I mentioned my love of the TV adaption of Sally Rooney’s novel, Normal People, on Instagram Stories last week. Boy, did I get a lot of replies! People were ‘shook’ by the portrayal of a casual (and sometimes secret) relationship mixed with a complicated friendship. I think it pushed some people’s buttons because they could see themselves in it.
In this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, I talk about why we end up not being anywhere near as casual about casual relationships as we expect us to be. There are mistaken assumptions about what we can expect from the other party due to ‘friendship’. We often tie a bow around the proceedings and pretend it’s a friendship to make what we’re doing more palatable. Feeling a sense of betrayal due to disrespect and straight-up lack of consideration can deal a blow to the friendship, never mind the sexual side of things. It turns out, we can get surprisingly hurt by casual relationships! But we can learn from them too.
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android
Nuggets From The Episode
- Humans don’t like to be treated casually. We convince ourselves that we’re okay with being treated casually but struggle with the consequences of doing so. All humans want to matter. That’s tricky though, in situations where it feels like we only matter for one thing or when it’s all on their terms.
- Casual relationships are the romantic equivalent of zero-hours contracts. We try to enjoy the fringe benefits of a relationship without the trappings of one (commitment, responsibility, accountability, caring, vulnerability, etc).
- They’re often pitched as ‘mutual’, but someone ends up advancing their self-interests at the expense of the other party. Someone doesn’t have the wherewithal and self-esteem to advocate for themselves properly.
We enter into casual relationships scratching and gratifying a short-term need without thought for the consequences. It’s like ‘Future Me will deal with it’.
- How hurt we’re going to get by a casual relationship (or how much we hurt the other party) depends on our level of self-awareness and how honest we are with ourselves.
- Each party uses stating that it’s casual or their agreement to participate as a Get Out of Jail Free card.
- When we begin a casual relationship with a friend, two assumptions lead to big problems. One party will assume that the other won’t screw them over because they’re friends. And the other will assume that given that they’re supposed to be friends, they should know what they’re like.
- We often call casual relationships ‘friendship’ or ‘friends with benefits’. It’s not because we’re genuine friends but because it makes what we’re doing more palatable. Of course, calling it ‘friendship’ creates expectations that we (or they) thought we’d dodged with a casual relationship.
Casual relationships indicate how casual or damn near-apathetic we are about our needs, expectations, desires, feelings and opinions. Or, yes, how casual we are about someone else’s.
- Most of us don’t want to feel like the romantic equivalent of ordering a takeaway from UberEats or Just Eat. We’re not Dial-A-Lay.
- When we secretly hope that a casual relationship will lead to a bonafide relationship, we’re doing the equivalent of offering them a low introductory APR on a credit card. We think that we can showcase ourselves and that by being ‘patient’, accommodating, not putting any pressure on them, etc, that they will desire a relationship.
- If we get involved with something with our proverbial ‘sex hat’ on, we’re not being relationship-minded. We can’t expect to miraculously find ourselves in a relationship after centering things on not caring and sex.
- We are the common denominator in our life. We’re the only person who’s shown up to every act, scene and moment in our life. If we keep finding ourselves in variations of the same situation that we blame, for example, on people ‘catching feelings’ or getting the wrong end of the stick, we need to check ourselves. What are we bringing in to each of these situations? Who are we being? What are we saying/doing (or not)?
Links mentioned
- Normal People by Sally Rooney (the book)
- Normal People BBC iPlayer | Hulu
- Love, Care, Trust & Respect book
- Why using casual relationships as back-door entry to a relationship is a deeply-flawed plan
- The Recruiter Mindset (ep 145 )
- Let’s not be okay with taking advantage of people (or being taken advantage of) (ep 174)
- Break The Cycle online course
Subscribe and/or leave a review on Apple Podcasts (how-to guide here)–it really helps in growing the show! If you’re new to podcasts, find out more about what they are and how to subscribe with this handy guide.
Add to favorites
OMG!!!! How much do I love Normal People on my third run through of it on BBC iPlayer, it is brilliant. There is even a “Connell” chain available from Thomas Sabo jewelery. Totally obsessed with the series. I am wondering how many people actually have a lot more complex lives and relationships than others know about. I think it is possibly most people as most of us don’t wash our dirty linen in public so to speak.
It is such a fantastic series. I think it was you that I found out that it was available to watch. I loved the book (much preferred it to Conversations With Friends) and the TV adaption is one of the rare ones that does its book justice. That’s so funny that there’s a chain available. I hear, also, that the actor Paul is an amazing singer. The funny thing is that having grown up in Ireland, looks-wise (OK, and behaviour), Paul reminded me of a few guys I dated, haha.
This is incredibly accurate. I’ve had multiple men wax poetic and insist that we were *friends* with benefits, emphasize the friendship, talk about how they don’t want to lose the friendship, talk about how much they care about me, and then disappear as soon as I need them and also never talk to me again after the sex was over. It was so confusing and it left me so hurt because I just felt used, and they would always seem to get it in their head that the only reason I could ever be hurt was that I was romantically falling for them. They never seemed to understand that I was hurt because friends don’t treat friends like they treated me. And it was doubly confusing when the “friendship” was THEIR idea, because in all these instances I was OK with something casual and they really seemed to want to gaslight me that I wasn’t. For instance the last guy owned a truck and said he would help me move and then bailed on me the day of. He never initiated any hang outs. He never asked me to come to any of his parties. However, he would insist on staying overnight every time we slept together and watching movies with me. I kept telling him if he wants to be friends that’s fine, but his movie habit was taking up a lot of my time late at night and impacting my sleep (he always wanted to start the movie at what would normally be my bedtime). If I asked if we could minimize the friends part, he’d get hurt and start insisting I meant a lot to him as a friend, but then the friendship was ONLY on his terms because he got to do the fun friend part he wanted (watching movies at a super inconvenient time for me), but when I asked if we could go to bed at a normal time like midnight and do something different like hiking or kayaking the next morning, he absolutely blew up at me and screamed at me for acting too much like a girlfriend and making ‘demands’ on him. I spent about six months with him taking up my time between 11pm-3am and I was dead tired the whole liason. He even apologized for blowing up at me and told me again how much he cared about me as a friend and how sorry he was, and then 2 months later he moved to China and I NEVER heard from him again. I initiated two “hey what’s up, how’s teaching abroad?” conversations and he was dodgy and cagey and barely responded, and then never reached out again. I hate how some men act like they have to say you’re “friends” with benefits to get the benefits, won’t let you just say you’re okay with the benefits part and then not come through at all on the friendship they suggested. This kind of explains why.
“and they would always seem to get it in their head that the only reason I could ever be hurt was that I was romantically falling for them.” THIS! It’s like, ‘No, MATE! I’m hurt because you’re being a dick and treating me like dirt.’
And that guy with the truck? Jaysus. Here’s the thing: It doesn’t matter if *they* said that it’s friendship. Friendship is mutual and organic. You can’t just pluck it out your arse and declare it to be so while treating someone like an unpaid prostitute.
But what you can take from all of this is that you need to stop rescinding your needs and deferring to these fly-by-night guys. And how frickin rude is it that he’s hogging up your night like that and kicking off at you if you question something, but he won’t even invite you to his parties???
You also need to separate actual friendship from romantic relationships. It’s like, if you want to get laid, crack on. But don’t let them (or you) delude you into believing that it’s a friendship.
Nat, I’d love to hear your take on the relationship in Normal People – I just binged it this weekend.
Spoiler: it drove me crazy that he didn’t just ask to stay at her place – she obviously would have been ok with it. I guess a lot of the behaviour came down to insecurities and poor communication.
And Marianne’s family – it broke my heart that her Mum never stood up for her against the brother’s abuse (and then seemingly stopped talking to her after someone else finally stepped in on her behalf? Was she supposed to just always take the abuse?)
Anyways, clearly still thinking about this show 🙂
Melody, that’s exactly the same thing that drove me crazy too! They had appalling communication issues. The overwhelming majority of their collisions (bar that horrendous carry-on over the debs/prom) could have been avoided if they spoke to each other and communicated their intentions, needs and wants. Of course, so many of us struggle with this.
Having been brought up in Ireland (which is quite similar to a Caribbean upbringing in a lot of ways), what Marianne’s mum did was so true to form. It’s the whole secrecy and shame. It was an absolute no-no for people to know your inside business and that your life was less than perfect. I reckon, also, there was a class thing going on there, too. Her mam hated ‘the cleaner’ coming to Marianne’s aid and knowing her business.
Hi, Hope it’s OK to mention that comments 1 & 3 are from different Julie’s. Comment 1 was from myself Julie M now to distinguish.
I’m glad it wasn’t just me!
Interesting to hear about the cultural aspect. Though now I’m still wondering about the Mum’s reaction within the home.
Did she ignore the son’s actions so he wouldn’t target her if she stood up to him ….or maybe the abuse she suffered from her husband impacted on her reaction?
I found the mums reaction really strange too, my guess would be that she didn’t know how to cope with it and had been so traumatised when she experienced abuse herself that her way of dealing with it was not dealing with it. Pretending it was not happening. I agree with Natalie that she may be ashamed / embarrassed that the cleaner came to the rescue and there is also a class thing going on there too. There is soooo much going on in this programme. It is soooo brilliant, pure genius. Oh and Connell is sooo hot although way too young for me, lol.
My thoughts exactly, Julie M, on all counts, including Connell’s hotness, haha.
I think she’d learned to be silent due to the relationship with her husband. Maybe what we witnessed with the son is how she used to deal with her husband as well… It’s possible that she thought it would make it worse, but she was abusing Marianne by letting him do that.