Change happens often in my life. I make friends, I lose friends. I take classes and I either fail them or I pass them and that effects my future further down the line. Even small things, like changing my room layout around so that I am more efficient or less likely to break my toes from stubbing them on the feet of my daybed. So when someone balks so openly at change, I'm baffled and confused, especially when I think that my suggestions make perfect sense, that I've given several viable answers to the same problem. Or maybe just what I perceive to be a problem.
So yes. Very baffling.
Familiarity breeds contempt, or so Grams always told me and while my classmates may have complained when a teacher suddenly changed the orientation of the seating in a classroom, effectively almost bringing everyone to the front row and eliminating those who slept in the back of the class, I didn't complain. I rejoiced. I could thrive in that little bit of chaos because no matter where I was, I knew where I wanted to be. I knew I wanted to be to the right of whatever the focal point was so that I could recline comfortably in my chair, stretch my legs out into the desk across the way from me and toward the front because I tended to like to talk to the teacher. This is not to say that I was a teacher pet, however.
So I guess it just leaves me a little stunned every time I run into opposition from Jerry about something. True, this goes against what I just said, that I like when things are shook up but when you have learned enough about a person, you tend to form an idea of how they'll react, how they process things, and how they reach the conclusions that they do. Now, in some ways, this is a terrible thing that we're all guilty of because this pattern that we start to discern makes it easy for us to manipulate that person. We know what buttons to push at what times, whether it's to elevate a fight by being hurtful, sooth calms by reminding them of their favorite memories, or cheer them up by getting them a little surprise. You can even know how to word something in such a way to bring them around to your way of thinking. So it's good that he shook things up so that I don't fall into this comfortable, perfect pattern.
That doesn't mean it still didn't throw me for a loop. Upon viewing some pictures of his house in it's various stage of construction/deconstruction, I was voicing some of my opinions out loud since eventually he and I will be married and while concurred with a lot of things, other things he became defensive about. Now, a part of me should have known better, especially when he says something to the effect of 'It was a gift from so and so and I've had it for this many years' that I shouldn't poke and prod at it too much. Unfortunately, hindsight is better than foresight any day and instead I poked and prodded. Then I had the gall to argue with him in terms of the placement of objects and here he gets (and rightfully so) a little defensive. He states that he's been here for seven years and he's tried things different ways and this is the way that it's worked for him.
Yes, he appreciates my fresh perspective and he wants my input but now there are some base rules. Such as I have to give him more time to process things - longer than two heartbeats - and he isn't dismissing me when he says 'It's a thought...' It means he's weighing it with past experiences and is either trying to figure it out in his head or trying to figure out how best to put it to not disappoint/agitate me. It isn't fair that he has me figured so easily and yet with him the rules are still morphing because my understanding of him is still morphing...
We'll work this out, as always, but currently I am left a little disheartened about the actual weight of my opinion or ideas and I'm pretty sure it's all in my head, which is making me feel worse. We had an off day today. Maybe later will be better...
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