Are you expecting too much from others?

Can′t deny to have heard this in one or two (or more..) occasions, in different contexts like friendships, working and personal relationships etc. In my experience, usually people who are not willing to stand up to your expectations will tell you that yours are too high.

Let′s focus on the friendships this time, in my case, that′s also the context I got most confronted with expecting too much. So, how come?

Especially in the last 2-3 years I have been going to a personal change, and 0bviously gotten older I find myself not being satisfied with 50% solutions anymore. Getting older also means accepting that not everything or better everyone functions the way you do or thinks the way you do. So it′s better to choose wisely who you want to spend time with and who stands up with your expectations.

I remember a couple of key scenes when I doubted myself thinking “Am I really asking too much?” That might be the case sometimes, I am sure. I question myself a lot in situations where I am disappointed in people, what was my part in it? Am I too dramatic? Do I even have the right to have expectations? Especially the last one if a though one.

However, I will never forget the feeling I had in one of my couple of “expectations” key scenes. It′s about a friend of mine who I hardly ever saw but due to a long “knowing each other” relationship and a much more intense friendship years before, I still considered her as a very good friend. So I ask her to meet and she answered: I am really busy, I have a slot in 3 months.

First of all, I am not some sort of business partner she was talking to about slots in her agenda. And secondly, useless to say how I felt. Having her considered as a still good friend, it was clear to me that I didn’t mean the same thing to her. Or do people really believe others don′t get what they actually want to say? You really telling me you have no 30min “slot” for a coffee in 3 months? Of course everyone has. It is about priorities and if you are worth to spend these 30minutes with. I clearly wasn′t. So in that case I couldn′t lower my expectations more, also useless to say that as of today (for many other reasons) we are no friends anymore.

I guess the common challenge with all this is, that if you tend to have high standards and you are rather a giver than a taker it is difficult to not ask the same thing back. Even if you think you don′t because you are aware that your standards are high, it is still tricky to expect less. Maybe on the outside you try not to show but you′ll always stick with a disappointed feeling inside.

A natural reaction would be to just not expect anything at all from people. But my question is, where do we get if no one has no expectations in anyone or anything anymore? That would be a very sad thing I guess. The same moment I am not expecting something from someone, the relationship is dead. What sort of friend should that otherwise be?

Guess life is a daily struggle between having realistic expectations and choosing to be surrounded by “your kind of people”.