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Sunday, December 2, 2007

How Nice to Meet You! (Part Two)









It is as natural as night follows day that when we meet someone for the first time, especially in a social setting, we make every effort to put our best foot forward. I want your first impression of me to be favourable. In perhaps most cases we present someone who is not really ourselves. Sometimes, the real person whom we are is not allowed to come through until much later. It really all depends on the agenda.

In ridiculous situations, when meeting through the Internet, the two people who have agreed to meet face to face, although armed with their internet descriptions can only recognize each other by the particular clothing that they said they would be wearing.

He said that he was six feet tall and muscular with a full head of hair. He is really 5 foot six, balding with a paunch, and bowed legs. She said that she was blonde, just a little over her ideal weight, and she thought she could reasonably claim to be quite good looking. Well, he could see right away that her blonde hair was not quite properly positioned, and he wondered what she considered her ideal weight.

These are the obvious lies, and while not a good start, at worst they should create mistrust. Without trust, can there be anything substantial and reliable? That is building the house on a foundation of sand.

The thing that is so wrong with so many relationships today is that the person we thought we married turns out to be someone else completely different. When I married my wife in England, being a foreigner I was quizzed by the Registrar who was trying to determine whether this was a marriage of convenience between a foreigner and an Englishwoman. Did I really know her? My response was: “Do any of the people who come in here know each other, and if so, how come some time later they end up asking, who the hell are you?

It will never happen this way, but what if he said to her as part of the getting acquainted stage: “ I am basically looking for a woman who will take over pampering me as my mother did. When I lived at home I never helped with the housework, and my clothes were always ready for me to put on. My mother never seemed to mind when I just dumped them in a corner to be washed, and I don’t expect you to mind either. Here’s a list of all of my favourite foods and when I expect to have them.

I also fully intend to have evenings away from home with me mates, and I don’t expect you to give me grief about it. I may drink a bit too much at times, but boys will be boys, right?”

She could then state that to take her on means high maintenance. She fully expects a couple of holidays abroad each year, and she can’t help being a spendthrift. The dishes may pile up a bit because of her nails, and she considers it absolutely essential that her hair be perfect at all times. And, oh! The sex thing. You can expect the frequency of such encounters to fall off quite quickly.

Perhaps I’m exaggerating and things are not so dire after all. But the point I think is still valid. Honesty is the best policy, and in the getting acquainted stage couples need to talk openly and frankly about their hopes and wishes and needs and wants, and particularly their expectations of each other.

Most people will tell you that if they knew then what they know now they certainly would not have advanced into a marriage, at least not with one another. That’s so sad, and sadder still is the fact that it happens all the time. So many tragedies can be prevented by not entering into them in the first place. If only we knew what we needed to know at the time.

So, to give your new relationship a real fighting chance, if you want it to last you’ll have to be completely forthcoming from the start. You each have to ask yourselves “what does the other person have a right to know about me?” If you have nothing to hide, then hide nothing. Start off building trust, the fuel that drives the relationship. Without trust, you’re running on empty. If what you have to tell is too hot to handle for the other person then you have no basis for a relationship, and that is better to discover at the start.


Copyright © 2007 Eugene Carmichael