Expectations: From History

In a legal studies class once, our professor asked us, “Why do you think lawyers have walls of books and volumes in their offices?” It’s not just to look smart, he explained with a laugh. He explained that all those books are full of cases and serve the lawyer as events of precedence. In order to prove his case or down the opposition, legal counsel will reference previous cases. At one point, those cases were new but now they’ve become the standard. 

History is:

• Our own experience
• Others’ experiences
• What have become the new guidelines and reference points
• Anything that’s happened before and influences after 

The expectation that history gives us is called precedence.

As I’ve thought on this topic, common sayings come perfectly to mind, illustrating the power and influence of history on the future: 

Once bitten, twice shy. When our hearts are broken, it’s a natural defense to quickly escort it to security and lock it up so that no one else can get to it and hurt it. With heartbreak, it’s like a brand new book of guidelines have been dropped into our lap: of how guys act, the signs to watch out for that invisibly lined our way to this dark destination, what their sneaker tracks look like to get there and new warnings of delayed attachment, the installation of suspicion, and the distrust of affection intended to bring two people closer instead of being grossly manipulated to shove them apart. The two parts that compose this home-bound heart are 1) not looking for anyone new and 2) not letting anyone make any progress in their distance to our heart.  

Do it once, shame on you; do it twice, shame on me. Ahh, an old adage that basically warns us to learn our lesson the first time. We get a free pass the first time, such as a best friend betraying our secrets, our romance, or our friendship. But, the second time we do it, let it happen, or it happens to us after letting that person back in, how do we then explain? A record has already been created; we “should have known.” It’s so much more difficult to get sympathy or get people to listen when we’ve been stripped of ignorance. That’s a strong expectation to fight against—not only is it getting someone to change (such as becoming faithful, quit doing “this,” or start doing “that”) but the rest of the battle comes in convincing everyone else of this metamorphosis. 

Hindsight is 20/20. I see the validity in this one, and yet there are just certain situations where it seems we’re still searching for the right prescription to view it in and one to figure out what went wrong, such as preventing the next genocide. When we go to examine how love died, years can go by and the view is still murky and there is no crispy clarity. Yet, with time, acceptance can prompt us to admit the truth and new experiences can enlighten archives as new lessons and examples are applied to old ones or the two are compared and contrasted. Our expectations from history can be changed when the future disproves and revises them. 

History encompasses experience and learning, things people hold even after they put the book away, turn the TV off, or cut the conversation. For this, history arguably creates the greatest—and most difficult to defy—expectations. 

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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.

Das Mädchen: The Single Girl's Fight for Decency

There’s a debate within the German language over one word: “das Mädchen.” German—a gendered and case-based language—has three possibilities: male (der), female (die), neuter (das), plus the plural (die) on each of these. Every noun must be gendered.

The controversy over “das Mädchen” is the fact the word means “the girl,” but the gender is neuter—the same gender used for objects:

“das Buch,” (the book)

“das Telefon” (the telephone)

“das Bild” (the picture)

While "the boy" always receives the male, "der Junge," a woman doesn’t get her femininity in the German language—that “die”—until “die Frau” where the definition simultaneously means “the woman” and “the wife,” but it’s best known as the latter, as it’s an address for married women; “Guten Tag, Frau Ziegler,” for example. I find this struggle true in reality as I live the life behind that unmarried noun.

There’s respectability in marriage; there’s no more debate over abstinence, the issue of clothing’s modesty and immodesty speaking for your personality (“prude vs. loose” are the two options we seemed to get categorized in) is like it dissolved away long ago, and you’ve finally got the guy.  

Until then, you’re fighting for your respectability, against the expectations others have placed before you, and the guy as a single girl. With marriage, the overwhelming idea is wholesomeness, goodness, and propriety; that you were worth putting on a ring on. It’s only here that across the board, sex is allowed, pregnancy is welcomed, and cohabitation is expected. (Can the term “slut” still exist in the realm of nuptials?) No one’s questioning your character anymore; if you got the ring, that says something. That’s changing “girlfriend” to lifelong, everyone knows you’re together, partner in child-rearing, with-you-for-everything-that-comes “wife.”

But until you get to that place, the guidelines are invisible and for this, tricky. You want to share your affection (wherever you slide your piece to on the physical spectrum) with someone special, but how do you stay exempt from that branding title “slut,” “whore,” “ho,” and the branches of these labels? What do you do when a guy is stunned you won’t sleep with him on the first date (besides considering walking out the door) and you look around and didn’t know this expectation actually existed? How do you get a guy in 2013 if that is your stance?

And that makes me wonder sometimes how I’m ever supposed to date. I refuse to waste my youth with the paint on my bedroom walls as my only eye contact, but I won’t board a train just because it rolls into the station. Inadvertently, it’s like you’re penalized for not settling—for whatever reason, you’re rewarded with loneliness.

Why am I punished for who I am? Why must be this payment for what I want?

In every new possibility, you must draw up who you are and see if you’re accepted. Oh, it is and *should* be the other way around, too—you have a choice in choosing or passing on him. But, when you’ve already put your bid in, it’s a two-way street to see if it’ll be accepted in return. In our decisions and responses to opportunity, we are having to constantly prove our decency and then be commended or punished for it. We have to prove we’re not like every other girl.

Arguably, yes, it’s a great to have that test that is whether you’ll be accepted for who you are. You weed out who’s willing to go the distance, who is the good guy; you have a guy who you’re not having to bend for, but rather, he’s bending for and respecting you.

But, the process to get there (right now, at least) seems long, dull, and solo. It seems half the battle is finding someone with real romantic potential. Then once you *finally* get there, it’s like, am I really going to risk losing them by objecting for who I am? How could I come this far for it to be vain?

Who you are can be anything: someone holding the realm of sex, the place where physical and emotional affection meet, until marriage; someone who vows to be asked out in person, because that’s asking for bravery; someone who doesn’t think quitting in the middle of texting is okay; someone who won’t sacrifice their religious relationship, belief, or creed.

Whatever you’re holding out for, I hope you cling to it. It’s cynical to say that the cause will be around longer than the guy, but I’ve found that to be true and was overwhelmingly thankful I didn’t abandon it afterwards. But, sometimes the emotional and social investment for what you really wanted will be in vain and the reality is it hurts. And there are a thousand different ways to describe that pain. Why did it have to come this far not to work out? Why was it allowed to happen in the first place? How the you-know-what am I supposed untangle myself now—and when I don’t want to?

I’m waiting on my own return for holding out. When will the reward for my “wise” choices come? When will there be no more distance in its travel, in physical space and time, but finally be delivered to me?  And rather, when will he, who I only know in one date, conversations over cardio, the most coveted iMessages, and in believing faith, decide I’m worth it? In every moment, I pray he’ll meet me where I stand.  

Is dating just a series of informal presentations of who we are in conversation that lead to marriage, the master key to take part debatable activities and leave behind having to answer all questions of our image? Is that where the battle for owning our decency ends?     

II. No One Can Convince You of the Life YOU lived.

People often judge us with the word “should.”

“You shouldn’t like him,”

“You should get over him,”

“You should join X,”

“You should do Y.”  

Should. Should. Should.

This word implies an obligation.

I had a relationship that I never felt proud of in front of my friends; it was somewhere between dating and going steady. Getting to once again hold someone I thought I’d lost and having a connection still exist after high school, I thought it was fine! My heart was already two-and-a-half years in, so he was like family and the unconditional affection was there. On the horizon, it seemed like things were striding closer and closer to being once again “official,” so I felt I could honestly answer the question of, “So, what’s been going on in your guy life?” as it began coming up at coffee dates.

But, it was always—and only—behind a venti decaf Americano that I felt like my relationship wasn’t legitimate. It was when I had to put “us” into words that I felt judged and more accurately, “accountable” to my friends. In my heart, he was more than boyfriend and it sickeningly hurt when my friends and I would be talking about issues within our associations and when a comparison came up, the conversation would be appended by, “I mean, you guys aren’t official, but it’s kind of similar…” In front of them was the only time I ever felt the need to classify my relationship; and I mean, I felt that “need.” I began dreadeding coffee dates and texts for “updates” (“How are things going with Z? :)” I hardly knew what “we” were, so to have to explain it to my girlfriends? (It’s only a year later now that I can confirm it was “dating”—going out and getting to know someone. Yet, so much more than that--and the defining process continued!) But, I honestly didn’t even think there would be backlash, loving “warnings,” or any flak from them. It was when I couldn’t call him my “boyfriend” like they could theirs that I first saw the distinction.

Yet, how? My heart suffered just as much, my happiness was just as much, if not, more! So, my relationship couldn’t count or hold a full weight just because he wasn’t my official “boyfriend?” I was just as faithful and devoted, goodness, if not more; like I said, I’d invested in him long before they even met their current romances!  

No one was in my mind during those Starbucks dates except me: feeling like I owed them an explanation (and a better one than I held in each instance), feeling inadequate, sensing their “label” suspicion. And afterwards, it was only me feeling the stress of how I’d presented myself, the thrill of getting his text that night, and the joy of finding myself once again in his arms under the moon’s grin.

Only I was there. Only I know how those things made me feel, whether it was feeling judged and what I did with it afterwards as well as knowing he, the number one I wanted, loved me and I had the purest happiness, not settling and sacrificing nothing, and that was the bottom line. Only I knew what thoughts were running through my mind. Only I have my perception. Only you have your perception.

My friends can tell me one thing and it might be true—but, it is only true when I check it against the truth *I* know of *my* life and find its existence. It’s difficult sharing things with friends and coming to a conversation place of “agreeing to disagree”—about your own life, no less! Our friends love us and will fight tooth and nail to protect us. I often had to remind myself of that; to take a moment and step in their sneakers and flats and know it was all from a place of loving me and wanting me to have the best, especially before I let the anger and hurt rise within me. It’s only this knowledge that simmers the boil down into stillness. In this case, it was just wishing I didn’t have to answer for what had been a long time my private garden, palace, and universe of still-knowing smiles and an always growing bond.

Let all things in your life be approved by you—not anyone else. It is your life, your decisions, and your happiness. You are the one in your skin who lives with these things. Our friends and others in countless categories around us can advise us, but they don’t wear our skin or our “life.” They can tell us they think, want, and believe about our own life, but are they the ones who are going to live it? Before you accept the “constructive feedback,” “warnings,” questioning, or negative words and statements people say, check it against yourself and your life. That’s why the possessive pronoun in front of that wonderful noun—“life”—is about you.