Intimacy is key in a world of
connection where individuals negotiate complex networks of friendship,
minimize(减少) differences, try to reach
agreement, and avoid the appearance of superiority, which would highlight
differences. In a word of status, independence is key, because a primary means
of establishing status is to tell others what to do, and taking orders is a
marker of low status. Though all humans need both intimacy and independence,
women tend to focus on the first and men on the second. It as if their
lifeblood ran in different directions.
These
differences can give women and men differing views of the same situation, as
they did in the case of a couple I will call Linda and Josh. When Josh’s old
high-school friend called him at work and announced he’d be in town on business
the following month, Josh invited him to stay for the weekend.
That
evening he informed Linda that they were going to have a houseguest, and that
he and his friend would go out together the first night to chat like old times.
Linda was upset. She was going to be away on business the week before, and the Friday
night when Josh would be out with his friend would be her first night home. But
what upset her the most was that Josh had made these plans on his own and
informed her of them, rather than discussing them with her before extending the
invitation.
Linda would never make plans, for a weekend
or an evening, without first checking with Josh. She can’t understand why he
doesn’t show her the same courtesy and consideration that she shows him. But
when she protests, Josh says, “I can’t say to my friend, ‘I have to ask my wife
for permission’!”
To Josh, checking with his wife means seeking
permission, which implies that he is not independent, not free to act on his
own. It would make him feel like a child. To Linda, checking with her husband
has nothing to do with permission. She assumes that spouses discuss their plans
with each other because their lives are interviewed, so the actions of one have
consequences for the other. Not only dose Linda not mind telling someone, “I
have to check with Josh”; quite the contrary--- she likes it. It makes her feel
good to know and show that she in involved with someone, that her life is bound
up with someone else’s.
Linda and Josh both felt more upset by this
incident, and others like it, than seemed warranted(给…以正当理由),
because it cut to the core of their primacy concerns. Linda was hurt because
she sensed a failure of closeness in their relationship: He didn’t care about
her as much as she cared about him. And he was hurt because he felt she wastrying to control him and limit his freedom.