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Category Archives: Relationships
How To Break Up With Your Girlfriend
I have a friend of mine whose relationship looks to me like the emotional rollercoaster from hell. When it's good, it's very very good; but when it's bad, it's horrid. From what I can tell, his girlfriend has a very high analytical intelligence but lacks emotional intelligence. Whenever she's upset, she treats him like crap and he has a tendency to let her walk all over him. He really likes her so he swings between being happy as Larry and anxious as all hell.
Recently he's started to man-up and tell her that it's not OK for her to treat him like trash. When he does this, she settles down and starts to take responsibility for her own feelings instead of just dumping on him. Then later on she blows up again.
How To Have A Really Good Argument
When I was young, my parents used to argue... a lot. They got really good at it, because they put so much time and effort into practising. Screaming, shouting and hurling painful insults at each other was the order of the day. The more cutting the insult, the more points they scored off each other as their mutual self-esteem gradually wore lower and lower while they verbally pummelled each other into the ground.
Winning the argument was more important than anything else. They had the ability to drag a single argument out for days, weeks, months... even years! It was like being on the sidelines of one of those long and boring tennis matches that just goes on and on and on long past your bedtime, swinging from advantage server to advantage receiver depending on who had just fired the most powerful volley at their opponent. They may have started … Continue reading…
How To Handle Rejection: By Getting Even
I know a lot of people are struggling these days with the whole concept of rejection. An invitation to grab a coffee with a cute member of the opposite sex is rudely declined, and you're left feeling all alone in the world with nobody to console you. An offer to dance is declined because they're “too tired”; and yet suddenly have a mysterious burst of energy when the next potential suitor comes along straight after. You send an SMS or leave a voicemail, and your so-called “friend” never gets back to you. Some days it's just one rejection after another.
Rejection stings because it reminds you just how much you hate yourself. Someone else affirms the negative beliefs about yourself that you've got stashed away deep down in your unconscious, and suddenly you're flooded with all the feelings of unworthiness and inadequacy that you've been avoiding ever since your earliest … Continue reading…
The Survivor Approach To Dealing With Difficult Neighbours
Over the last few years, I've inadvertently adopted a strategy for dealing with troublesome neighbours based on the theme of the reality TV show Survivor: Outwit, Outplay, Outlast. Well, maybe not so much outwit and outplay, but outlast seems to be working for me with these people:
Cranky Old Men
First up was nasty neighbour Charles. I first met Charles while exploring the common property soon after buying my apartment. He a relatively short man around his mid 70s, with dark black hair, and a slight arch in his back which suggested that he was past his peak and was now growing shorter rather than taller. At first, Charles oozed charm and smarm: he was very friendly and welcoming in a rather disarming kind of way.
But things turned nasty only a couple of weeks later at the first body corporate meeting. The hot item on the agenda … Continue reading…
Nice Guy Syndrome
When I start hearing the same message coming at me from multiple independent sources, that usually gets my attention. This year I've had several sources giving me the message that women want men with backbone who they can “push up against”. They get tired and ultimately resentful of Nice Guys who always yield powerlessly to them, and everyone else.
I listened to an interview by David DeAngelo (of Double Your Dating fame) talking with Robert Glover described what is wrong with Nice Guys most succinctly by quoting a comment from his ex-wife, who said “How would I know that you could ever stand up for me, if you can't even stand up to me?”. Robert calls it Nice Guy Syndrome, and has even written a book titled No More Mr. Nice Guy! He points out that while Nice Guys think that what they are doing will please other people, … Continue reading…
And When Did You Last See Your Father? by Blake Morrison
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Wife Swap
I love the TV show Wife Swap. If you haven't seen it, the premise is that they get two families from middle America who volunteer to have their wives swap places for two weeks. During the first week, both families run by the usual rules so the "new wife" can learn how they normally operate; but in the second week, the new wife gets to make whatever rule changes they want. Each family volunteers on the basis that they agree to abide by whatever rules the new wife chooses to set.
Invariably the producers choose two families at the opposite ends of some spectrum, be it religious, political, economic, traditional/progressive, or whatever. Today's episode featured a real estate executive who was always on the phone and had no time for her kids, swapping places with a suffocating obsessive-compulsive stay-at-home Mom who home-schooled and controlled her whole family.
I always … Continue reading…
Dr Phil
Dr Phil is on TV again, using big words like "maturity" and "responsibility", and talking about relationships. I like Dr Phil; he's charismatic, compassionate and assertive with the people who come on his show. He doesn't take crap from them, and calls them on their blind spots when they try to spin some story on him. But I can't help wondering about the people who agree to go on the program. There is something voyeuristic about watching another person's personal problems being aired before a mass audience, and surely something exhibitionist about wanting to go on the program.
Some of the people are clearly at their wit's end and don't know what else to do; perhaps they think that going on Dr Phil and exposing the lies and the secrecy that keeps them bound will release them from whatever is keeping them trapped. And maybe it does; but not everyone … Continue reading…
Not Everyone is Going To Like You
Ever since I was a kid, I've felt a burning desire to have other people like me; to be accepted. It's not unusual to want to fit in with other people, and perhaps you can relate. Often when I didn't feel accepted by other people, I thought the problem lay with me. But a recent interaction with a rather extreme neighbour was an opportunity in disguise to learn otherwise.
A few years back I moved into a block of flats in a neighbourhood not far from where I'd previously been living for several years. I knew the area well, but the immediate neighbours were all new. It wasn't long before I met a neighbour who I'll call Edward, who lived upstairs in the same building quite close to me. At first he was friendly and appeared very charming. A little too charming perhaps, to the point of being a bit … Continue reading…
Posted in Relationships Tagged anger, body corporates, character, compassion, conflict, forgiveness, friendship, gardens, hostility, neighbours, paranoia, reconciliation, tea, vitriol 6 Comments
