Picture this: You walk into a hardware store desperately needing milk for your morning coffee. You search every aisle, growing increasingly frustrated. You ask the clerk, who looks at you like you’ve lost your mind. You storm out, angry at the hardware store for not having what you need. Now you’re angry, disappointed, exhausted.
All this before you’ve had your morning coffee.
Sounds ridiculous, right? Yet this is exactly what we do in our relationships, day after day.
We have all kinds of relationships with many different people over the course of our lives, many of whom are fundamentally different from us. This is one of the most beautiful aspects of the human experience. But we often then spend much of our time and energy frustrated at these people because they don’t stock precisely what we’re looking for. We expect people to respond and behave as we would in any given situation. We create manuals about how people should act and make it mean all kinds of things when they don’t comply.
We want our introverted partner to be the life of the party. We want our logical, analytical spouse to intuitively understand our emotional needs. We want our free-spirited friend to be more organized and punctual.
In essence, we’re looking for milk at the hardware store, then getting bitter when all we find are hammers and nails.
I noticed myself doing this recently. Empathy happens to be one of my natural abilities, just as some people are athletic, brilliant at math, or naturally witty. Empathy is like many attributes: it’s a skill that can be developed, but it’s a lot easier for some than others. Because empathy comes easily to me, I notice that I often unconsciously expect others to navigate emotions with the same intuitive precision that I do. I can be overly sensitive and easily hurt. On my worst days – if I’m not managing my mind well – I can get very judgy about it, telling myself the story that “they don’t care,” which of course means “they don’t care about me.”
My human brain, now triggered, becomes a heat-seeking missile, off in search of evidence that this is true. Cue the highlight reel of every slight, wound, indifference, and insensitivity. What a lovely way to spend an afternoon!
But here’s the thing: expecting everyone to be empathic is like expecting everyone to be six feet tall or have perfect pitch. It’s not a moral failing when someone perceives emotions differently than I do. And my disappointment, my expectation that they’ll be different, or my judgment of them doesn’t help the situation. It just creates distance and layers of dirty pain that makes me feel awful. It’s looking for milk at the hardware store.
We’re all different. That’s kind of the point.
Think about how wonderfully diverse we are as humans. Some people have an innate sense of direction and never get lost. Some have the gift of making anyone laugh, while others can fix anything with an engine. Some people are natural nurturers, others are visionary leaders, and still others are detail-oriented perfectionists who catch mistakes everyone else misses.
Imagine how boring and strange the world would be if we were all identical – if every person had the same strengths, the same blind spots, the same way of processing information and emotions. We’d live in a world of either all hammers or all milk, with no diversity of tools or nourishment.
And yet, on any given Tuesday, we argue with this fundamental fact of human nature. We write detailed manuals, expecting our partners, friends, family members, and colleagues to think, feel, and behave exactly like us. When they don’t, we judge them for it. Then we judge ourselves for judging them, causing so much unnecessary pain.
What if, instead of looking for milk at the hardware store, we appreciated hardware stores for what they actually provide? What if we stopped trying to change people and started seeing their differences as features, not bugs?
Every hardware store is perfectly designed for what it offers. The tools are organized for their purpose, the expertise is specialized, and the inventory serves a specific need. When you need a hammer, there’s no better place to be.
The same is true for people. When you need someone who can make you laugh when you’re down, be grateful for your funny friend – don’t expect them to match your seriousness. When you need someone who can solve complex problems, appreciate your analytical colleague – don’t expect them to be more emotional.
And when you need milk? Well, that’s what grocery stores are for. Or maybe it’s time to cultivate an appreciation for your morning coffee, black.
Of course, it gets more complicated when you’re not just visiting the hardware store – you’re married to it. Stay tuned for my next post, where we’ll explore why we fall for people who are nothing like us — and then spend years trying to change them.
