Being yourself. Dating story no. 30

Mila and Alik were a perfectly compatible couple from the point of view of the approach we use. Perfect in the sense that, for a strong union built on respect, care, support and growth, it was enough for them to stay themselves and to like each other. That is the theory. But it was not for nothing that Richard Thaler won the Nobel Prize for proving human irrationality: in practice, plenty of additional factors interfere in the delicate business of relationships between people.

Mila was an old friend of mine and one of our first clients. Divorced, with three children. Behind her lay a hard life and a whole parade of dating sites, failed dates, letters from American colonels in the Middle East, outright gigolos, balding Casanovas in search of free pleasure from naive and desperate ladies, old men looking for a free carer for their old age, and other curiosities that did nothing to improve her self-esteem. And although she blamed herself for every failure — her looks, her weight, her way of talking — she stubbornly went on believing that she would find her happiness. She was the kindest of women, always trying to help everyone and to take care of everyone. Even for our profiling interview my colleague could not get a time out of her that suited Mila herself, because Mila kept adjusting to her to the bitter end.

Alik, by contrast, was a very businesslike and matter-of-fact man. Behind him lay two marriages and one relationship outside marriage, four children and an absolute unwillingness to adjust to anybody. He warned us straight away that his work involved night shifts which his partner would have to accept, that a woman had to have children of her own, otherwise how would she understand him, his schedule and his rhythm, and so on. He was a very blunt and categorical man who knew what he wanted from life and was not prepared to admit that he too might have feelings and other such weaknesses.

They agreed to meet in the city centre. It was a cosy cafe exactly halfway between their two homes. Each of them, of course, had planned to make life and the journey home easier for the other, each was ready to accommodate the other all the way, and in the end they had to settle on something in between. And in the cafe Alik looked with genuine interest at a woman slightly dishevelled from hurrying, yet dressed and made up by every rule, wonderfully soft and warm, who looked back at him a little frightened and at the same time studying him. She seemed to be trying to guess and read his every mood and thought so as to match them and be liked without fail. Mila really was studying Alik closely, trying to work out from which side to expect the catch and how not to spoil everything at once. He was a pleasant man, no longer young, with regular features and remarkably good posture — as though he had swallowed a yardstick. At first glance he looked normal. Her experience of failure was far too extensive, so she wanted to avoid wasting her time straight away... Though she did not really believe this idea would come to anything.

The conversation was cautious, a little tense, and yet gripping. They discovered a host of shared interests, the same views on the world and even hobbies that fitted together nicely. I was not sure that Mila had had these views, hobbies and passions before she met Alik, but Mila insisted that she had, all her life, and that she had simply been too shy to admit it and had never found the time for them, though she had always dreamed of them. And it was precisely those dreams that the two of them set about making real. It turned out that she had dreamed of learning to dance since childhood, and Alik had been dancing for years. And he was also planning a business trip to China, while Mila had long dreamed of learning Chinese but had never dared, because she did not believe she had a gift for languages. And he liked to spend his holidays in northern Italy, and he also... In short, Mila's eyes lit up.

Alik approached the matter more pragmatically. He was aware that he could live without a relationship, but that life was better with one, or else he would go completely feral. At the same time, after three serious relationships he understood perfectly well what he needed in a relationship and what he did not, where the boundaries had to be and where the concessions. He knew exactly his list of requirements for a potential partner, he knew what he could offer in return and he was ready to weed people out ruthlessly. Why waste his own time and other people's if not everything suited him? So far Mila ticked every box, which pleased him no end: he liked her even without the boxes. And she was also remarkably caring: she seemed to think of herself last of all, and she tried very sweetly to hide it. So at the end of the date he took a rather important step: he invited her to the dance studio he had been going to for the last twenty years.

The first trial lesson went well. Alik praised the way she moved so smoothly, the way she felt the movement. The very next day Mila dashed off to the shops in search of a skirt and shoes for dancing. She could not decide which of the ones she liked was best, so just in case she bought four different ones and would sort it out as she went along. Two were really very beautiful, but they hid her tummy less well. The other two were better camouflage. On the same principle she could not make up her mind about the shoes either, but decided that at worst she would give them to her youngest daughter. The main thing was that the children should not find out at once that she had bought so much, or they would start passing judgment. She would give them away later, in passing, without anyone noticing.

Naturally, she turned up to the second lesson in all her glory — and in some old skirt, because at home it had turned out that everything new made her look fat, and in general everything was awful and Alik would certainly never want to see her again. Alik, however, noticed neither the tummy nor the skirt. Or pretended not to notice. He gallantly put his arm around Mila's waist (which, in Mila's opinion, had long since ceased to exist) and led her into another round of tango.

He amazed and charmed her by his mere presence. He did everything differently, in a way Mila would not have dared even in her boldest dreams. He had an inner core, an opinion of his own that he was not afraid to voice. Take the way he crossed the road: boldly and confident that he was right and that everyone else ought to respect it... And the others would stop and let him pass. And the way he reasoned... Always confidently and sensibly, logically and with grounds. He seemed to know about everything in the world, and if he did not know a subject he would admit it without the slightest sense of guilt.

- "You know, he is so good, so wonderful! He gave me a space in his wardrobe straight away so that I could leave my things there when I stay the night, and half a shelf in the bathroom!" Mila confided in astonishment. "Only... he told me he is not planning to get married."

- "What do you mean, not planning?" I was surprised. You do not sit through two hours of consultations and wait for a person with a perfectly matching personality type for the sake of a short-lived fling...

- "Well, he talks about how we will go on holiday together now, and where we will move when we retire, but he is not going to get married, not officially, and he admits it to me perfectly calmly! Without the slightest twinge of conscience, can you imagine? He says he has been there twice already and does not want it again."

- "And do you actually need it yourself?"

- "Need what?"

- "Marriage. You have been there too, as I recall."

- "But I want him to start running after me and begging me to marry him!"

The idea of making Alik fall in love with her took firm hold in her head. So the continuation of our conversation was not long in coming. And that despite the fact that, from my point of view, everything was already fine: they met regularly, had dinner, spent the night, spent time together and even planned together what furniture to buy so that Mila would be more comfortable at Alik's place. I genuinely did not understand what more one could want. Apparently neither did Alik. But Alik and I are both introverts, which means our heads work differently from Mila's.

- "Alisa, he claims he does not believe in love!!! So how am I to make him fall in love with me?"

- "I do not know," I answered honestly, "and what do you need it for?"

- "So that he asks me to marry him!"

- "Just be yourself."

Mila is exactly the kind of "client" who eagerly buys up manuals like "how to become a bitch", "how to marry a millionaire" and "how to make your husband carry you in his arms", follows their instructions for a couple of weeks and then decides that she is hopeless anyway. I have seen the shelf of read manuals at her home with my own eyes, but I never quite dared to borrow a couple of the books out of unscientific interest. To sum it all up, Mila is one of those who for some strange reason are convinced that if she is simply herself, not a single man will look at her, and therefore, even knowing that she will not have the strength to keep it up all her life, she will keep trying to show herself as the woman she would dream of being, but never as the one she is. And now, too, she looked at me from under her brows like a child, a little distrustfully, because how could I give her such nonsense for advice: just be yourself. I had no other nonsense to offer.

I repeated to her what she had certainly already heard at the consultation: how her relationship with Alik would develop if they simply behaved normally and did what they always did. Then, at her request, I briefly repeated the description of Alik.

- "So I am supposed to tell him that he is right, and to take care of him..." Mila summed up, and looked at me hopefully.

- "...Because normally you argue, demand that he agree with you and make him run around you, anticipating your every wish?"

- "Alas, no..." she sighed dreamily.

- "Then stay exactly as you are."

Having come away empty-handed as far as practical advice on seduction went, Mila stopped questioning me on the subject. She threw herself headlong into this relationship, into dancing and into the art of seduction and persuasion, telling herself over and over that she must on no account fall in love and that Alik was merely a training machine, since he was not proposing to her. She tried to be that fatal woman who leaves an impression, the kind they write about in novels and make films about. And still she managed to help Alik whenever an occasion for it came up.

Alik, for his part, behaved like the "old soldier who does not know the words of love": he tried to look after himself and accepted help from Mila very warily. It seemed to him that the moment he let her do something for him he would immediately be in her debt, that she, like his previous wives, would take him in hand and bend him to her will, depriving him of what was left of his personal space. Had he known about Mila's cunning plan to make him ask for her hand, he would have cut off all contact long before.

Luckily he did not know about that plan, and Mila was not really following it anyway. Contrary to her own decision to regard Alik purely as a training machine, Mila was falling in love more and more, and so she strove to do everything to make Alik feel good. Alik, entirely unused to feeling good, looked at this new phenomenon distrustfully and even tried to fend it off. He would manage on his own, he had always managed, and what on earth was Mila doing all this for. He quite sincerely felt he owed her something, while having no idea what, since Mila asked for nothing at all in return and only rejoiced like a child at every sign of attention from him. It was illogical and therefore frightening. She managed to breach the boundaries and agreements he had set without, in essence, breaching them at all. By the mere fact of her presence. And at the same time she agreed to all his conditions, agreed with his opinions... And still he felt that he was in the wrong, and he could not understand why. And at some point he finally relaxed.

He accepted as a given that Mila was simply that illogical and wonderful by nature. He accepted as a given that she asked for nothing in return, and talked himself into believing that if she needed something she would ask, like any sensible person. And he relaxed. And "relaxing", in his case, meant a kind of shift of priorities: he no longer had to write to her every single day like clockwork, and when he was tired he could get by with a laconic "yes" or "no"; he could stop thinking all the time that Mila expected something of him and could throw himself into his usual affairs at work — all the more so as his business partner had once again managed to sign some idiotic agreement under which they were buying at a higher price than they were selling.

Naturally, Mila noticed the change of mood at once and, like any normal woman, was very upset about it. In her mind it was one more confirmation of her own inadequacy. So, contrary to Alik's logical expectations, she said absolutely nothing to him and went on suffering alone, repeating to herself like a mantra that he was only a training machine until somebody better came along. And behaving the way a hypothetical "ideal" Mila would behave: talking only about nice things, smiling and always being beautifully dressed. Until her patience finally ran out.

The last straw for her was meeting the children. The initiative, oddly enough, came from Alik, and Mila took it as a sign that his intentions were serious: why introduce someone to your children if you are not planning a long relationship? Soon his four children and Mila's three, along with their two single parents, were sitting proudly at a huge table in one of the cosy restaurants in town that are famous for their food. And Alik suddenly seemed a different man. In front of the children he behaved as if Mila were merely one of his acquaintances or business partners. A perfunctory kiss on the cheek, as though to an old friend, a marked coolness and distance, entirely neutral conversation. Mila felt as though she had just been dunked in a tub of cold water. Who did he think he was — and, more to the point, who was she really to him? Just a convenient lady for a pleasant pastime whenever it suited him? A prostitute who costs nothing? Somebody he could happily wipe his feet on in front of her own children? And she, as always, was a fool who had gone soft and swallowed it all... There was no epithet for herself that did not come into her head, both while she barely held her polite smile at the table, and while she sobbed into her pillow at home, and while she demanded of me some clever psychological explanation for his behaviour. She swore she would never answer his calls or speak to him again.

- "Did you at least tell him he was wrong?" I asked.

- "But you said yourself that he is always right!" Mila snapped back.

- "I cannot imagine how one can be right while showing such disrespect... We are talking about basic human decency here. You are a woman, not a stool..."

- "And you are suggesting I just tell him that?"

- "I would. But then I am a choleric."

Mila was not a choleric. She never gave a straight answer as to whether she said anything to him or not and, above all, how, but the two of them did keep seeing each other. Their dance studio was preparing for a competition, and so as not to let everyone down Mila kept going. What is more, in the end she also went on meeting Alik outside the dancing. The difference was that now she quite sincerely regarded these meetings as a way of keeping healthy and in fighting shape. She suddenly could not care less about her plan to make Alik ask for her hand, or about Alik himself, and least of all about his opinion. She remained polite and friendly, and at the same time extremely cool.

And this time it was Alik who felt unwanted. Everything seemed to be exactly as he had wanted it: no surplus emotion, no expectations, stable and predictable. But wrong. He had said himself that he had no idea what love was, that he had never felt anything of the sort, and now something was clearly missing. He analysed everything that had happened, sorted it into its compartments, put his thoughts in order, and had to admit that what was missing was Mila herself: the old one, the one who was kind and warm. Yes, it was her own fault for expecting from him what he could not give her. And her own fault for building illusions. But now there were no illusions and no expectations left, and without them Mila was no longer the same. He looked at the facts once more, and the facts said that she was exactly the one he needed. In his already considerable life he had never had such understanding and such harmony with anyone. And damn it, that was worth fighting for.

He threw all his strength once more into winning Mila's favour. He wrote her messages, he walked her home, he apologised every time he could not give her enough of his time. And no, in the end they never did get married. But when they won the dance competition, Alik officially introduced Mila to his children as his life companion.

I do not know whether they will marry. Even before she met Alik, Mila had said more than once that marriage as such was the last thing she needed, and that what she needed was a strong shoulder and company for her old age. Nor do I know whether they will really be together into old age. But, just as it is set out in our notes on the S-Theory, Mila and Alik are a surprisingly harmonious couple; they care for each other tenderly, help each other with the children and understand each other truly at half a word. And most importantly, both have learned to be themselves with each other and to be afraid neither of their own emotions nor of their own actions.