False expectations

By Blanca Moreno

No matter how hard we try to deny it, people who get hurt somewhere deep inside still believe that true love does exist. Most of us have experienced heartbreak (some more than once). When we experience something that traumatic, it can completely shatter our entire belief system. How many of us have heard of the female who turns ice cold after putting up with a shady guy? Then later is considered, for lack of a better word, a slut because she goes around breaking other hearts (ladies, I don’t condone this behaviour ever, but to each their own).

We’ve all heard of the guy who had his heart broken by the “love of his life,” then he turns into a player, and blames women for the rest of his days for not being able to commit. And that guy truly can’t commit, so he, too, runs around town living life on the edge. He goes around breaking hearts and turns the good girls, who have no idea about his inability to love due to his past relationship[s], into ice-cold man-eaters. It’s like a never-ending cycle, and it seems to have gotten worse in this era. You know, with social media running our lives (admit it, you’re always on it, too).

And why is it that one event can change our entire perception of what we believed our whole lives up until that moment? Why is it that one bad relationship (or a few) has the power to make us change our view on the opposite sex or just relationships in general?

One thing I have found, that many of us fall victim to after or before our heart is broken, is our expectations. We meet someone and like them and every single day after that we have these expectations of what we believe will happen. We have these expectations of how we think the other person will act. And then, when these expectations are not met, we begin to blame the other person, or resent them for changing “the game.” But the truth is, those are our own ideologies and our own personal thoughts of how something should go. However, life is not always like that. As many of us have learned by now, things rarely go as planned. My mother always says, “you can’t predict the weather, even the weather experts get it wrong.”

Therefore, I wonder, are we constantly forming false expectations? Is it better to not have any expectations without needing to lower our standards?

It’s easy to overlook this and think there is no way to lower one without affecting the other, but that’s the thing we seem to misunderstand. Standards and expectations are two different terms. They have two completely separate definitions in the dictionary. One is a strong belief that someone should be or will do certain things, while the other is more of a guideline or level we use to evaluate how and whether a person is suitable for us.

So I ask, would forgetting our expectations, and realizing they are false to begin with, allow us to be happier? Would taking people as they are and not judging them by their past experiences, or what we expect to happen, allow us to have a better relationship?

In researching this subject, I found that everything seemed to lead back to people’s expectations of each other. I hate to admit this, but ladies, we seem to have the highest expectations, but that doesn’t mean the highest standards. Perhaps, we are in need of bringing our standards higher and lowering our expectations? Because, how can we expect so much from someone who just isn’t up to standard? And let’s be honest, some of the men we choose really just don’t cut it (no offence fellas), yet we still chose them. So I feel we really need to focus on those two things, or not complain at all if someone doesn’t happen to be exactly as we expect them to be. Just some food for thought.

P.S. A broken heart doesn’t give you the green light to go mess with other people’s emotions. Just because someone doesn’t turn out the way we expected them to, that’s not a reason to go around hurting others. And please believe karma will come back for you in some form or another, so do yourself a favour and don’t.

Featured image from The Notebook © New Line Cinema