The origin story.
I grew up in an atmosphere saturated in failure and desperation. The failures: inability to provide, inability to be honest about mental health, addiction, neglect alternating with enmeshment. The desperation: understand me, forgive me, accept me, know that I love you. In my home, love was the one thing I could never hold accountable. If my parents said they loved me, I believed it — even though actions spoke to the contrary many times.
I know love is not perfect. And people are not perfect. But here is the problem: I wanted so badly to believe that I was important, that it became a pattern to ignore actions in order to believe words. Mixed signals ceased to exist and what took their place was a series of allowances. She loves me, she is just really sad. He loves me, he just can’t be in my life. To a certain extent, those allowances are real — but they negated my need to have people who showed up for me. They put me in a place where in order to feel loved, the word had to lose all its definition, all of its meaning.
Enter abuse.
When you crave love, but have no identifiable understanding of what that should look like or how to hold it accountable, it is impossible to know when it is real. I have been in three abusive relationships, and each time, though I eventually left, I wrestled with the disconnect between the desperation of the person’s love for me and their actions which would degrade me. The end result being I really struggle to know when someone is being real with me. I can’t tell when their explanations are self-serving or when they are genuine. When you grow up making allowances for everyone’s behavior in order to feel loved, drawing a line in the sand that calls them out as liars feels unfair. If I had empathy, if I understood where they were coming from, I would allow them peace of mind, knowing that they (and the love they had to give) were accepted.
If there was a class for how to become the victim of chronic abuse, denying accountability would be class 101. Note to self: Love is definable. It should be demonstrated and received — not allowed.
The curve ball of deceit.
Deceit in love is new to me. I was used to bad behavior and was getting better at walking away from overt abuse, but deceit caught me completely off guard. Enter my last relationship: This person completely flipped the script. He didn’t want a relationship. But he called everyday — and whenever we didn’t have our kids, we were together. He wanted to see other people, but didn’t see anyone else. He struggled with saying “I love you” because it felt scary. What if we broke up? What if it ended up not being true? But he showed up everyday. He listened to me. He acted like he loved me.
When he said he didn’t know if we belonged together, I didn’t believe him. Because everything he was doing spoke the opposite. And because I was so used to actions not matching words, I thought it didn’t matter what he said because for the first time in my life, someone was showing up in their actions and wasn’t that more important anyway? Here is the thing though. He was lying — not with his words, but with his actions. He was going through the motions of a relationship he wasn’t committed to out of apathy and cowardice, not love.
There is this moment I replay in my head sometimes that I think is likely an accurate reflection of our whole relationship. One day we were standing in his kitchen and he was giving me a long hug. It felt loving, engaged. He wasn’t hesitating or letting go. Then his daughter, who was sitting at the table next to us, said, “Dad, the look on your face.” I thought she was making fun of him because maybe his eyes were closed or he was looking too loving. But she imitated the look on his face as one of supreme discomfort. I felt so embarrassed in that moment. His actions were speaking something completely different than his inner feelings. Then a couple months later, after writing me a beautiful heart felt valentine’s day card telling me all the reasons he loved me, he broke up with me. After 5 years. Because he never saw us as having a future. So here is the truth:
If your words and actions do not match, you are a liar. And a coward.
It literally never occurred to me that someone could act lovingly but not actually love me. Why would someone stay with me so long? Spend so much time talking to me, comforting me, showing up for me? I assumed the answer was love — but really it was apathy. I just never saw that one coming.
Deceit and the world of on-line dating
If ever there was a petri-dish for deceit, this is it. For one, the whole “hook” is based on your best (new or old) photos. In no way is social media an accurate, real-world representation of self. From the pictures to the bios, we are all selling something. Beyond that, interaction is often lazy and detached from any form of real feeling. I can engage in flirtatious or “meaningful” texts while watching my favorite crime documentary or texting 3 other people at the same time. I can respond with exclamation marks and emojis that in no way reflect the level of my actual engagement. The whole thing sets us up to be emotionally apathetic, and therefor deceitful. Engagement under normal circumstances signals interest, but in the world of on-line dating, it can just mean I’m bored. The result is a groundwork for relationships where mixed signals are not only allowed, but expected.
Nobody has to be upfront because it’s online and who cares. But what is sacrificed is the reminder that on the other end of the phone there is an actual person who may genuinely be looking for connection. Ghosting and mixing signals are all par for the course — but they are harmful and ultimately work against honoring the kind of integrity we all need when it comes to building strong and lasting relationships. Here are a couple of very typical examples of on-line dishonesty I’ve experienced recently:
Guy 1: This guy pursued me for weeks. He called several times a day. We talked for hours at a time. He read my blogs and I read his writing. He drove over two hours to meet me and we made plans together for the weeks ahead. At no point was there even a hint that he wasn’t excited and ready to pursue the relationship. We planned a camping trip. I had to arrange for someone to come and help care for my bedridden daughter. I had to buy things for the trip and postpone plans with friends. I checked in several times to make sure the timing was ok because he was finishing up some work deadlines. Then the day I was supposed to leave — no communication. Then a phone call to apologize. He was just under a lot of stress. I could come the next day. He really liked me. Then a cancelation, a reassurance that he wanted to pursue this. Then ghosting.
I absolutely could not reconcile all of the lead up to what happened. It took me several weeks to wrap my head around it. I embarrassingly reached out several more times trying to get my bearings. I was, once again, in a situation where words and actions were not matching. And regardless of the reason, I can (and absolutely should) hold him accountable and call it out. He was lying. Or he is a coward. Or both.
Guy 2: This guy just flirted with me over text. He was funny and clever — not gross, so we had some back and forth that always verged on “let’s meet for coffee” but wasn’t quite getting there. Finally, one day after a series of questions from him along the lines of “what are your plans for tomorrow?” I just asked him if he was trying to ask me out. THEN he tells me he is so sorry, but neglected to put in his bio that he is married and in an open relationship. When I asked him why he didn’t tell me over the week we had been texting, he said he had just half-assed his bio and since he was just texting, he didn’t say anything. But that was an evasion — not honesty. He just didn’t want to end what he thought was a fun and flirty dialogue.
It’s on-line, so who cares? Easy. Expected, really. No messy consequences.
But, damn. An absolute breeding ground for dishonesty, apathy, and cowardice.
The bottom line
First for the deceitful: If your words and actions are not matching — there is no excuse for that. If you have inner conflict, figure that shit out before involving another person.
Second, for the ones looking for something real: It is okay to have a definition of love that holds other people accountable. It is okay to not make allowances for their state of mind or desire to be accepted if they are not meeting your needs.
Third, for us all: hold yourself and others to a higher standard of communication and honesty. Sometimes things fizzle out — that’s not what I’m talking about. But if you have made plans, or have engaged in continual conversation, have the courtesy to be honest and tell the person on the other end of the line that you are moving on.
Finding love is an act of bravery. Honesty is an act of bravery. Integrity, in the face of apathy and fear, is an act of bravery. Let’s aim for that, shall we?
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Brett Jordan on Unsplash