Co-Dependent vs. Ultra-Independent

A couple of days ago I was walking through Lakeview Cemetery listening to the comedian Rhea Butcher on Nicole Byer's podcast Why Won't You Date Me? and something clicked on in my brain.  Rhea was telling Nicole the story about how she met her current partner: a mutual friend invited them both to dinner, they ended up sitting next to each other, and it was a clear path to love straightaway from there.  Nicole, who is in her 30's, shares often on her podcast that she's never had a "real" romantic relationship -- partnership.  As you might guess by her podcast's title, she's questing to understand why relationships are so challenging for her.  She's fun and outgoing and minces no words about her love of sex.  But I could hear the confusion radiating out of her when Rhea casually recounted her how-I-met-my-partner story.  Like, it was that easy?  You sat next to each other and, boom, it all worked out?  Why doesn't that happen for me?  Why won't they date me?

Nicole, I wondered the same thing.

There was something about Rhea's story, how effortless she was in the telling of it, like, shrug, we fell in love, what's for dinner?  Was it because she was so chill about it that it just happened?  Was it right place/right time?  What made it so easy for her to find this new partner after going through a fairly public breakup with her ex?  

And, by the transitional property, why is what is so easy for this person an insurmountable impossibility for me?

As Rhea and Nicole continued to talk, my mind lingered a bit on this question and something occurred to me: it's about coping mechanisms.  It's about how we learned to be in the world.  I followed this train of thought to the people that I know and how there are really two kinds: those who are always in relationships and those who never (or rarely) are.  And you know what?  It honestly makes sense.  People who are always in relationships have built their understanding of life and survival on the team sport model while those of us who are never (or rarely) in relationships have done the opposite.  I depend on me -- I do standup on the stage alone, not play improv games with the group.  I bring the funny.  Not we bring the funny.  See?

I'd never really thought about it in this way before -- that it wasn't merely a matter of how awesome the Nicole Byers off the world are -- it's that she's been single for so long, has figured out how to be on her own, pay her bills, figure out her life, get from here to there without the reliance on a partner -- that it's not in her coping protocol to factor in a partner.  That doesn't mean it could never happen, but it does mean that she will likely have to change a lot of her thought processes in order to have space for people in her life.  That, probably, it's not why won't you date me but why won't I date them.  Even if she thinks it's what she wants, there are likely aspects of her approach that emphasize her independence, her ability to survive solo, and that, in turn, confuses or even intimidates men who are used to being "the hero."

But, look, it's not fair for me to assume this about Nicole.  I listen to her podcast, I've seen her on television shows, I feel like I know her because she's everywhere, being hilarious and awesome and excelling at vulnerability -- but I don't know her.  I do know me, though, so let me shift my focus there.

Hi.  I'm Sarah.  I'm ultra-independent.

Folks who are ultra-independent likely have some kind of trust issue that makes them severely self-reliant, so it's much harder for those "on the outside" to get in.  I relate to that.  I am pretty open to being friends with people and have no issue getting close to people in that way, but when it comes to partnership, I am so advancedly prepared that they will leave me that my brain runs "is it worth it" scans at much more sophisticated rates than perhaps the average person.  I definitely don't let just anyone in -- not even with my friends, but especially not with someone I would consider worthy of partnership.  And I would absolutely agree with any of you who are muttering that it's because I was raised to believe I was worthless -- and everyone knows it -- so I constantly battle against those decades of abuse.  But the trump card, too, is that all I remember about my father is him loving our family so much -- and then he got cancer and died.  So even if the partner is willing, permanence isn't guaranteed.  

There are so many different ways to be abandoned in this life, when you really break it down.

And I've experience a lot of them.

So is it any wonder that I am expertly alone?  Is it any wonder that I fail to connect on that level, even when it's what I think I want?  I have spent my entire life as a solo act -- learning to skate in pairs is a completely different skillset.  

I cope alone.

So, yeah, I'm single forever.

Cute.

When I think of my friends who are serial monogamists or who go from relationship-to-relationship in whatever overlapping fashion that might be -- the people who can juggle multiple partners at once or who are living with one partner for multiple years, break up with them, and then within months are living with someone else...  To be honest, for a long time, I thought those people were super unhealthy.  That they couldn't stand the chatter in their brain or they didn't want to deal with their feelings -- and perhaps that is true to some degree -- but now I'm starting to wonder if it's merely how they know how to get through life.  They sing the harmonies -- they need someone on melodies -- they can't do both.  The way they know how to cope with life is in tandem, not solo.  Again, different skillsets.  There are things that I have figured out how to do on my own that I've seen stump my serial-relationship pals.  But it's a framework, not a lack of competence.  And while co-dependence can be unhealthy (especially when abuse or toxicity is part of that equation), partnership is arguably the more human avenue.  We are social creatures, after all.  We rely on each other for comfort and inspiration and shared experience.  We are a collective.  It should be as easy as I sat next to so-and-so at a random dinner and now we're in love forever.

But for people like me, that goes against everything I understand about humanity.  They always leave.  And then I feel inadequate.  But maybe, just maybe, it's how I cope.  I cope alone.  I rely on me.  I teach myself how to fix shit or get through tough situations.  Other people are busy, I'm not their priority, and so I do it myself.  And after forty years of it, that muscle is strong.  What gym do I go to in order to re-train my body and mind to be strong in a different way?  What kind of reconstruction is involved in shifting away from ultra-independence and adapting to a more partner-based outcome?

It's a whole other way of living.  Completely different.  I don't know how to cope in partnership.  And no one's been patient enough to teach me.  Maybe, just maybe, that's why these dudes always get scurrrred and run away to a blander option.  She learned the steps to do the dance.  I sort of bob along to the music in my own way.  It's not that she's better than me -- she's just more adept at partnering.  

I am thinking, too, of a couple I know (actually, this could apply to several couples I know) who barely seem to like each other or have any chemistry or appear even marginally in love, but I 100% know they will never break up.  It's never even occurred to them to break up.  Because not only are they comfortable in this matter, they have adapted all of their survival know-how to the confines of this partnership.  Even if it's not ideal, it defines their normal.  It's how they cope.  

Maybe, just maybe, I'm onto something...

Yesterday, I was listening to an interview where a community-based organizer was sharing her story with a student.  At one point, the woman was saying -- with a great deal of pride -- how important her work in her neighborhood was to her.  How folks could call her, day or night, and she'd show up for them.  You could hear it radiate from her voice how much this meant to her.  And then the interviewer asked, "How does the community support you?" and before the words were fully out of his mouth, the woman snapped, "They don't."  She went on to say that they never asked her what she needed or showed up for her when she was in a tight spot.  Whether or not she made them aware of her difficulties wasn't discussed, but the sentiment resonated deeply with me.  I am a person who shows up.  I support, I encourage, I rally around, I get others to show up, I participate.  I go ten extra miles sometimes -- way above and beyond.  But then I also feel that not being reciprocated.  That I don't get people doing for me what I have done for them and it frustrates me.  

But this, too, is true: I want that support but I don't ask for it.  And I sometimes actively skitter away from it.  It makes me uncomfortable when people show up for me -- it makes me think I now owe them ten times over and that maybe I haven't been there for them enough.  Real example: I sometimes get so frustrated being the one who constantly has to make the first move.  Like, I have to text them or email them or suggest we hang out.  I will grumble to myself that I am over it -- I'm not always responsible for initiating every interaction -- and I make the determination that I, in fact, will not reach out to Person X.

Then eventually Person X reaches out and I immediately feel guilty that I didn't reach out first, that maybe they don't think I care about them or think about them, and how I should have been the one to suggest we Zoom soon or whatever.

That's crazy-talk.  I shouldn't react that way -- and what I mean by that is there is no valid reason for me to feel that way -- but feelings are feelings.  And the other layered truth about folks who are ultra-independent is we often coddle others.  We nurture them like they're our baby birds.  We mom them -- which creates this unbalanced power dynamic where we give but won't receive.  It is our job to care for you, not vice versa.

I won't let you down.  But you?  I can't be so sure.  So let me cut off reciprocity current.  Let me build a dam.  It's a literal wall -- it's for safety and conservation.  And almost always this type of relationship happens when the other party involved is in Camp Co-Dependence.  They are used to being cared for so they don't necessarily pick up on what might be odd about the arrangement -- and they probably have a partner at home to snuggle with and practice reciprocity in ways that Ultra-Independents like myself can't even imagine.  

We have learned different routes for personal survival.  That's what it boils down to.

For months now I've been thinking on this idea of reciprocity and allowing for more of it in my life.  That's a skill I am working on.  It's tough to do when I am alone so much because of, as Nicole would call it, the "pandemmy," but intention is the foundation of change.  I think about reciprocity in my relationships and am working on being less of a mama-bird and dismantling those protective barriers.  It's tough when I've been through so much heartbreak and loss -- when my experience keeps teaching me that I'm "right" to stay bound up in ultra-independence.  

Only people who've never been alone or never been dumped tell you that you have to "put yourself out there" and "get back on the horse" or whatever.  

Like, sometimes it takes lived experience to understand why opening your gigantic golf umbrella on a crowded city sidewalk makes you oblivious while people who have been jabbed in the eyes by those massive things get by with merely throwing up the hood of their raincoat and shoving their hands in their pockets, not even a pocket-sized umbrella here.  You've learned the hard -- and soggy -- way, anyway, that umbrellas don't do anything when the rain is really coming down.

Now I have the framework that allows me think about how that is simply their coping mechanism.  This partner was a bust?  No problem. Just get another one.  For some people, that is their normal way of functioning -- partnership.  But y'all have to understand -- for folks like me who have been not only dumped but publicly executed in graphic and horrific ways, you sound crazy when you tell me to "put myself out there."  DID YOU NOT SEE WHAT HAPPENED THE LAST FIVE TIMES I DID THAT?  You fully don't get it.

This is one of those social binaries I don't think we talk about enough: the co-dependents vs the ultra-independents.  Because I am thinking about my friends and can't immediately conjure someone who is in neither camp.  Can you?  Maybe I'm blinded by my binary thinking.  Please clap me back to reality if I have gone astray.  And even within these categories are blatant patterns.  I watch some friends have the same terrible relationship over and over again. Constantly with new people, maybe, but they are the same people.  It makes me think of something Dax Shepherd shared on Brene Brown's podcast a few months ago.  He was talking about how he'd vent to his mom about how he was going to dump whatever girlfriend and his mom would cleverly reply, "Yes, great idea, break up with her.  You can just keep having this issue in the next relationship."

BOOM.

He said his mom encouraged him to engage that current partner in a dialogue about whatever the issue was, if for no other reason than to practice talking about it or thinking about it.  What he learned was that sometimes it really was him, not them.  That he was continuing a pattern or a cycle with partner after partner.  He just couldn't see it until his mom made that cheeky comment.

The fact that Dax is now in a well-balanced marriage perhaps is a credit to his mom's quick wit and solid advice.

"They" always say that love can come into our lives at any moment, often when we least expect it.  Maybe even at a random dinner with friends where the stranger seated next to you proves to be the person of your dreams.  I can neither confirm nor deny that sentiment, but I can say that it's never, ever, not one time been "easy" for the Nicole Byers and me of this world.  

Maybe that's because I've trained my whole life to be a long-distance swimmer while everyone else runs marathons.

I've got metaphors for days on this binary, y'all.

Sometimes guests on Nicole's podcast ask her what she's going to do when she gets a partner -- will her show still be called Why Won't You Date Me?  What will happen to that catchy theme song?  Nicole always says that none of that will change -- she'll just talk about her relationship and how it's going and whatnot.  But I could readily argue that she's creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by making her single status her brand.  Hey, it takes one to know one, amiright?  But I am still rooting for Nicole to find satisfaction in her life, be it through partnership or merely the pursuit of better understanding herself.  Hey, maybe she'll get both -- she deserves it.  We all do.  

That said, I know I've got my homework assignment -- what about you?  The good news is there's no hard-set due date.  The more complex news is that doing the work might stir up some shit.  So think on it with some degree of self-compassion and fair-warning caution.  When you start to see things, you can't often un-see them.  Stick with it, though.  Plant the seeds and see what they grow.  Binaries are meant to be broken.  We know few things are precisely white or black.  Toning our bodies and our minds in all-around fashion makes us all stronger and better able to look after ourselves and each other.  I'll endeavor to meet you in the middle -- but I won't race ya.  This is one of those things to be explored at an individualized pace.  See you along the way, though, I hope.  There's so much to be gained by truly understanding what it is we do to get by.

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Adapted from an essay written for the Anything Goes in 2021 daily writing project.  More info here.

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