Expectations: A World of Words

 

Expectations are the things set before us that we are obligated and supposed to follow. We can create them ourselves, manufacturing what we've observed together with what we believe...BUT should we lack that within us, no worry--there's never a shortage of what people think we "should" do.

Words create and reveal new expectations. 

"Nah, we don't need to go out, we can just hang at my house!" On planning a date. The erosion of traditional courtship is basically a eulogy in this suggestion. (And, don't get me wrong, I love chilling! But, let me dress up, show you off, and let you do the same for me, first!) 

"You're getting better at it!" - On kissing. Here we get a comparison to someone else and an assessment of who we are--all by one cutting phrase. 

"You don't like her, right?" On answering to friends on the assessment of another. Morphology, syntax, and organization suddenly build social structures in the flesh of reality before us.

Words themselves almost have an expectation of not meaning much. Plans can be made over text and then never translate to knowing real life, whether it's like verbal plans that never come to fruition or slipping out, like a needle out of fabric. But, secondary methods of communication have changed how accountable we are to sticking to our plans. We can make plans, and then if they don't work out on our end, there's the option to simply quit replying in order to avoid giving the explanation of why it won't work out, especially if it's embarrassing or if it's no longer something we want to do. Following through (keeping a calendar date, showing up, engaging in whatever you said you would, thereby honoring your commitment) is a way of validating words. Here's where we get, "Actions speak louder than words," illustrating that expectation of words is not exclusive to language. Rather, words' true definitions are linked to action.   

In advertisements and academics, studies mix words and numbers to tell us where we "are." I've come to take statistics about my demographic with a grain of salt; not for their accuracy, but of how they capture and project me. I have enough sense of self not to yield to probabilities, whether they are true or simply make a primitive road for me to begin traveling on as I come to believe it. The numbers do represent people, and such numerology and symbols often reduce minds and life to ink we only read over once. Not statistic has power over me. I have power of me. 

How many Tweets have you seen where a guy wants one thing in a girl and you see that in yourself...and then a guy right under him says the complete opposite and you start to view yourself through that lens? How many Tweets from girls who say they're one thing, you identify, then see another, and come back at yourself from a different position? Words silently call us to one and chastise the behavior of the other, instantly making it clear that if we act with option two, we are the undesirable option and no longer living up to the expectation.   

Question: What's the opposite of words?

Silence?

What expectations does silence bring?

The first I think of is the "silence means consent." We often hear this phrase in relation to the "guilt" in sexual assault. But, to give consent, you are passing something over to another to agree, right? In agreeing to sex, saying something with a group about someone else (like verbally having someone sign your signature on a Declaration of Gossip), entering into a relationship...here's a place where we need words, for everyone to know their definition, and that the power and place of words would be recognized. In the first example, it's where we need words by themselves to convey our meaning at full power when our actions suddenly find themselves with no power. In refuting a position we were placed in, here is where we need action to prove *our* words. And though it's a wondrous glory of how word and actions intermix to place us in romance, we need that archaic act of saying, "This is a relationship - I'm yours and you are mine."  

Behold, this is the creation of new expectations in our world of words.