Great Expectations

[Kisu]

I’ve been doing some hardcore soul searching lately… reading about different human temperaments, analyzing with my closest friend, or lying on my bed just thinking for hours straight.

 

…and I found…

 

I always expect too much from everyone and everything. Everyday, all the time, I make these ideal standards for every little thing. I’m aware of it, and try to convince myself that these standards aren’t always realistic, but my head and heart don’t agree on where to draw the line and I just end up expecting too much. (Then I complain incessantly to everyone's annoyance when my expectations fail.)

 

I think part of it is because I feel like if I lower my standards (even by a tiny amount) I’m cheating myself out of something better in life – this is especially true with relationships for me. Relationships being the way they are, you never know what to expect, so I make up my own expectations, and all off a sudden it’s like juggling nitro – I’ve set myself up for an emotional meltdown.

 

Another part is that I've always had a vivid imagination, and often dream up ideal or entertaining situations when I'm alone or bored. I thought I'd be able to realise the difference between fantasy and reality, but apparently my imagination is so thorough that often I subconciously expect people to act the way I've imagined them. This is hurting me bad, especially recently.

 

I’m a perfectionist that has problems even starting a task if I think I can’t make it more than average. I can tell myself over and over that no one and nothing is perfect, but my head and heart disagree again and I end up subconsciously expecting everything to work out perfectly – or else just neglecting the task at hand, having people call me lazy and a procrastinator, or just plain chicken.

 

I asked my closest friend to honestly tell me if I’m like this, and they were sorry to agree.

 

I can easily think of various events in my life that have contributed to my being like this, but I’ll spare you the stories.

 

The bottom line is that I’m constantly disappointed in relationships and discouraged at school, mostly because of these things.

 

I’ve wanted to make a relationship with someone dear to me work again (see my other posts), but I know it will never work (if not for him, for the next great guy I happen upon) if I keep expecting him to perform to my insane idealistic standards. I keep expecting him to do things that are not part of his character. I’m a hopeless romantic, but I can’t wrap my head around that not everyone is like that.

 

I say I understand – my head understands why or how, but my heart doesn’t. I don’t know what to do.

[blind_otter]

Do you know why you have unrealistically high expectations? Why do you demand perfection? Do you demand this of yourself and are you disappointed by your own failure to live up to your internal schema?

[Kisu]

I demand perfection because I expect nothing less. I’m an idealist to an extreme that I’m finding is detrimental. I know what feels good, or what is good for me (sometimes what I assume is good for others… bad bad bad!) and I expect nothing less – sometimes that’s good, but more often I make things a bigger deal than they really are and I get hurt or offend others when I complain.

 

I wrote this big paragraph about why I expect so much in school, but it can be summed up like this: parents’ threats, my own ego, my younger sister looking up to me, my so-called ‘gifted’ friends.

School itself for me can be summed up this way: It drives me nuts. Whether I pass or fail my expectations go up. It’s like doing high jump and raising the bar once when I clear it, and raising it twice each time I knock it down.

 

 

In regards to relationships… it could have been my three years as a loner, and all that time I had to think about people in general. I decided that I wasn’t going to care about having a boyfriend until I was through university – I honestly had no emotional drive or sex drive in regards to males (or females for that matter) at all. I just didn’t care – though I knew someday I would.

 

I made all these strict rules in my mind about guys. How I wouldn’t let a guy walk all over me, ever. How easily I would dump the wrong guys (if only I knew what I know now) the second they showed a red flag. How he would have to love and respect me for who I was. How I would never wear makeup, or do my hair fancy, or dress and act really girly, or get drunk or high – he would have to like my true personality and natural beauty (then I’d make more of an effort in appearances after that was confirmed, but still never get drunk or high). I wanted a guy who would be attracted to me in my natural state, not some glittery, plastic bimbo.

 

…and I met him, out of the blue, earlier than I expected. A guy who had to ask me if I was wearing makeup, who didn’t care about how I wore my hair, or what I dressed like. He couldn’t believe that I’d never had a boyfriend before. I fell in love for the first time, and had no idea what to do.

 

And this started with LOW expectations; I didn’t even think we’d get together. For once in my life I was happy most of the time because I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Then I realized he was meeting my previous imagined ideals left and right so I began to always expect that. Then he had issues at home and he couldn’t always keep his focus on me anymore as he became upset and emotionally cold, which is totally understandable given his circumstances, but deep inside that rigid standard bar screams at me “He’s an insensitive jerk that doesn’t care to give you the time of day!” I tried to assure myslef that he would go back to 'normal' once he fixed the problems at home, but as time went on the standard screamed louder. Everything went horribly wrong as he no longer met my inflexible standard bar, and it went so far that I dumped a great guy.

 

This has caused me to post long rants about him and I on this [great] forum.

I see this happening in future relationships if I don’t get a grip.