1/3/2024
I had a relationship recently end, and I wanted to write down my thoughts as a way to clear my head, have some perspective, and to have something concrete written/timestamped so I can look back on it one day to see if my thoughts have changed.

I think the crux of why things failed was a mismatch of Her expectations and my difficulty in matching them due to (1) stubbornness, (2) natural difficulty/inability, (3) circumstances and time difficulty.

I would bristle at Her expectations, in part because I demanded relatively little from her in return. I mostly only wanted to be treated with some amount of respect for my time and other responsibilities, and also respect in terms of being faithful/loyal.

Even though things weren’t going particularly well and we would fight about once per 2 weeks or so, one reason I stuck in the relationship (aside from being in love) was because I chalked up Her expectations as immaturity and something that would change. The hope being that she would come to view things, as I do, that it’s rare and lucky enough to meet something that you enjoy being around and spending time with that the less important things (that you may dislike) become things that you can live with/ accept.

I had a conversation with another friend of mine and she pointed out that hoping/assuming someone would grow out of their expectations is possible, sure, but also something that may never happen. I’d internally and sometimes explicitly feel She was being selfish or self-absorbed, but after talking to my friend, I know that people and She can have whatever expectations She wants. It may be more difficult for Her to find someone who meets her criteria, however, She is well within her rights to want those things and decide that anything less is not adequate. That doesn’t make someone selfish. It may mean that they want more than what another person (me for example) would want.

One example, She once mentioned that she wanted her partner to be her best friend. I found that dumb and fake. The majority of people, in my opinion, who say that are somewhat pretending and in part doing it to make themselves feels superior to other couples. By numbers and odds it doesn’t make sense because the pool of people who can be your “best friend” meaning the best hang and most fun/reliable can be anyone in the world, where as your partner also has to be of the proper gender/age/attractiveness to name a few.

I think now there’s a little more nuance. If you define best friend to instead be someone who you see the most and confide most things, just by time and proximity then your partner will become that person. If you spent that time with your real “best friend” aka “best hang,” then probably they’d be an even better friend than your spouse, but because you cannot once you’re in a long-term relationship, your spouse becomes your “best friend” who is not “best hang” but is “closest friend.”

Again is it wrong to expect your partner to be your “best friend”? No, I don’t think so. It certainly makes it harder, especially if you expect them to be “best hang.” But it’s hard to fault someone for looking for it and I can’t really be angry at someone for that. I may find it to be somewhat unrealistic, but it’s not impossible and I’m told there are really couples like that, so if She would like that, she’s welcome to pursue that goal.

I suppose one portion that rubs me the wrong way is that She had her expectations but I didn’t and still don’t feel that she reciprocated that same standard towards me. I think there was some amount of lack of self-awareness and desire to feel like a victim. But again, things that are less important that you can live with if you’re in love.