Wait a minute!
When it comes to multiple relationships such as in Poly- and Oligoamory, there is a phenomenon that we are confronted with surprisingly regularly: Waiting. Waiting, for example, for our loved ones (regardless of whether they are currently travelling to us or, as usual, three people are in each other’s way in a far too narrow cloakroom corridor when we set off…), having to wait and see how our relationships with each other will develop and hopefully strengthen – but of course also often: waiting to discover whether a multiple relationship situation will ever occur in our lives.
A few years ago, on the subject of the podcast “Zeitfragen” on Deutschlandfunk Kultur, the authors Andrea and Justin Westhoff have created a contribution¹ in which they address many relevant aspects of waiting and show how the associated patience, endurance and perseverance have very different sociological and psychological dimensions. Among others, they quoted the sociologist Dr Andreas Göttlich from the University of Constance, who explained in detail: »Waiting is an “experience of time” – and of course depends on external circumstances, on how and what you are waiting for. In general, we can say that it is a phenomenon or a form of behaviour that is rarely actually value-neutral. So waiting is often emotionally charged, and “hoping” and “fearing” describe just such emotional charges of waiting, which of course depends on how we subsequently evaluate the expected.«
With regard to multiple relationships, I consider the keyword “the expected” to be particularly worth mentioning here. After all, in interpersonal contexts involving poly- and oligoamorous relationships, people now often talk at length about those famous individual needs for which entering into several relationships with different people could possibly help to hopefully fulfil them better. This narrative is heard and read so regularly in multiple relationship settings that it has long since become a regular “expectation” in itself being embedded in the overall approach.
And “expectation” is actually a rather amusing objective, as we humans are trying to actively gain the upper hand over a circumstance to which we are in reality passively at the mercy of. “Expecting”, that almost sounds like “executing” – to realise a longed-for state that we strive for by waiting, that we want to make sure to bring it about in this way…
The problem? We all know it: when people don’t fulfil our expectations, it’s almost the worst thing they can do to our minds, because high personal expectations almost inevitably lead to the experience of frustration, which I already define in Entry 22 with the help of the Brockhaus dictionary as an “experience of (actual or perceived) disadvantage or denial that arises as an emotional reaction to an unfulfilled or unrealisable expectation (disappointment), e.g. as a result of the failure of a personal plan or the partial or complete lack of satisfaction of primary and secondary needs.”
In this day and age, and especially in Western industrialised nations, this is mostly due to the fact that we have difficulties with the passivity of waiting, which is often perceived as being externally imposed. After all, we live in a society in which individuality, independence and autonomy are strongly emphasised characteristics, almost internalised basic values. Thus, “having to wait” – even for our loved ones – is something that we quickly perceive as a power imbalance to our own disadvantage. This is a delicate circumstance for multiple relationships, because nowadays we mainly experience “having to wait” in public spaces where hierarchies exist, for example: At work, at government offices – or when it comes to specialised personnel (e.g. in healthcare or the employment of skilled craftsmen). And – on the other hand – no matter how equal we would like our personal relationships to be: They will probably never be completely free of delays and waiting.
However, when we engage in romantic relationships – and possibly even in more than one – there may well be times when “waiting for each other” does not necessarily have to do with mere impatience or even power issues. Sometimes it’s simply the case that you don’t know what’s coming and you can’t influence it – and then you start to worry as a result of the fear of the unknown; a state that the psychologist Kate Sweeny, professor at the University of California in Riverside, has even termed “toxic waiting” ².
The extent to which each of us suffers from such situations – or copes with them with a relatively pronounced composure – depends on our individual “waiting ability” to varying degrees.
The most famous experiment is probably the world-renowned psychological “marshmallow experiment“, which the US personality psychologist Walter Mischel conducted in many variations with preschool children at Stanford University in California between 1968 and 1974. Mischel actually wanted to research free will, and impulse control via ”reward deferral” seemed to him to be a good measuring instrument for this. In fact, it became a multi-layered waiting experiment, because it not only recorded the time that each individual child was able to resist the temptation – alone in a room with a marshmallow (!) – but also documented their waiting strategies. The children were also promised that they would receive an additional marshmallow if they waited successfully, thus doubling their reward. The little ones were left alone with the coveted sweet treat for a maximum of 15 minutes and were kept under (covered) observation: One in four ate the sweet immediately, 30 per cent managed the full time. Each of them tried to distract themselves somehow; some ran around, some tried to cheat.
What was more fascinating, however, were the results of follow-up observations of the successful test subjects decades later: those who waited patiently proved to be more stress-resistant overall in their later lives and, above all, showed greater social skills.
In 2014, sociologist Bettina Lamm from the Lower Saxony Institute for Early Childhood Education and Development at the University of Osnabrück repeated the experiment with children from Germany and a comparison group of children from Cameroon, in which she confirmed Mischel’s result of 30% “test winners” for Germany – whereas the Cameroonians, however, scored a sensational 70% of “patient” children. How did this come about?
The German children reacted in a predominantly “normal-squirrelly” way while waiting – just like we adults probably would. The children from Cameroon, on the other hand, all started with an additional social restriction: Due to their adult peers, they were used to the fact that promises were usually not kept. Therefore, they should have internalised that “it’s not worth waiting (anyway)”. However, when they were shown the second marshmallow before the test, the aforementioned high percentage waited patiently, playing, singing or chattering until the test was over, promising success.
Evaluations showed that the small gesture of “previous marshmallow showing” had obviously demonstrated enormous reliability on the part of the experimenters, to which the children responded with a high level of pre-confidence.
Socially speaking, this is actually an impressive promise of commitment: Look, I am prepared/ready and willing to contribute to your needs in a moment. If I am worth your time, we both gain something.
Interestingly, Bettina Lamm was thus able to underpin Walter Mischel’s findings on stress resilience and social competence with a further level, which in my view also establishes an important correlation for multiple relationships: In a way, “being able to wait” is already a preliminary stage of trust towards our attachment figures and loved ones!
In the words of Bettina Lamm:
»If you think about it, this ability to postpone a momentary need and resist the temptation to work on longer-term goals is definitely a skill that you need at many points in your life. When it comes to studying for an exam instead of pursuing a leisure activity or perhaps encountering problems in a relationship: dealing with them and not immediately breaking out of the situation. That means it’s definitely plausible.«
Personally, especially for romantic contexts, I would even go one step further based on this result.
In its passive quality, ’waiting‘ also has something to do with ’serving‘, which – for example – we can still recognise in the English language when using the words “waiter” or “waitress”.
And for me, this represents the beneficial counterpart to the somewhat active-aggressive ‘expectation’ mentioned at the beginning: When we “serve” a cause, we make ourselves a little smaller, become a little more dedicated, more receptive and softer than before. Yes, this also echoes the aforementioned hierarchy (which used to be a very real one when in the old days servants “waited tables”). In this case, however, it is a freely and willingly performed “service” for our loved ones, just as I already explained in Entry 34 that, in my view, »the core of the “romantic narrative” is the voluntary self-sacrifice performed for the community.«
And since “waiting” is about personally invested (life) time, this brings me full circle to the fact that the invested waiting time is a trusting gift in return for the demonstrated reliability, constancy and commitment of our other relationship partners.
The absolutely decisive key here is precisely the applied amount of free will that even Walter Mischel originally wanted to reveal with his “marshmallow experiment”.
Incidentally, Dr Andreas Göttlich from the University of Konstanz calls this the “gift exchange”, an important form of interpersonal synchronisation and therefore a social ability with an extremely positive dimension: »This is the only way to build trust, because if I immediately reciprocate every gift that is given to me, then there is actually no social bond. In this respect, it would be an example for a kind of social relationship that can only last if a certain amount of time is involved and if the people who are engaged in this social action can also wait, otherwise it is not a gift, but simply a transaction.«
This alone is certainly worth considering because, unfortunately, in the early stages of polyamorous relationships, events frequently occur too quickly or in too rapid succession, which often puts undue strain on the potential long-term development of trusting relationships – to the detriment of all parties involved.
Thus the German aphorist Georg-Wilhem Exler once stated quite appropriately that “waiting means that what you are waiting for is more important than what is now.”
In these words I recognise a lot of precisely the oligoamorous added value that I always refer to on this bLog as “more than the sum of its parts” – and which I describe in Entry 9 as the concentrate of a joint emotional contract, the “Implied acknowledgement and agreement – as a result of a mutually established emotional close-knit relationship – regarding the totality of voluntary yielded obligations, self-commitments and care which have been reciprocally contributed and are potentially enjoyable by all parties involved.”
After all, these “voluntary yielded oligations, self- commitments and care” are not something that you can put straight into your shopping trolley and consume immediately, as if you were buying them from a supermarket shelf. They are more like seeds and sprouts for a vegetable patch that need to be tended, nurtured, watered and regularly cleared of weeds by everyone involved so that the result ultimately provides sufficient nourishment for all those involved. Until that point is reached, we have to wait time and again, investing mutually and devotedly our time, thereby trusting (in advance) that there will literally be a fruitful, shared reward.
This is precisely what makes the ambivalent virtues of patience and the ability to wait so valuable for a polycule, especially when it comes to several participants gradually gaining confidence in a new, previously unfamiliar situation with each other.
In my opinion, the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer provided the most beautiful summary of today’s topic with another harvest metaphor, which I would like to share with you in conclusion:
»Waiting is an art that our impatient age has forgotten. It wants to break the ripe fruit when it has barely set the sprout; but greedy eyes are all too often deceived by the fact that the seemingly delicious fruit is still green on the inside, and disrespectful hands ungratefully cast aside what has brought them such disappointment.
Those who do not know the bitter bliss of waiting, that is, hoping while being deprived, will never experience the full blessing of fulfilment.
He who does not know how one feels, who anxiously wrestles with the deepest questions of life, of his life, and waits, longingly watches until the truth is revealed to him, can dream nothing of the glory of this moment in which clarity shines forth, and he who does not want to court the friendship, the love of another, waiting to open his soul to the soul of the other until the latter arrives, until it finally arrives, to him the deepest blessing of a life of these souls in each other remains eternally hidden.
We have to wait for the greatest, deepest, most tender things in the world, things do not come in a storm, but according to the divine laws of germination and growth and becoming.« ³
¹ Deutschlandfunk Kultur: Soziales Alltagsphänomen – “Über das Warten” 04.08.2016 (Link only in German language!)
² ‘Two definitions of waiting well’ ; February 2016; Kate Sweeny, Chandra A Reynolds, Angelica Falkenstein, Sara E Andrews, Michael D Dooley
³ Dietrich Bonhoeffer: ‘Advent’ from ‘Barcelona, Berlin, America 1928-1931’, DBW Volume 10, page 529
Thanks to Maxim Abramov on Unsplash for the photo!