maintenance

[ajva]

I have been thinking about being 'low maintenance' or 'high maintenance'. I think they are excellent words to describe what it is they describe. I have recently been told that I am (to paraphrase) 'quite low maintenance'. I am pleased. Obviously I can be rude/outspoken/enraged/moany/aggressive etc. But apparently apart from all this, I am reasonably 'low maintenance'.

So I've been pondering - what exactly *is* low maintenance? Does it correlate with confidence? I think perhaps it does. Most people are probably not extremely high/low maintenance, but somewhere in between. Wibbles, for example, seem to be a major factor in increasing what I will call the Required Maintenance Ratio (RMR). I'm always ready to help out with a wibble, of course, and everybody has them (including me). It's just that I don't actually get them all that often. I'm pretty sure a lot of that comes down to confidence/self-esteem.

Also, average female RMR seems to be higher than average male RMR (there are many individual exceptions of course - variation within populations being greater than variation between populations and all that). Indulging this futile statistic for a second, this could be something to do with periods, of course, or hormonal ups and downs. But I also think that's too simplistic. I think there's a huge element of socialisation. Despite decades of gender equality activism, men are generally very much still expected to 'take care' of people, and women to be 'taken care of'. Also, women express emotion more readily. I think these things contribute to differing average RMR ratios between the sexes, and differing average wibble occurence (AWO).

I remember one occasion where I desperately desperately wanted to wibble but didn't want to make a scene. So I decided that I would delay the revelation of my wibble until the next day, when it wouldn't matter any more. It felt weird, but it achieved its purpose. I have a suspicion that many blokes I know tend to repress their wibbles, whereas many of the women don't.

This train of thought is still developing. Please feel free to comment... ;o)

Comments

[ellbie.livejournal.com]

I remember one occasion where I desperately desperately wanted to wibble but didn't want to make a scene. So I decided that I would delay the revelation of my wibble until the next day, when it wouldn't matter any more.

The trouble with this is that withholding what you want to say so that you can do it a bit later on when you've calmed down can actually be more stressful than saying it when it happens and getting it all out of your system.

For example, I have got into the habit of not having a go at people (especially Nick) until I've calmed down enough to do it in a reasonable manner. Unfortunately, during the time it takes for me to get to this point, it is obvious I'm upset about something and people around (especially Nick) may be desperately trying to figure out what's going on and worried that something catastrophic might happen.

So consequently my struggle to be reasonable ironically makes me higher maintenance than getting it all out through a fit of histrionics at the time would be. Probably.

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, absolutely. The reason the time I'm talking about felt so weird was that I went to huge lengths to make sure nobody noticed how I was feeling. If anybody had noticed then the game would have been up and I would have immediately come clean about how I was feeling. It happened some time ago now and it was a passing feeling of temporary woe at what was very definitely Somebody Else's Event. Obviously it's not always relevant or indeed possible to do that and if there's a problem that needs to be dealt with then that's different - it should be dealt with asap. That's completely constructive. But I'm talking more about those times where wibbling as such is not constructive. I do do it, I know, just not often.

Incidentally, I think your way of Dealing With Stuff seems eminently sensible, FWIW. :o)

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

Yup, this sounds accurate to me.

Part of the reason I'm so high-maintenance (in my own perception anyway) is that I'm no good at putting things away as you are apparently able to. If I need to wibble, I need to wibble now, and nothing short of a miracle will stop me. This is not an ideal state of affairs, but I've been looking for years for a way of avoiding wearing my emotions as my outer shell and tucking them inside out of the way, without success so far (cf. your comment to my whinging post today, for which good sense I thank you)

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Yes, I sympathise with the having-to-wibble thing. The thing that really struck me at the time of the episode I mention happening was how very difficult it was to do. It was an inner conflict: I wanted not to cause a scene but I wanted people to notice how I was feeling and comfort me. It's the one and only time I've managed to put a lid on it completely, so I would hardly say I'm completely in control of my wibble instinct either. ;o)

Also, I was thinking a bit more about one of the highest-maintenance people I know (not on LJ), and a lot of their troubles seem to come from the fact that they have really big wibbles now and then instead of little wibbles often. I think that's the old 'don't bottle things up' thing again. So wibbles are good if they relieve pressure that might eventually explode in whatever the next step up from wibbling is.

I have also decided that I really like the word 'wibble'.

[jhg.livejournal.com]

Well, it's the old dichotomy isn't it?

Do you:

a) Let it out in an at least slightly controlled manner, or

b) Bottle it up until you turn the colour of Alex Ferguson and keel over?


J

my thoughts

[booklectica]

I think you're quite right.

I have been told I'm low maintenance, and I think this is because my wibbles tend to be fairly infrequent, small and easily dealt with, and I usually suggest ways people can help me deal with them.

And I hate making scenes: I believe I have a social obligation to deal with things myself rather than inflicting them on other people at an event. (This can sometimes make me a little unsympathetic about other people publicly making scenes.) If I'm upset, I'll go away and take Simon/Marcus with me for support, and I won't appear in public again till I've composed myself. I have a perhaps middle-class horror of being rude to people or causing an upset.

Paradoxically, I think my being low-maintenance is actually to do with my *lack* of self-confidence, because I'm worried that if I cause people trouble they won't like me any more. It takes a lot for me to get really upset in front of someone who isn't Simon or Marcus. (I'm perfectly secure about them, so they get the unadulterated me.)

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I've been told I'm low-maintenance, and generally I think that's probably right, but I'm also aware that there's a certain phase of a relationship when I can be quite high-maintenance. It comes just after I've realised that this one is Really Important to me, and before I feel secure enough in the relationship for that to be comfortable. Usually it doesn't last very long, but in djm4's case it lasted from a couple of months into the relationship until about a week before the commitment ceremony, poor bugger ;-)

hmm...

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I think I'm low-maintenance, except when I'm not. Sometimes you just need support. I'm more concerned with how requests for support are expressed: if someone at a party say asks quietly to go into a corner and be supported, I'll be fine with that.

If the same person just starts a strop about how they aren't supported, I'm likely to have little sympathy. If it occurs to me that in the second case the person is acting like that because they've been repressing their wibble and finally snapped, then I would try to scrape my support together, but my gut feeling would still be "why didn't you just ask?" I think I just have a very low tolerance for psychodrama of any sort. Not sure whether that's middle-class repression or good civilized behaviour. Both, probably.

I wonder if emotional maintenance needs correlate with physical maintenance needs, where I'm pretty low maintenance. conflux once said "One thing I really love about you is how you can get ready for a black-tie ball in under five minutes". After years of my mother and most of society telling me I'd never get a man (man, of course) if I didn't worry about makeup and ironed clothes and not being too forthright, such sentiments were very good to hear.