Expectations
I have interesting lunches with my teammates because we are all female and I’ve worked with 2 of them in my previous jobs so we’re quite comfortable with each other and can usually talk about anything and everything under the sun and sky.
What we enjoy talking about is the differences in people’s personalities and characters. To be more specific, our significant others’ personalities and characters.
One afternoon, we were talking about one of our friends, C. C had a baby about 5-6 months ago. She readily admits that her husband is of “Chinaman” mentality so she does not expect him to help out with their kid (e.g. change diapers, feed, etc.). So she does all these herself and she is happy doing it because she loves children and she has no expectations of her husband to help out.
One of the stories that C shared was that in the earlier days, she and husband used to go out with their baby and helper, and the husband would not carry the baby bag. He had even stated that he would never be caught dead carrying the baby bag. But recently, they’ve taken to going out without the helper and the husband willingly carries the baby bag.
So M concluded that it is good to set your expectations low or have none at all. Because then, when your partner does something out of the norm, it would be a pleasant surprise. I can see the logic in this because sometimes, setting too high expectations is just setting yourself up for disappointment if your expectations are not met.
This is something I must learn because I set high expectations not only for myself, but for everyone around me. And I end up getting frustrated and disappointed time and time again. So, note to self : DO NOT SET EXPECTATIONS ON OTHERS. This, however, excludes things that are of common sense like knowing where to throw your litter, for example.
That said, there are some types of behavior that I would expect to be the norm, while others I can overlook.
*shrug* Can’t help it.
I shall let my family and friends tell you about me. These comments may be rather old but I think the gist of them still hold 
