Sometimes it is easier to recognize behavior that you do not want to duplicate when seeing it displayed in others. Here's a little story about that.
I had lunch last week with a friend of mine. She's been a good friend to me over the last 6 or 7 years and she's the type of person that you never have to worry about pulling something squirrely or weird, i.e. no criminal behavior, no "mental breakdowns," no immaturity. The last time we had lunch, we ate at a place that is one of my favorites. When she suggested a place this time that was less than desirable to me, I thought, "Eh, not my top pick but I want to be a considerate friend." The place is not terrible-- you could do much worse. Whenever someone wants to go there, I just get the same thing each time because I know it tastes OK and it does not lead to explosive diarrhea, LOL. (Sometimes with funky places, you can't be too careful about not getting intestinal upsets.) That morning, she told me that her boyfriend would be joining us. Now, the reason why this was so shocking to me was because she and this boyfriend have done the make-up-and-break-up thing more times than I can count. But they had been separated for quite a while this time and I was surprised when she announced that he was joining us. He's not inherently a bad guy, for the record. If he was in fact an irredeemable prick, I'd be the first to tell you and with a zest. But he's not. He is not a bad person and she is not a bad person: the two of them together = a bad combo. For ease of use, I will refer to him as John.
*John shows up 10 minutes late and regales us with tales of how bad the traffic was, how hot it is outside, how hungry he's been all morning, how he could not find a good parking spot and had to walk in his dress shirt and get sweaty, how he was accosted by a panhandler, etc. Not a warm and fuzzy start.
*When the host seats us, John says the table is not clean to his standards and growls until a busser comes to re-clean it.
*Upon perusing the menu for all of 10 seconds, John announces that there is nothing he wants and he will now have to spend the meal hungry while we eat in front of him. My friend (who I'll call Jane for ease of use) passes him the lunchtime specials menu. He looks at her and says, "And I don't want any of that shit either!" I was both stunned and really uncomfortable. Talk about awkward. As a singleton, there are few things that make me want to run faster than being trapped in another couple's fight. Run, little rabbit, run.
*After some soothing from Jane, John agrees to get the simplest, blandest thing on the menu. When it arrives, he picks at it and eats maybe 1/3 of it. Before we are even halfway finished with our plates, he has asked the waitress for a doggie box. Sadly, I barely had the chance to visit with Jane because of John's bad behavior. Even though, apart from this kind of conduct, I like John too, I didn't much want to visit with him since he was acting like such a jerkwad.
*John boxes up the remaining 2/3 of the meal. Jane says, "I guess you must have liked it well enough after all since you are interested in taking it home." John very quickly announces to her, "Oh no. I am not gonna eat this crap. This is for you. Since you like this place so much, I am boxing it up so you can eat it for lunch tomorrow." Instead of slapping the shit out of him, which is what I would do, Jane goes, "Good thinking. I will eat it for lunch tomorrow."
*On the way out, John tells me that Jane is in a hurry to get out to the parking lot because she has started smoking again in spite of being off cigs for several months. It's not even remotely coincidental to me that she's smoking again now that John is back in the picture. Duh.
As I drove off from this encounter with my head swimming, I thought to myself, "I was meant to see this. I don't ever want to be John. If ever I have been John before, I don't ever want to be like him again." Sure, since I didn't much care for the restaurant, I could have suggested we go somewhere else, but compromise is pretty important in friendships. Not compromise of the big stuff-- morals and values, but small compromises to make sure you aren't acting like a selfish turd. Had John been my friend instead of Jane, I would've pulled him aside and said, "Dude, just be cool. Why you gotta act like this, man? If you're done with this relationship, man up and break up with her. But don't just sit here and verbally abuse her." I've done my fair share of over-expecting and over-investing in my friendships. It's taken some time for me to realize that but I have d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y done it. When you do that, you get disappointed and it's no one's fault but your own. I think John has some idea of how Jane is "supposed" to be and since Jane is not living up to his ideal, they are both miserable.
Drop off the key, Lee and get yourself free!
This discussion actually segued into another conversation that I had with my dad. We were talking about bad behavior and I said, "It's a shame that you feel so helpless in these situations. You can't force someone into getting help or treatment and you can't reason them into it or hope enough or pray enough. They have to want it for themselves if it's ever going to happen." He added something that has been a missing piece of the puzzle to me lately: "The first step before that is acknowledging that there is a problem to begin with. The situations you've been describing are people who either don't know that what they are doing is a problem or they are still in complete denial that it is." That's so very true. You can waste a lot of precious time in crappy, unhealthy relationships. I hope John and Jane realize that they are not good for each other before entering into a marriage or, even more devastating, bringing a child into their turmoil. Oy.
