Two friends of mine have recently met new partners and I’m happy for them, but from a combination of brief conversations and looking at Instagram, I concluded that the beginnings of their relationships were better than mine. I cried to my housemate about it.
The beginnings of my current relationship were complicated (it wasn’t an affair, I know it sounds like an affair, but it wasn’t) and it took us a while to settle into it. I’m watching my friends have what I perceive to be smoother, better and therefore more promising beginnings than mine. I’m comparing myself to them and judging my own relationship accordingly.
I felt ashamed of my comparison. Why does it matter how we came to be, when what matters it’s what’s happening now? I think as a storyteller, I particularly struggle with a messy beginning. It was also mad that after a long time of being single and looking for love, I was now upset about how those things I wanted came to be.
Self-help teaches us to not compare ourselves to others and to live our authentic lives and to know that we’re all on our own journeys. However, the reality is, we’re constantly wrestling with working out WTF it means to live an authentic life while trying to decipher if our desires are real or if we’re just responding to societal pressures. We feel shame if we break away from what society tells us what we want and similarly shame for seeking conventional societal paths. It’s all very confusing and so we compare ourselves to those around us as we work it out.
We’re also told to use envy as a driver, but as I was comparing to the past, what could I do with that information apart from shout at my boyfriend? (that did happen). Envy was useless here. This was comparison at its most shameful and pointlessness.
I’m not fully spiritual, but I do believe that teachers and lessons find their way to you at the right time and I was happening to be listening to Brené Brown on Dr Laurie Santos’ podcast and Brené said that to compare is to be human. I breathed out a sigh of relief. We are creatures of comparison and that’s just how it is. I felt relieved of my obligation to pretend I wasn’t comparing myself to others.
When I wrote about professional jealousy, I experienced the same thing. First, shame then freedom from acknowledging (and writing about it). And the comparison shame isn’t unfounded, people tweeted that how could I, when I had a book deal, be experiencing professional jealousy? I’ve also been accused of moaning and complaining by people on the internet when talking about relationship struggles and perhaps you’re reading this with a twinge of irritation.
But when we speak our shame, it takes away its power. So while I’m not proud of my professional jealousy or my comparing thoughts and tears about relationships beginnings, by admitting it, I’m released from its power over me. By acknowledging that comparison is human nature, I can move on from seeing my own comparison traits as an issue. We know that when we push feelings down, they grow in size and the same is true of comparison.
If we welcome our comparison, we can shift from a state of shame, to a state of awareness. I can ask myself why I am so upset about different relationship trajectories? The beginning of my relationship is something that I’m insecure about and when I hear more ‘normal’ stories, it’s like it pushes a little sore spot inside of me. It also shakes my ego - my ego expects another person to instantly appreciate my brilliance when I know it takes time to truly know a person. I don’t like to feel insecure, dependent or any of those feelings that come up for me in the early stages of a relationship. That discomfort with those feelings manifests in me comparing my friends holiday with her boyfriend or timing of ‘are we exclusive’ chats to my own.
Comparison is everywhere. So many of us illustrate our problems by talking in the language of comparison to those who are around us. Whether it’s money, property, jobs, salaries, relationships, babies or professional achievements, we are doing it all the time and comparison is not something to be cured, but to be managed.
We must stay in our lane and focus on ourselves, however pretending we don’t compare only slows us down. The other funny thing about comparison is that we often compare up and not down. We look to the friend with a nicer house than us to form a judgment about our own situation rather than the friend who’s renting in a flatshare. But that, again, is human nature and perhaps accepting humanity’s flaws as a whole and chuckling at the ridiculousness of us all is the self-help we need right now.
With love,
Tiff xx
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