Love has no scripts

Love Has No Scripts

One of the major problems, if not THE major one, all relationships have to work through is EXPECTATIONS. This seems to be a universal component, though in varying degrees. The higher the expectations, the bigger the disappointment when we discover that this person we prize so much is, alas, a simple human being. The full-blown relationships in fiction and the movies help little. Even the most sensible of us go into friendships believing that this Special Someone will love us, at least, as much as we love them. And of course, our idea of what "being loved" means anything from "He will call me/she will confide in me" to "She will understand how I feel without my saying anything/He will comfort me when I am sad without my telling him that I need him to."

The expectations will differ according to the relationship. The relationship can be husband and wife, child and parent, sibling and sibling. lover and lover, teacher and student, boss and employee, friend and friend, teammate and teammate, coach and athlete and whatever other combination life puts together. In most of these, we expect mutuality, affection, loyalty, desire to be together, understanding, patience, acceptance, sharing, honesty, respect, love, of course, willingness to help, caring, affirmation, appreciation, gratitude, warmth, mutual enjoyment, commitment, fidelity,forgiveness - the list goes on.

We expect more of some relationships than we do of others. We don't necessarily expect affection from our bosses though we sure would like it from our family members. Parents and teachers expect respect and obedience form their children and students but teammates and classmates don't from each other.

Expectations, of themselves, are natural offshoots when people relate to each other. Trouble begins when we write scripts for each other. You are my friend; therefore you will never say anything to hurt my feelings. You are my parent, therefore you will support every decision I make regardless of what that might be. You are my spouse, therefore you will forgive whatever I do: infidelity, abuse, neglect. You are my child, therefore you will excel in everything.

The first time I became keenly aware of scripts was when a close friend said to me, "Why did you say this instead of that?" "Why didn't you do that instead of this?" I said, "I didn't know there was a script."

Papa expected a serene, cheerful mature woman who would keep his house immaculate, cook him delicious meals like his mom did, domestic to the bone, always pleasant. Hah! He thought he could get a pussycat out of a tigress, a lily out of a dandelion. What he had gotten, in the illusions he had spun out of his fancy, was a temperamental, emotionally needy brat who didn¹t know the first thing about housekeeping or cooking, fancied herself a bluestocking, and in her own words, was "mean as hell and lazy as sin."

I, in turn, expected this romantic hero, this true-to-life Prince Charming who would sweep me off my feet every single day. After all, it was precisely this that I fell in love with. He would read me poems and keep me bedazzled with his impassioned declarations of love. Instead, I found him much quieter than I realized; he did not have the compulsive need to communicate that I did.

It is bad enough when we write scripts for each other. The really crazy part is that we do not show these scripts to the ones we wrote them for and when they do not perform according to those scripts, we get upset and hold that against them. One script, common to young friendships, goes, "You will invite me to go out with you on weekends and you may not go out with other friends. If you go out with others and not invite me, I will be very hurt."

The problem with scripts is they make us overlook a basic reality: THE OTHER PERSON IS TOTALLY FREE! There is nothing that says that if you are my friend then I have to do everything you want and vice versa. When we get angry at our friends for not doing, thinking or being what we expected them to, what we are saying is they do not have the freedom to be who they are or to think and act according to their lights. We are saying that they are there to suit our fancy, period. To do, think, say and be what WE think best. In that we case, it is we who are failing the friendship.

If you like to spend money on the gifts you give your friend, that does not oblige him/her to give you one back of the same value. You may have different budgets. For that matter your giving him/her a gift doesn't even oblige your friend to reciprocate. A gift means "no strings attached."

We extend friendship and all that entails to the other because we want to; they respond because they want to. Good friendships are built on mutual love and RESPECT; we leave each other's freedom intact. A bad friendship is an oxymoron. An ugly friendship is one that has been polluted by egos and scripts, where "love" is quite conditional and forgiveness not in the picture.

I have friends I love dearly who do not need me in their lives as much as I need them in mine. Before I understood friendship more clearly, I would feel quite hurt by that. Eventually, I understood that I had scripts for them and therefore tore them up. It is much easier to love free people than actors I haven't even given my scripts to. An even more interesting reality is this: script-writers do not like to be given scripts themselves.

One of my favorite lines is: "I love you not for who you are but for what I am when I am with you." Only scriptless friendships allow that to happen. No control, no dominance, no power-struggles, no drama, no one-upmanship, no agendas. Just clear, simple, unadulterated love.