“He didn’t text me back!” - Suffering through Expectations, A Tale.
In courtship, I often find that when ‘he doesn’t text me back’ in the period of time I identify to be ‘reasonable’, I check my phone every 5-6mins. I tell myself that ‘he is obviously into some other person’. Then I tell myself that I am wasting my time him.
On particularly creative days, I conjure a conversation with him, that may sound something like this:
Lover Who Did Not Text: I’m sorry I was busy, but I did message you in the evening...
Me: I get worried when you don’t message, but then I just figured you have better things to do with your time (insert sad eyes)
Lover Who Did Not Text: No! I like you, but work was crazy all day and then I just needed to hang out my friends and cool off. I didn’t know you require text messages every few hours.
Me: How dare you! I don’t! But, It shouldn’t be that hard to drop a line to someone you supposedly link. Just tell me you had a bad day. Tell me something! We do live in the cellphone era!!
Lover Who Did Not Text: Gah! (looks to the sky in frustration) So on and so forth. Then, back to reality and I glance at my phone again. Hoping. Disappointed.
So what’s going on here?
There’s anger, disappointment, lack of love/ support/ respect. I feel threatened and I tend to think the worst about myself or the other person. To compensate, I sometimes create an grand image of myself being ‘the better person’.
The other thing going on in this moment is that I feel a sense of disconnect to myself.
That’s a hard one. Especially for those of us who know what the opposite feels like. It’s hard to feel your whole self as complete, beautiful, divine and authentic on some days, and on others feel like… well… none of the above. In this situation, so much of my sense of self is wrapped around, when my phone will buzz next.
This ‘expectation/idea’ we have of someone and how we feel when they don’t match that action is something we are faced with quite often. With lovers, partners, family, friends and even our kids.
I can tell you that there is no way around of it. That the only way through this, is through it. It can start by watching and understanding what lies beneath the impulsive phone checking and when we receive something different than what we were hoping for. It is giving ourselves the gentle space of allowing the deeper issues to come up, whether it is fear of isolation, abandonment, need to constant displays of affection, need to control, or wanting something different than what person can give. We can support our walk through this by using own intuition, sitting with ourselves, meditation, journalling, art work, sound healing, or combine modalities. Most important, we need to find patience within ourselves, for ourselves. Because it is not just freeing the other person from our expectation. But it is also freeing ourselves. So when messages do come, and when people are authentically themselves, they are singular, magical, celebrated by every part of you. They are fully received by us.