Anticipation Blues

Anticipation is an emotion that I often fall prey too. Whether it is me anticipating, going out, a particular movie or game or just about anything. There are a lot of problems when it comes to anticipation. When someone anticipates something they can blow a particular event out of proportion in their mind. Sometimes when one is so hot and heavy to watch a movie and they think about it night and day and when the big day finally comes and you are sitting there and once you watch the movie it turns out to be a let down and you feel blah. This is how anticipation sucks.

There are several levels of anticipation. The first one I want to talk about is anticipation for a particular material possession. I used the example of a movie in the first part of this entry but that is a little bit different then waiting for something, like a CD or a DVD. I am a collector of Korean movies on DVD. I used to be heavily into collecting Korean DVDs, back in 2007-2009 and I must have bought a ton of them. I still collect Korean DVDs, but not like I used to, due to money issues and the simple fact that recently a lot of movies have sucked, but also because I would anticipate a particular edition and it would let me down.

During my Korean movie hey day, I would also collect so called rare collectors editions. This included some DVDs that came with books about the art of the movie, written of course in Korean or it included special packaging with a cell phone charm or whatever piece of movie junk. I would  order it and pay whatever inflated price they were asking and, wait for weeks at a time to get the movie. Once it would come I would see it, and feel kind of numb. I would put it away and forget about it.

I think I enjoyed the high that I got for waiting for the DVD but not the actual DVD itself. I feel this is bad, because of all the energy, spent thinking about it and waiting for it to come.

Call it buyers remorse or whatever, but I blame anticipation. Getting all worked up about something or better yet, someone who you are looking forward to meeting or going out with. I think we expect a lot out of people. We expect a lot from our parents, friends and especially lovers. Let me tell you a little story:

A young man was coming home from work after working a long shift at work. He was waiting for the subway to come. He was sitting there when he saw this cute little gal sit next to him. He was happy because she fit his type and because she gave him a little smile. The train came and they both boarded. They got off at the same stop and while they were on the train, they had a short but meaningful conversation. After getting off at the same stop they realized they had to take two different buses. They exchanged numbers and the young man was happy. The young man made it home and the cute girl actually texted him telling him that she was glad they met. The young man was ecstatic. The next couple of days they spoke a lot and exchanged text messages. Finally they went on a date. The date went swell. They had a nice lunch and walked around. They even held hands and decided to watch a movie. During the movie they held each other. After they went to a local pub and got a little bit buzzed but still, everything seemed to go well. They spoke of their  next date and they said their good nights. For the rest of the week the young man was happy and was anticipating their next meeting. He would text her or call her and the young lady would not answer. The young man was getting worried and he kept calling and texting, but still no reply. Finally she called back and she told the young man to leave her alone. The young man was shocked and that the girl liked him. The young man had been thinking about the girl and was anticipating spending time with her.

The point of the story is that emotion known as anticipation got the better of him. He was expecting so much out of the girl. Now a lot of people could say the girl was leading the young man on. I mean what kind of girl sends messages to a guy within a few hours of meeting? Still others could blame the young man for mistaking someone being nice and polite for someone liking him.

I blame anticipation. I blame it because when our minds start working we start putting a lot of expectations on the people we like or love. A lot of times people who have high expectations of other people start to construct a story or script and if the other person does not follow the script it could cause the person thinking about it a lot of grief. It is not healthy.

I think anticipation is about balance. One needs to look forward to things but not inflate them to such a high level, that they border on being unrealistic. Just be cool people and if things are meant to be then they will all work out in the end. Remember if it’s fate, it will always come to pass.