Tamara and Roman first met back at school. She noticed an angular, shy and timid boy, and he noticed a thoughtful, dreamy girl who behaved as if she were older than her years. Somehow it just happened that they kept ending up together at break time, or riding home on the same bus.
Background: The stories are published from the feedback we received and with our clients’ consent. The names have been deliberately changed. At the end you will find a counsellor’s commentary analysing the relationship.
Skip to the counsellor’s commentaryThey found a common language and common topics at once, and tried to spend as much time together as they could. It promised to become a union for life, but Roma's parents moved to another district.
The second time fate brought them together was at a job fair for work placements. They recognised each other immediately and even resolved to talk more often again. They went to a cafe by the bus stop, told each other their news and funny stories from their lives, and completely forgot about the time; there is no telling how much longer they would have sat there if a third wheel had not turned up in the cafe.
- "Romik, there you are, come on, quick, or we'll be late! Oh! And who are you?" Galina rattled out, leaning on Roma's shoulder in a proprietary way.
- "This is a friend from school," Roma explained.
- "Sweet. And I am his current girlfriend, and I have been looking everywhere for him. Roma, it's time, let's go!"
Roman paid the bill awkwardly, giving Tamara a pitiful look, and followed Galya obediently.
Another five years went by. Roma took a job at a large consulting firm, and his turn came to go on a business trip to St Petersburg. Far from the first and certainly not the last. As always, he was at the station an hour early, bought himself a snack for the journey, some water and a one-night book from the huge stall right by the exit to the platforms. Yet another paperback, an old one, a classic of Russian science fiction, the kind you only ever buy that cheaply to while away a night at a station and on a train. The train was the one place where he could read something for his own pleasure — at work it was the done thing to stay late, and after work he was only fit to zone out in front of a computer.
As soon as the train was brought in, he folded down the corner of the page, stuffed the book into his pocket and headed for his carriage as fast as he could; in the compartment he took his jacket off straight away, put his briefcase under the pillow, climbed onto the bunk with his feet up and went on reading. The other passengers turned up later. Some elderly military man and the younger soldier escorting him. Finally, shortly before departure, muttering under her breath "now then, gently, no rush, that's it...", a probably rather pretty woman came into the compartment backwards, plainly no match for her suitcase. Roman, not understanding himself why he was doing it, jumped up to help and was struck dumb on the spot. It was Tamara again.
From that moment Roma forgot both the book and the soldiers on the upper bunks. They talked the whole evening, first in the compartment, then in the corridor. It was as if those years apart had never happened, as if they had never parted at all. And at the same time, every minute they were getting to know each other better and better. And the world was becoming brighter, safer and kinder. If only it could be with her.
The blow below the belt was the fact that Tamara was travelling to St Petersburg to see her fiancé. Roman suddenly felt his world collapsing irreversibly all over again, meaning draining away, life not worth living. This time he was even free. He had even decided that this was fate... But alas, once again cruel circumstances: another city, another man. And that other man, dim and completely wrong for her, even met her off the train in the morning with flowers and a grin from ear to ear, the pest! A pompous dandy, the classic writers would have called him. Could she really talk to him from the heart like that too? Could she really have such closeness with him that you need no doctor to tell you they were made for each other?
They exchanged contacts. Now Roma could always write to her on Skype or on LiveJournal. There was a phone number too, a new one, a St Petersburg one, but she never knew when she would be able to talk, so writing was easier. And Roma began to write, and she to answer. Purely as friends, without any ulterior motive. She told him about St Petersburg, he told her about his work. Sometimes, when he was away on business, they even met. And every time the parting became more unbearable. Roma understood that with every meeting he depended more and more on her opinion, that he waited to hear what she would say about this or that. And he did not want to grow close to anybody else. It was that very childhood, schoolday love that had never passed.
He wondered what Tamara was thinking. Did she wait for his messages? Was she interested in what he wrote to her? What was she doing now, what was she thinking now. Ah, if only he could read minds! But he could not, and so in the evenings he fantasised, modelled, suffered and dreamed. And then he would remember that she almost never wrote to him first, would try to find excuses for her, would grow sad... And wait.
The wait paid off seven years later. The relationship between Tamara and her young man reached a real crisis. He started playing around, at home he was not himself, taking it out on Tamara with or without reason. Tamara tried to smooth things over as best she could, she tried as hard as she could to save what there was, but her young man grew more and more brazen. She felt bad, she was to blame, she suffered, and finally she decided that she had had enough. Although even Roman found it hard to say whether she had decided herself or had been presented with a fait accompli. But that was not so important either. The fact was that she threw herself into a flurry of activity, never forgetting to tell herself: now then, gently, not all at once — but towards moving back to Moscow. There she had old friends, and an elderly mother, and it was easier to find work, and there was less chance of running into her ex face to face. Roma volunteered to help, and so, for a change in his new and very heavily loaded car, they set off together by night from the northern capital to the capital of all Russia.
Tamara chattered about all sorts of nonsense, once again as though they had never been apart. Roma listened in silence and reflected that he must not let this chance slip one more time. Every time, circumstances had lined up against their relationship, every time something had happened. But this time everything simply had to work out.
- "Tom, would you like to move straight in with me?"
- "With yoooou?" Tamara drawled in amazement. "What, right now?"
- "Well, yes, all your things are packed anyway, so what difference does it make where you move to."
- "Listen, we have not talked about this at all... How can it be so sudden..."
- "What's the problem? You are free now, so am I. And we have probably never got on with anybody as well as with each other."
- "I am all for it, of course, but things like that are not decided at the drop of a hat... We need to talk it all through first."
- "Let's talk it through, what do you need to know?"
And they talked all the way to Moscow. About how it should all have been done long ago, and about how good it had been, and about how it would all go... And on the approach to the ring road Tamara started hesitating again. What if, and how, and what then.
- "Listen, if you don't want to, just say so!"
- "I do want to, of course I do! It is just all very fast..."
- "If you ask me, it is the opposite, it is slow. Our relationship is longer than our relationships with anybody else. And... I cannot live without you. I cannot!"
- "All right, let's try!" Tamara agreed.
- "You can always go off to your mother's," Roma grinned.
- "I can, if you behave badly," Tamara grinned back.
By the time I talked to them, Tamara had been free to go off to her mother's for more than three years, and still had not gone. And Roman quite literally carried her in his arms.
Counsellor’s commentary
Tamara is the frustration personality type according to the S-Theory. The foundation of her personality is an inner prohibition on a fast, sudden, unconsidered start and on finishing, on achieving; she will be putting the brakes on all the time. Even when, it would seem, nothing stands in the way of her moving in with Roman, for her it is too fast, and Roma has to work hard to convince her. She has a need for unhurriedness, for thinking every action through, since it is better not to do something important than to do it, better not to say than to say; and she has an aversion to formality, pomposity, excessive strictness and seriousness. She does not trust logic, she comes to know things through personal experience and has difficulty accepting the negative results of her actions and responsibility for her decisions. It is characteristic of her to let deadlines slide, and to fulfil agreements and arrangements late or not at all.
Roman is the paranoid personality type according to the S-Theory. He is characterised by anxious, mistrustful, frightening components in his worldview and in his overvalued idea-desires, and by a hostile, mistrustful attitude towards society in general and the authorities in particular; hence he finds it more comfortable to observe while staying in the shadows. People of this personality type are always their own men, clever, well educated and often very selective. Often nobody can work out entirely why they do or do not do something. Roman will strive to get to the truth, to see through everybody before they see through him. He is a superb analyst, able to get to the essence of things and to unravel any tangle. He is also characterised by having overvalued, very important and global ideas and, at the same time, an inner prohibition on realising them directly and openly. Minor wishes he may ignore altogether.
The romance of a paranoid man and a frustration woman begins with the two of them being in the same place at the same time and discovering kindred spirits fairly quickly. A sense of mutual understanding arises. He discovers that she is able to understand his hang-ups. She discovers a clever, if not entirely attractive, man. Then again, his outward aspect matters less to her. She responds to the mind more than to the body. And the basic sensation is "look into each other". They looked into each other and saw that it is deep in there and that there is a lot to explore.
Active steps do somehow get taken here. He probes the boundaries a little, she answers, then the other way round. What happens is a slow dance, very reminiscent of the ritual of inviting somebody to tango. Both are anxiously careful not to put the other in an awkward position.
The relationship has a very positive effect on him. He may start working on his body, sometimes puts on muscle, takes on features of the narcissistic type — although that is a mask he hides behind.
In such a relationship Roman's level of anxiety drops sharply, but an awkwardness appears, a mistrust of himself, a kind of mild lostness. Shifting intonations may appear, there is a constant glancing back at her and at her opinion. That opinion becomes very significant.
As a rule, this union is very stable. He falls deeply in love with her. He may suffer and torment himself, yet he still strives for this relationship. She periodically goes into an active phase, she may run away, and at first he gives her freedom, then he prepares a trap that she walks into. And they move back in together.
The extremely high level of attention these two pay each other is astonishing. The relationship is built on attention to each other. The couple's main subject of interaction is "what do you feel?". The question of having children comes up regularly, which is typical of a partnership marriage of the female type. About half of such couples take in adopted children, and this is done on the back of the woman's wish, while he takes this step because she matters so much to him.
Frustration men and women alike have a classic trait: they are closest here and now. In the moment of contact they can go into full contact with a person, and then that interaction is the most important thing happening right now. But afterwards they may go for years without ringing back, for example if they have dropped out of touch: "out of sight, out of mind".
If somebody gets in touch of their own accord, frustration types can be genuinely glad. That is why one sometimes gets the impression that they are such callous egoists. And paranoid men do not go far from a frustration woman for exactly this reason. Because if you go far away, she will get on with her own affairs and forget you.
