7 Dec 2009
Duty Calls . . .
It must be the class structure that tells us Brits to " do the right thing".
From place-mats to funerals, getting it right is imperative in order to be liked.
A few years back a brand of dishwasher commercial on the telly said it all.
Imagine the scene. . . . Middle class dinner party, men in suits etc ( how sub-urban is that! ), lots of wine flowing, big smiles all round, then a guest holds up a wine glass to the light. Silence befalls the table as a SMEAR is noticed, not quite clean, not spotless. Worse than murdering a small child. . . Camera then swings to SHAMED CODA HOSTESS ( . . she should have known better ).
I felt her pain from days gone by – now we have more important things to worry about, like increased debt, climate change and the price of fish. This brings us neatly to fish knives ( . . do people STILL use them? ).
Nancy Mitford will be spinning in her grave at the Non-U possibilities.
PERFECTIONISM is the curse of the middle classes and a major player in codependency patterning. It looks like getting it right, but it really means being in fear of getting it wrong. Check on the net for major key traits of codependent behaviour and you get : controlling behaviour, lack of trust, avoidance of feelings, caretaking behaviour, hypervigilance and perfectionism : hence the perfect dinner party.
Some people need to express acceptable perfection in their work, in my case in the late 70′s I drew by hand the print artwork for Silk Cut cigarette packs. Once I had completed the work it got sent to the factory where a grid was placed over the flat pack artwork and if it was out by one sixty fourth of an inch in overall length, they would send it back to be redone. That is the width of a 4H pencil lead. Unfortunately for me and the people close at hand I became a perfection addict in the workplace but I took my work home and expected everyone to comply with my strict demands of right and wrong. Control freak was not the words.
Watch an episode of COME DINE WITH ME and notice the perfectionists next to the devil may cares. And how they bitch. Paper serviettes instead of linen napkins, same glasses for the different plonk, the shame of it all, lowering judging marks in the taxi home. We all know someone who would have none of it. Hyacinth Bucket would say DUTY CALLS . . to push the boat out in proper fashion. It’s her duty to correct someone else’s behaviour unknowingly recognizing that un-invited advice, even from someone who means well, is pure codependent " I know what’s best for you" when they hardly know what’s best for themselves. Recovering codas learn to keep their mouth SHUT until asked. That’s a hard one.
The build up to Christmas is upon us and a ripe season for the old coda malarkey. It’s all there to fester, loathing relatives but smiling at them, checking how clean the house is ( wiping cutlery on a napkin ) and getting sniffy over odd chairs at the table and a weak bread sauce, " It’s not the way I would have made it ". A more functional approach is to drop the perfectionism and look for the intent. Eating food on the table gifted by friends and family is a joyous thing as CDWM illustrates. The producers deliberately want to stir the gravy, mixing genders, sexualities, class and incomes but often the opposite happens, as guests understand how traumatic it is to cook for others who also check out your house and sometimes underwear drawers.
When we drop the need to be perfect, when the sauce burns and you laugh about it, it touches our humanity, humility and the ability to recover. Just be aware over the next few weeks how perfectionism has cost friends in the past, when we needed to be right instead of wanting to be happy. How now in functional times we can drop the judgments, the duty calls and self-imposed demands.
Give yourself a break and find serenity not stress. They will love you for it.
The Perfect Table : http://housewares.about.com/od/cutleryknives/qt/tablesetting.htm
The Perfect Way To Say Things : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English
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