Andy's way or the highway…..

While getting to know a prospective partner it is not unusual to discuss the outworking of the most important aspects of each of your lives and how you can or cannot compromise in order to see if your relationship can continue to move forwards, together.

After I had been on about three of four coffee dates with Andy* we started to have deeper conversations about the most important areas we respectively valued in our lives. We got on quite well but then I tend to, generously, like most people if a soy latte is involved. We did have quite a few things in common; we were very similar in many ways so things were looking promising.

Soon Andy popped the question – would I meet his friends! It seemed like a great way to learn more about each other and get to know the most important people in his world. Great! I liked that he has taken the lead in including me in his life and we made arrangements to catch up with his buddies the next week.

The evening was very similar to an evening I would have spent with my nearest and dearest friends and we even met at a familiar restaurant that I had often visited with my chums! I pretended that I didn’t know the menu off by heart and secretly hoped the wait staff (who knew me by name) wouldn’t bust my cover as I tried to play it cool with the incredible discovery that we were so alike! I worked hard to silence the wedding bells that I could hear chiming in my head.

The whole evening was perfect and I got along very well with Andy’s friends and so he asked if I would hang out with them again. This felt like quite a significant step in our relationship and so I agreed.  Naturally I wanted to continue to invest in both Andy as well as the people that he valued most in the world.

Fast forward a few weeks and I found I had been out with Andy’s pal’s more than I had with my own! Worse still, during this time with Andy and his friends I had actually neglected many of my own friends - one of which even asked me if I had developed an infectious disease because of the long delay since meeting up (for the record I didn’t have an infectious disease and still don’t). I felt guilty and sad that things had got to this state.

I missed my buddies and decided it was high time that Andy bite the bullet and meet them. I had actually mentioned this previously to Andy but for some reason he always had excuses as to why it wasn’t possible. Suddenly it was increasingly important that Andy made the effort and finally met my friends as well. It was both essential and urgent to me and besides, it seemed only fair, after all relationships are a two way thing and all about compromise, or so I have heard.

It turned out that Andy completely disagreed with my relationship values of fairness and equity when he simply flat out refused to meet my friends. Indeed, there was absolutely no way Andy would so much as consider the idea. I was perplexed by this, especially because our respective friends and haunts were so similar – in some cases, the same!

What was the issue?

I tried hard to engage with Andy to understand why he didn’t want to spend time with me and my friends – they are great people, he would be privileged to know them. It seemed that Andy was happy with his friends and didn't feel the need for any more. Alas there was nothing for me to comprehend aside from the sad fact that if it was something that Andy didn’t want to do, then Andy quite simply wouldn’t do it. This wasn't just about Andy meeting my friends but was a theme throughout Andy's life - if he didn't want to do something, he wouldn't and this even included moving out from his parents’ home, seeing the dentist and eating green vegetables.

This stubborn determination of “my way or the highway” made me very sad because there was no compromises at all from Andy. Nothing. Even when I had explained to Andy the importance of him meeting my friends and what it would mean to me; his answer was still “NO”.

Andy had the mindset that “if it isn’t broke why fix it?” yet life just isn’t that simple, there is a rich diversity in different experiences and trying new things. Sadly this wasn’t something that Andy was willing to explore. It really was his way or nothing and Andy’s closed mindset was reflected throughout a vast array of other areas in his life. The reality for my time with Andy was that he wasn’t really interested in dating me at all, it was very clear that he simply just wanted to date himself and to my knowledge he continues to do just that.

*name slightly altered because it wasn’t broke…