According to my dad, my middle name is "Maria" because I seem to have an overt fondness for cleaning....(I apologize to all the Marias out there who are victims of this stereotyping of their names..)
I recently took a quiz on facebook about which “FRIENDS” character I should be. I fully expected the results to say “MONICA” given that I have the following characteristics:
-Hyper-Competitiveness
-Clean Freak Factor (borderline OCD)
-Loud, Bossy, Domineering
-Loves to Cook
-Opinionated
Unfortunately, the results said I was “RACHEL” a.k.a “very selfish”.
I was quite upset by it, to be honest. On hindsight, I suppose remnants of the spoilt princess I used to be still reside in me.
Since I was publicly yelled at by two of my brother’s friends in front of the University Library during my first semester in freshman year, I have been consciously trying to leave my “RACHEL” characteristics behind and try to be a better person. Morphing into a “MONICA” may not be the best thing but there are characteristics of “MONICA” that have evolved because like the TV character, I still feel very much the (much) fat(ter) girl I was in childhood and my resulting self-esteem issues make me still look (desperately) for affirmation and for others to love and accept me.
On some level, the need to transform myself stems from an innate need to over-compensate for my past bad behavior. On other levels, it is within my fundamental character to be a perfectionist. I am my worst enemy; there is no bigger critic of myself than myself. Often, I beat myself up for things that others do not really put much stock in. My bid to be the best that I can be has hindered my self-esteem but that is just who I am. It’s a long and hard journey in building my confidence and there are days that I still struggle but with the love and the support of (the right) friends, I am learning to accept who I am and learn to love myself.
I used to think that to be the ultimate domestic goddess was enough to make one a perfect wife. In addition to cooking and sewing, I used to keep a sparkling house and even extended my OCD freak-factor into cleaning my friends’ places for them, even if they had not asked me to. I am sure they were happy but I’ve also learnt that men do not appreciate what they have been handed so easily on a platter. If I thought doing the “girlfriend/wife” thing of cleaning a guy’s house was showing him that I would make him a good partner, I was deluded. The only thing that ever came out of it was to show him just how good a doormat I was. Do not get me wrong, I actually enjoy cleaning. I clean when I am stressed, when I am angry, when I am depressed, when I have been out having a big night drinking, when I am bored, when I am happy….I just love to clean.
I am sorry for using such a bad analogy, but I read a novel by Julia Llewellyn called THE LOVE TRAINER that talked about how men were like puppies; you have to train them to teach them how to behave. I would not go to the extreme of comparing the entire male species to dogs (even though some of the guys I know do deserve the title of being a real dog). I will say that you teach others how to treat you. I would honestly say that me cleaning up after the guys may be borne of the best intentions but they do not necessarily translate to the desired results.
If you are looking for a partner, do not give him the idea that you are a “maid” or his mother. If you are cooking, cleaning and sewing for him despite the lack of commitment or relationship between the both of you, then, you are sending the wrong signals. A man is not going to work harder for someone who is making it so obvious that he has you at his beck and call, without him having to put in any extra effort or changing the status quo.
This is the sad and harsh truth that I have learnt. This is why nice girls finish last. Nice girls treat the boys they love with so much care that even if it was an unrequited love, they do not draw boundaries. It is not healthy and it is not helping your situation. To be honest, I still have a large proportion of “doormat” in me but I am learning to set boundaries and not always be “too nice” from the start. I am learning that the other party has to reciprocate or show that they are worthy of the effort.
My seven-year journey to Divine Domestication…I started out with some good intentions: I believed that to be a good wife, one had to be a domestic goddess. How wrong I was…It is not enough to be able to cook, clean and sew. On paper, it sounds like a perfect wife, if we still lived in historic times where a wife was basically a chattel.
Through the ups and downs that make up human relationships, I have learnt that timing, situation, context is important. Relationships are hard. Being perfect on paper is not enough; even love itself is not enough to make a relationship work. It all depends on the right timing, circumstances and mutual feelings. When I look at some of my friends and the dramas they have with their relationships, I wonder if it is really worth it at all: I wonder if I am better off being single.
But that is the beauty of it…You do not cherish what you do not have to fight for. If love is worth fighting for; then all the struggling you go through and the heart-ache and the pain is worth it all in the end.
Ultimately, divine domestication may serve to help make married and family life easier for me in the future, but it is not the “be all, end all” of a perfect marriage or relationship. The right man will come along for me some day and he will love me for me: stripped of all my external fripperies and “competitive advantages”; just simply me.
1 comment:
I would have to venture a guess and say that a lot of people in the modern age would actually be quite suspicious of something that seemed "perfect". Especially in an age where you have to be cynical to be able to sort through all the various strings attached offers that are given out by companies on a daily basis. Add to this the amount of people who will be extra nice in order to use you as a stepping stone in their future plans.
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