe have lunch every eight weeks. That’s that. That’s fine, and that’s what people are capable of. You need to lower your expectations (in this case mine) to meet them where they are. When you force your expectations of friendship on others, the friendship tends to erode. I’ve done that too much. In fact, one notable example I always think of is my ex-wife’s siblings. I didn’t have siblings growing up, and I’m not super close with my cousins, so I rushed headlong into being friends with her siblings. That did not pan out long-term, especially because their mom was insane as shit (I can say that now, I’m out the game) and they defended her to the core, as you do with a mom (ideally), and, well, it was chaos in the end. It all began with the first step of “I am good friends with you now!” I rushed headlong in with high expectations. If I had lowered them, would shit with the mom have blown up? Absolutely. Would it have been as bad? No.

Meet people where they’re at.

So why am I like this? Self-reflection time. My own mom was an alcoholic. Went to rehab twice before I was 8, gone about a month both times. I have been chasing that ghost in some form or fashion for the 32 years since. My dad is a good dude, but utterly unemotional and not capable of raising that bar. Paradoxically, I cry at virtually the drop of a hat. I saw a new therapist the other day and I cried within about four minutes of arriving. I could not imagine my dad doing that, although I have seen him cry maybe 3–4 times in 40 years. So from a fundamental caregivers standpoint, I chase what I can’t find — which is “belonging” / “being there” and emotional depth. I’ve had it in a few relationships, but I expect it in too many others, and it bombs back on me and I lose friends.

I always ask myself: “Why do I feel so alone?” I don’t know the exact answer, but I think it’s that I chase relationships and friendships I know I’ll never really get. I try to care tremendously about, well, people who barely know where I live. In fact, that’s a good little story. I got this friend Matt in New York City. You can vaguely make the case that I introduced him to his wife; the rabbi at their wedding made that exact case, actually. Again, if you scroll up, I live in Fort Worth. I’ve known this Matt kid on 22 years now. About a year ago, he responded to a text, weeks later, with “How’s life in Houston?” I read that as “I give a shit, I try, he either doesn’t give a shit or he has bigger fish to fry than where someone lives.”

So: lower the expectations. Maybe he’s capable of a few back-and-forths about the Yankees. Cool.

I’ll end with this, because I’ve said it in other blogs and places before: I’ve had random Wednesdays in my life as an adult where I’ve consumed 10 beers before 4pm. That’s sad, and it’s not functional adulthood. I’d be the first to argue that. You know what else isn’t functional adulthood? Never reaching out to friends or responding to them and talking about how busy and slammed you are with kids’ hockey games. That’s also not functional adulthood. But — that’s my worldview. And to many, scrolling news and social during a kid’s hockey game, as opposed to reaching out to friends, is exactly how they view life. So: because it’s different strokes for different folks all over, lower the expectations.

Thoughts?