Great expectations

"Our problem is that we have really high expectations of relationships." A conversation had over dinner, with a vanilla friend. I disagreed. Not on the subject of expectations - I'll set the bar as high as I feel it needs to go on the understanding that I'm prepared (and happy) to give as good as I get. My response was that I don't think it's a "problem", a problem is something to worry about, something wrong or amiss. Something to be resolved and made to go away. Snobbish and pseudy as it may sound, having high expectations should never be considered as a problem.

Which isn't to say that they make life easy. I expect a lot, that's fair to say. From life, from lovers, from everything, really. And I won't accept half measures - almost good enough is not good enough. Period. I don't want to be on either side of that equation: the person who isn't getting what they want or the person who isn't giving the right thing. Again, this may be where my obsession with balance and with exchange comes in. I'm not naive enough to believe that love will always find a way or that hard work is it's own reward. There will always be an element of luck or chance in meeting the right person, happening upon the right situation. It's what you do when you've got there, how you behave and how you deal with problems, real problems, when they arise.

It's also about what you do when it doesn't quite work, when you can't square the circle. When what you have does not match up to what you wanted, when the image in your mind is not the same as reality, where nothing you can do can make it so. That's where I am now, living the reality of being an "all or nothing" person and currently putting up with nothing. I bit the bullet and cut all ties because I couldn't live happily ever after with what was on offer. But I still miss what I had, what I had hoped it would become and what I had desperately wanted us to make work. Which is why a part of me, a big part of me, is waiting for that phone call. Because whilst I'm still living in the hope of getting everything there's only a very short list of who I want it from.