Sunday, May 8, 2011

Expectations...


Have you ever had a night that you REALLY looked forward to...you planned, you saved money, you primped and wore the fanciest things (think proms or weddings) and NOTHING went the way you wanted it to? Tonight I had a flashback to high school dances where sometimes the illusion of a good time is totally destroyed...

But it's not just proms and weddings. It's anniversaries and other things where we set this expectation of "having a good time" and then we fall short of that good time and we are left feeling bereft.


And is it just we women who do this? Because I know, in my experience that it's we women who most often suffer the disappointment of a night gone not right...


I was reminded of this this weekend, and it was a very sad memory and remembering...

So, what is it? Are we expecting too much? Is it wrong to expect an evening/event we've scrimped and planned for to go the way we want it to? Can we, as humans, expect ANYTHING like this?

I find this goes back to my fairy tale/daydream theory. We see in our minds eye the evening as it should be, before it even happens. We vicariously live it before we actually live it. And in our minds eye, it's perfect. The guy opens the door...the music is perfect...we dance until we drop...

And then, it's really here...Can reality EVER stand up to fantasy? Of course not. So, how do we not set ourselves up for disappointment? Not dream? Not want that good time/fantasy night?

I don't know, to be honest. I'm just working my way through all of this fantasy vs. reality stuff without getting my guts shredded when life simply doesn't work the way we want it. I'm open to ideas!!!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

We don't know one another as well as we think. We never do. And we develop expectations and the person goes cat on us (does something and/or acts in a way that is totally unexpected and couldn't have been predicted from our experience with them). In such situations have our expectations been too high? Possibly. But always aiming low and trying to have no or limited expectations is not healthy. It's life and as our friends across the pond are fond of saying, things tend to go pear-shaped.

Cindi said...

Christmas is one of those times we set ourselves up for this kind of thing too.

Cindi....

Elaine said...

Well sure, I've had those kinds of things happen in my life too. I think disappointments like this happen when we expect our fulfillment/happiness to come from an event or another person. When we are happy with/within ourselves then we are much less likely to feel dejected when things don't go as we had imagined. Oh and one more thing, I think that Reality can be better than fantasy at times. I know mine has been :)

Anonymous said...

I think, sometimes, when we're excited or prepared or focused on an event (party, anniversary, date, a test or project) we want everything to go perfect. We know that there is the possibility things can go amazing and that we - ourselves - can do everything right.

So we're psyched up and we're expecting perfection - and we get frustrated with the rest of the world when it doesn't oblige our desire for perfection.

We can't expect perfection. We can't accept events when they change. I think our best moments in life are when we accept and enjoy the situation, circumstances, people, events and happenings around us for what they are, not what they could (or what we think they should) be.

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