We all daydream right? We daydream about the present, the future and sometimes we even daydream about how the past could have played out differently. But have you ever taken a daydream too far? Almost to the point of making it an expectation?

For example, what about when we start interacting with someone new? If things click then we get this race of daydreams running through our head about who this person has the potential to be, potential memories that we’re going to make, and just all of the potential things you could imagine. Now, these daydreams of potential almost become this standard that we want the person and the friendship/ relationship to live up to. It’s like we create a role for this person in our life before they even apply to be cast.

The past couple of days this is something that I have been thinking about a lot because welll, i realized that it’s something i have a habit of doing lol. With everyone lol. winery dude actually called me out on it because he noticed that I was giving people these semi-permanent roles, especially boys, whenever I would meet someone new. I’d be like “yea he’s a summer romance type guy,nothing more” or “she’s gonna be the friend for the city life”. 

Him pointing that out just woke me up to seeing that I did that very often. But howcome?

I was talking this out with a close friend who relates to this with me. 

We fear that most guys expect us, as women, to have materialistic expectations but we’re just not like that. Although instead, We created this other unspoken type of expectation that may not have been toxic for the wallet but was toxic for the mind.

This is something she and I would do subconsciously as if we were trying not to get our hopes up about people lasting long in our lives. Like it was some defense mechanism so when it ends we’d come to peace easier because we basically wrote the story ourselves. In reality we were just suppressing all real emotions and putting up a wall that blocked us from seeing who each person really is. 

On my run the other morning I thought about it more and also came to this. And tell me if this is you too:

Different people pull back different layers of us based on the way that we connect. And, aren’t we curious about each layer that we detain? So the role that I would create for someone is more of a daydream that I would make happen. This way I could live out this other version of myself. So it’s actually more of a me thing sometimes, wanting to be someone different/new and fulfilling the day dream with the person that’s fit the part. 

This is something new that I am working on [not doing anymore] for the past two weeks. with old friends and new friends (well at least with what quarantine allows). I am teaching myself to slow down when I meet people. I am allowing myself to learn them for who they truly are rather than just how compatible we might be. This allows for them to create the role that they want to play in my life with no unspoken expectations (slow and steady and REAL). I think that this is going to fulfill me much more. It’s going to make me happier with my relationships and add more value to them. I think that this is going to teach me how to connect with others in a healthier way to feel more emotions that I subconsciously had a wall up to.

What about you?