Page 32 - MidWeek - Dec 8, 2021

32 MIDWEEK DECEMBER 8, 2021
A t a dinner, a wom- an asked how my husband and I met. He says he spotted me in the campus dining hall, deliber- ately bumped me and spilled my drink on my tray, and used getting me a refill to ask me out. This never happened. (We met in class, and he asked me out.) What does it mean that he has such faulty recall about the entire origin of our marriage? – Disturbed
There is such a thing as “total recall,” and it’s what automak- ers rush to do after they sell a car that is not only self-driving but also self-destructing: drop- ping parts like breadcrumbs as it tools down the highway.
Memory-challenged Hubby Is An Easy Rewriter
alone time. The guy I’m see- ing not only wants to be to- gether constantly but seems to need that. The first time I said I couldn’t get togeth- er, he was annoyed. He now complains I’ m “dependent on” my friends, meaning unhealthily. I don’t want to hurt him, but I won’t give up my friends or myself for a re- lationship, and I don’t know how to tell him. – Conflicted
Dating sites work very hard to be inclusive in the type-of- partner options they list — “man seeking woman,” “man seeking man,” and even “man seeking genderbeige” — yet they omit a checkbox for “man seeking hostage.”
What total recall is not is a feature of the human mind, despite the widely believed myth that memory is a form of mental videotape: faithfully preserving our experiences for playback. Ideal as this would be for spouses with prosecuto- rial tendencies, our minds are, in fact, hotbeds of fragmented, distorted, partial recall.
press (so social situations feel less like reenactments of being picked last for dodgeball).
That appears to be the mod- el for your man’s ideal rela- tionship (as an adult who gets “upset and anxious” on nights his boo’s away). It makes him a poor match for any woman whose relationship goals are best summed up as: together- ness, yes; conjoined, no.
behavioral mandate. You can shift out of auto-“pleaser” mode by pre-planning to as- sert yourself — “Here’s what I need!” — and then doing it, no matter how uncomfortable it feels at first. The more you do it, the more natural it’ll feel, till your default position becomes standing up for yourself instead of rolling over for anyone.
We create this mess our- selves, simply by remember- ing, and remembering again. “Using one’s memory shapes one’s memory,” explains psy- chologist Robert Bjork. Basi- cally, the more we tell a story, the more we believe it — along with all the embellishments (aka big fat lies) we added to funny it up and otherwise im-
Consider that your hus- band’s memory might not be the only one that’s been, um, redecorated. Also consider that we tend to “remember” events in self-serving ways. Any guy can ask a girl out after class, but in your husband’s version, he goes on a mini-quest to get a date with you. Not exactly the stuff Sir Lancelot was made of, but modern men must make do with the heroics available to them: “I won her love — after a bloody battle with a cafeteria tray and a glass of 2% milk!”
I hang with friends about twice weekly and also like my
As a woman, you’re likely on the high end of the spectrum of a personality trait called “agreeableness.” On a posi- tive note, this plays out in be- ing “kind, considerate, likable, cooperative, (and) helpful,” reports psychologist William Graziano. On a less positive note, it often leads to prioritiz- ing these lovely behaviors over one’s own needs.
Guesstimate how much weekly togetherness and apart- ness works for you, and make it clear to men you date, starting by informing your current guy that your social world will con- tinue to extend beyond being his human binky. In short, the sort of relationship that works for you is one in which you’re bonded but not zip-tied.
A personality trait is not a
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