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« Writing | Main | Sound system gonna bring me back up... »
Some Thoughts.
February 25, 2006
I recently had a heated discussion with a friend of mine about...well, I thought it was about power dynamics in relationships based on age and experience & I think my friend might have thought I was just harping about something more specific - which might have also been true and, admittedly, I didn't approach the conversation in the most open-minded, open-hearted way.
However, something occurred to me in the wake of that conversation. Actually, amazingly, it's some wisdom that L (the ex) once used to share with me about "equality." He used to constantly tell me that I wasn't relating to him as an equal, and without that equal relationship, we had no foundation on which to build.
Now, I take that with a grain of salt in the context it was spoken. I don't feel that my inability to relate to L has an equal was really my fault. However, they are very wise words indeed. My first reaction to remembering this in relation to the conversation I was having with my friend was, of course, to feel self-satisfied! See! I was right! He can't possibly build a relationship with someone who is so clearly not his equal!
However, in examining further, as is almost always the case, I realized that I needed to turn my smug self-satisfaction around. Whether or not it's true that it applies in my friend's situation, I have no business dictating to him what he should and shouldn't do. I can provide him with my opinion, and I can offer him my support...but, in fact, what I was doing was creating an unequal relationship by condescending to him and engaging in sarcasm and, well, meanness. Even if it was, somewhat, all in fun - the end result (and perhaps the subconscious purpose) was for me to create inequality in our relationship.
I think I do this (perhaps we all do this) out of fear. If you create inequality, you limit the relationship. For instance, in this particular relationship, I was acting in the role of mother...which is funny because, as my friend pointed out, I was treating him like a child while at the same time telling him to grow up! This isn't productive at all. And it's self-protective, as well as self-perpetuating. How often have I felt frustrated by my role of mother in this and other relationships? And how often has my need to create inequality put me in that position? And what am I avoiding or sublimating by creating that inequality? How often do I use this tool to avoid being fully present in my other relationships? How does it limit me? What do I gain by it? Do I need to stop doing it, or just be aware when I am doing it...and apply it only to situations where it is necessary?
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