Expectation Management

By Author: Jeremy Sherman
Total Articles: 7
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When my 19 year old daughter was about eight she wanted a cat. We got to the pound late. She fixated on an odd looking Calico but just before committing, and a few minutes before the place closed, she shifted to an exquisite Tabby. Cassidy has been with us these eleven years and is the envy of all the cat fanciers who visit.
People admire our cat but they don't admire the way we treat her. Beautiful though she is, none of us stop to pet her much. Cassidy did not stay my daughter's priority for long and now she's off at college. I'm Type A, writing, playing music or exercising pretty much all day. I don't have free hands for petting and cuddling.
Cassidy doesn't seem to mind. Occasionally she'll run herself back and forth over my shoes for affection and I'll give her a moment's perfunctory attention. When she whines I let her out or give her food. She hardly looks at me. Other people's cats are real members of the family. Cassidy comes and goes without loyalty or expectation.
For the past few years I've had a live-in partner who lavished attention on both of us. Now that partner is gone. It feels right, but ...
... it's also hard letting go of expectations. I come home to an empty house except for Cassidy who, as I say, doesn't expect much from me. We are weaning ourselves off of my former partner's attention.
The longer I live the more attention looks like the name of the game for pretty much everyone. We want to be consequential, not sequential, not just one in a series, but a Special One, and attention is how we know that we are special. In our world, there are many people who look as odd as that Calico cat did and many of them get very little attention. I wonder how they get by.

Perhaps the right way to live is as though the earth were a hospital full of wounded creatures and your mission is to become the selfless doctor who can administer loving attention healing the least among them. It's embarrassing to admit but sometimes in the blush of first love I have felt like I'm making progress toward that goal. I've felt virtuous, like a doctor caring for at least one of the wounded. Love is generosity of spirit. When I pet my new partner I felt generous. I would forget that I am needy and that I didn't pick just any soul to serve. I picked a pretty and charming one, one who fulfilled my need to feel consequential.
Every society in the past has had prejudices that ran so deep its members did not notice them. In our society we have many prejudices we are aware of, but there are some that run so deep we have no idea.
Lookism-the preferential treatment of attractive people is one of these. It is intense, unfair, and cruel. It is also universal. I am deeply prejudiced in this way. I am inclined to give much more attention to attractive women than to other people. But day to day, I would never compare this prejudice to racism of equivalent intensity, and chiefly because it is universal. Among men there is proud talk of this prejudice. We sure do love the ladies, but mostly the hot ones. How this is different is from white supremacists talking proudly about how much they prefer the company of whites, I'm not sure I know.
I try to look handsome so that I'll be attractive to pretty women. How is that different from a very light skinned mulatto trying to look white so he will be fully embraced by the winning whites in the south. We don't lynch unattractive people, it's true. There are differences between these prejudices, but fewer than we'd like to think.
One difference is that all of us end up in the oppressed minority. Age makes us homely. Even the cutest among us will someday be treated as second class or invisible. I hear the counter-argument: Many old folk are beautiful and loved by their families and friends for the goodness in their hearts. And it's true to a modest extent. And in another way, it's a comfort to believe its true both because it makes us feel less prejudiced and because it gives us hope that we will beat the odds and end up being the beautiful grandparents beloved by all.
I wonder what happened to that odd-looking calico. I wonder what happens to the more downtrodden victims of lookism. I suspect we all get used to what we get. Most people who are discriminated against based on looks or whatever learn to live with it. They learn to take their lives seriously even though others treat them as trivial. It's simply too painful and wasteful to wish without end for things we will never get. We manage our expectations.
As I age, I recognize that with everything but with looks most immediately, the time to adjust down my expectations is fast approaching. I look for role models on how it's done gracefully. I look to those who have done without for a long time and seem adjusted to it. Old people I know, and homely people. And Cassidy too.
Pain comes less from depravation than from dashed expectation. Cassidy seems fine not getting petted much. The disadvantaged are inured to some extent and are more satisfied than the advantaged would be if suddenly they were thrust into similar circumstances and had to adjust down their expectations.
So how should you show care? Should you give all the loving attention you can through random acts of loving kindness? Or is it better to be consistent, helping people adjust their expectations to what they will reliably get? If you went on a date with someone, and immediately figured out that you wouldn't want to really involve yourself long-term, would it be more generous to show that person a great time while you're together, or to keep it cool and distant so expectations aren't raised too high?
If sheer quantity of love were all that mattered then you should show that person the greatest time even if you'll be gone tomorrow. But sheer quantity isn't as important as well calibrated expectations. It's unkind to give what you'll take away tomorrow.
But nature itself giveth and taketh away. We are sequential not consequential. If dashed expectations are the hardest, how should we handle aging and death? Should we admit that any pleasure in life is just postponing the inevitable? Should we never give anything because it's cruel if you can't follow through?
My partner used to feed Cassidy a tin of wet food every night. Cassidy has come to expect it. She's in the kitchen now moaning. There's a bowl of dry food out already but she wants wet food. I don't think I'll buy more, but there are a few cans left in the larder. I'll go open her one.
Jeremy Sherman Ph.D., M.P.P. is a researcher in the life and social scientists and, in particular evolutionary epistemolgy, the evolution of the wisdom to make good choices.