Why Differences Don’t Need to Create Problems in Your Relationships

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Here’s a conversation we had the other night about why differences aren’t a problem for us. They don’t need to be a problem for you, either.

PHIL: Let me try and describe the nature of our relationship. I look at you and your many active friendships which happen daily or weekly, and the equivalent for me is much smaller. Which is not to say that I feel I’m missing anything, but it does make me wonder if I have contracted myself into a corner and not noticed. But at the same time, I really, really value my solitude. It is how I regenerate. That comes about from being with myself and in that way, reowning myself.

I look at your constancy and the constant affection you show to me, which is far more than I feel I give in return, and that makes me go Wow! Aren’t I lucky to be chosen. But then I can also look at myself and see some things that, in my opinion, I handle better than you, so there’s a – I don’t want to say balance, because that implies comparisons of worth.

Instead, I see them as just differences that I am grateful for. I look at my failings compared to yours more than I look at the things I am good at, and by looking at that half of the equation, I remain grateful. It’s another way of saying glass half full. It’s an optimism thing; my world consists of what I look at.

MAUDE: All of those things that you brought up are about making comparisons. You used words like “far more,” “handle it better,” and “failings.” You didn’t say anything negative. You said something you know very well, which got you to ultimately look on the sunny side. We are different because I don’t work through comparison, but you used those comparisons to get to the same place I would go to. You know what I’m saying? We are different, but the thing is, we wind up getting to the same place regardless of how we go there.

PHIL: That’s an inspiring and humbling observation, and something I hadn’t noticed until you brought it more into the open. But our relationship doesn’t hinge on that kind of comparison.

MAUDE: If it’s not measuring and evaluating, if it’s merely seeing, that’s so different, and I really love that.

PHIL: Right, it’s an apples and oranges thing.

MAUDE: And then you have a bunch of fruit instead of just one piece of fruit.

PHIL: I like that one. I think you’ve put it very well here that different is different. It’s an apples and oranges thing. You don’t have a price you put on each attribute and add them up.

MAUDE: The thing is, though, we go about things differently, but we always wind up in the same place. This is a very subtle thing to describe, but it is very primary.

PHIL: When you’re not doing that kind of comparison, the relationship takes on a different quality where you can experience the togetherness. If you’re doing a comparison thing, it’s you versus the other person; you’re looking at the separateness, and inevitably, you feel separate from the other person, but if instead you look at the togetherness, you have the experience of being with another person. I think this is a hard thing for most people, including me, to do, because it involves a partial ego loss. The results make the effort more than worthwhile.

Photo credit: Maude Mayes
Photo note: On a walk in Santa Barbara

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