Expectation

I’ve always believed that all love is universal in all its forms and as much as there are those who would disagree with me, it is that same nature of love that resides at the heart of any serious relationship. Parents love their children, siblings extend their brotherly or sisterly affection, lovers are archetypes of romantic love, and friends … they love too. A friendship conceals love that is most true for all relationships begin with friendship. Soulmates, rarely those who become our partners, epitomise that love between friends.

A rose by any other name, would smell as sweet; a love by any other term would still be as true.

But that self-same love would also be infected by the same problems of a love by any other name.

Beneath the kernel of joys, jubilation, warmth, affection, tribulation, woes, disappointments, hurts and heartaches, there resides a seed that is called Expectation. Expectation lies at the heart of all relationships. And no one has yet convinced me that there is and can be love without Expectation.

Expectation is the offspring of love but that which returns in an act of matricide. It kills the very thing that gave life to it.

The lack of empathy, the failed Expectations, are the reasons why life is wrought with much suffering. Hatred, misogyny, prejudice, discrimination, envy, war, destruction and annihilation - they all stem from the lack of empathy – the failure of Expectation. Marriages end, lovers quarrel, siblings turn on one another, friends turn away from each other, and love dies not because of the vices of greed, envy, or power but the failure of Expectation.

Because we fail to meet the idealisations of the Other; Beecause we lack such sensitivity to see the needs of others whom we claim we love.

Yet what is love without Expectation? We aren’t gods. Even the Christian Yahweh's love is tagged with conditions and Expectations. Christians are taught from a tender age that God's love is the archetype of unconditional love that we must all mimick. Often, they fail to remember that that love comes at a price too: in the form of obedience, fear, and worship. Or suffer eternal damnation. Is that not Expectation in its most disguised, most corrupt, because it claims to be without Expectation...?

So who are we, mortals damned by the human condition of frailty, to even believe that there can be love without expectation? We are fallen creatures cursed by imperfection and scourged by flaws. And in our flawed nature, love can never be perfect (a priori so to speak). There is only love in its most imperfect form. And it is inherently selfish. But it is the best we've got. We (or maybe I) can never give unconditionally… the pain would be unbearable. It would be foolish misery and emotional self-flagellation. And we all deserve better; we all deserve some trace of happiness at least, the trace that comes from knowing that we are loved too by the ones we love.

But love cannot be measured and quantified. There is no equation in love, no equity can be found. Some have the capacity to give more, to be generous with their heart, with their empathy; others less so, yet others need to receive more for reasons best attributed to a childhood so lacking in love and affection. However the world works, no one loves unconditionally. There is always an Expectation of reciprocity in however small an amount, in whatever form it takes.

And if love, by any other name, in any other shape it takes form, is the same, then its darker offspring Expectation must accompany. It needs to be embraced, it needs to be understood. For the failure of expectation spells the end of love. There is no relationship, of any nature, without Expectation. If there is ever such a relationship, then there was none to begin with, there was no love for we expect nothing from the passerby on the street or the stranger that is seated beside us.

Therein lies one of life's most incontrovertible contradictions: the closer the someone, the greater the love, the higher the Expectation no matter how one tries to deny or disguise it. An unreciprocated response, a silence, an unreplied message, an unuttered apology, an unexplained absence, a forgotten birthday, an unreturned gesture of affection, a broken promise ... would magnify in disappointment and hurt. Because the anticipation of that Expectation has fallen through.

While we cannot deny the presence of Expectation in love and should embrace and understand it, we need to realise that there is over-Expectation. We should never be slaves to others' Expectations. But if we can, by all logic and reason, believe that the Expectations are within humanly reasonable proportions, that it isn't really too much to ask and would seem most 'basic' in this relationship, then it is fair to expect so.

Perhaps it is when Expectations do not meet at needle's point that love, in any form, ends. Perhaps we need to be wise to recognise that it might be necessary to let go and move on when that happens.

Perhaps I need to be wise too...




* This post is for you guys. Apology isn’t what is needed, empathy is; Understanding that there are expectations in friendship is. What is this friendship to you... And what is it worth sacrificing for? What would you sacrifice to empathise?