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

[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