From: lanny@iago.caltech.edu (Hsieh, Lai Lanny)
Newsgroups: alt.romance
Subject: expectations and idealism
Date: 22 Dec 1992 09:12 PDT
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: iago.caltech.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    


hi everyone, my boyfriend and i are having a bit of a problem...i guess
i'll post it and see if any of you have any helpful advice for me...
this might be kinda long...:)

background:

we've been going out for a little over 6 months...he goes to college
about 400 miles away, so basically it's a LDR...i saw him a weekend 
over halloween and thanksgiving, and now is the first time he's back
for any significant amount of time since the summer...
his mother is very over-protective...she doesn't like me much cuz she
thinks i'm out to steal her son away, and that he can't concentrate
on school work, so his whole future is in jeopardy...basically, i'm
the scapegoat for everything...
for a while over the summer, we were sneaking around, but finally his
mother has come to accept the facts, even though she still does not
like it too much and doesn't want him to be out that often...
and during all this time, i didnt' like having to sneak around cuz
i feel like i don't even take this kinda crap from my own parents, 
why should i take it from someone elses?...but i love my boyfriend,
so i put up with it...and i dont' really mind, as long as we have
some time together once in a while, it was enough for me...

potential problem:

my boyfriend could be said as being kinda clueless...he doesn't really
know how to impress girls, and he doesn't really know what they want...
alot of times, we go out and we just "hang out"...and times, we'd be
sitting around trying to decide what to do next...he said he doesn't 
like to plan and that it's better to be spontaneious...i had to come
up with a lot of things for us to do...or request to do some things...
he always was glad to do the things that i wanted to do...but doesnt'
really plan any "special evenings", etc...

instigator of explosion of the problem:

he didnt' plan anything for us to do for x'mas...we had planned to
see each other on monday...i hinted that this would be the last time
we see each other before x'mas on friday...he wanted to do something
on wednesday, but i had to work during the day...so he said, "oh 
well."...i was thinking why can't we just have a nice dinner after
i get off work and do a little celebrating of our first x'mas together?..
but by this time, i was feeling kinda cold inside, so i didn't tell
him till the next day when i saw him that this was really bothering
me that he seems to never plan anything special for us to do...basically,
no romance in the relationship...

we exchanged gifts, and i bought him an automatic CD cleaner...it 
wasn't too expensive, but not too cheap either...he knew how much 
it costed, and said that he really won't use it that often...i did
ask him to tell me honestly whether he liked it or not...he said
that it is not practical and i should take it back and keep the money...
i've spent a long time shopping for the right gift...it was important
to me...i asked several friend's opinion about it before getting it...
they all said it's a good idea...well, guess not...this really hurt...
he said that it's the thought that counts...i tend to think that
i would have loved anything he got me simply because it came from
him...

my side:

i feel like after all this time of "hanging around", that it would 
be nice to do something special once in a while...i don't want flowers
all the time, or fancy dinners...i just wanted him to think up something
nice occasionally just because he loves me and want to do things to
surprise/cheer me up...i didn't want to tel him this before because
i wanted to wait for him to come around...i didn't want to tell him and
make it an obligation for him to do stuff...i just feel that he should
at least attempt to guess what i like and make the relationship more
interesting...i don't want it to be a one-way sorta thing either...i mean,
i've cooked him dinner and baked him cookies and made hand-made cards for
him and all sorts of little things to tell him that i've been thinking
about him...

his side:

that guys will sooner or later end up on a recliner in front of the 
tv watching football and drinking beer, and they would all forget 
anniverseries, b-days, etc...he admits that the x'mas thing
was his mistake and thoughtlessness, but other than that, he's done 
enough already, and i'm expecting too much from him and being too 
idealistic...he thinks that i should tell him what i want if i want
anything or everything will turn out like the x'mas gift that i bought...
he thinks that even though we're spiritually pretty close, it's still
not safe to assume anything about the other person so it's best to be
very straightforward in the things that we want...

advice needed:

if any of you are still following through this long and boring story,
you really amazed me...
i just wanted to know if it's really my problem?...am i expecting
too much from him?...am i deluding myself (as he so puts it)?...
is it good to be as practical as he is?...
it really hurt to hear him say this stuff, cuz it makes me feel
foolish and stupid that i had assumed more about what we have 
than he apparently thinks so...i think i'm a very reasonable person,
and i never demanded anything from him during all this time..
i didn't want him to do things because i wanted him to do it...i wanted
him to do it because he thought of it...
why is this so hard?...
and meanwhile, he thinks that this whole argument is "petty", and
that i'm just getting hung up on pettiness...well, it means a whole
lot to me...

well...any comments to this story is definitely appreciated...i'd
like to know if i'm going nuts...thanks in advace...sorry for
the lengthiness of the post...

L.