The Expectation of Symbols

The little difference between “tell me what you want me to do” and “tell me what to do” is significant; when I say “tell me what you want“, my wife expects I will listen to her, exercising my free will and choose whether to do the thing she wants. In fact this was my original example of what ‘says love’ to her when I originally wrote about love symbol negotiation. And negotiate we do and must, for on the other hand I have a love symbol so strongly functional for me it seems to short circuit and bypass my consciousness awareness: when she tells me what to do and (because she has such confidence in my love) she expects I have little choice but to choose to do it for her. Indeed, it’s my desire she expect I could refuse her nothing, expect my passion addiction within the designs of her ‘garden hose‘ be such I couldn’t refuse her anything.

But I think when I use “tell me what to do” I hope to connote and promote a tacit agreement over boundaries and limitations, tacit agreement whatever is wanted will surely be done, and all that’s left is to do is to name the thing she wants done. I think by blatantly changing the paradigm from her wants and my free will to a consensual expectation of garden hose passion addiction I hope to ‘adjust’ how love symbols are being used between us.

Yet I also think while I am busy conflating the symbol “tell me what you want me to do” with the symbol “tell me what to do” (because I’m trying to tell her my passion for her is so strong that for me these two symbols might as well be the same thing), she feels I’m eliding a very significant part and putting in something somewhat less respectable. Because if a person finds the inability to exercise one’s free will to be slavish and unrespectable, they’re less likely to find an adequate love symbol in commanding such a person to fulfill their desires.

Where I seek to demonstrate my passion in a love symbol, my wife looks for free choice as a measure and symbol of her worth to me and of my love for her (and of love’s worth to me in general). This is why I usually use the phrase, “what may I do for you?”  instead of the above choices – for while I don’t always get the expectation I hope she would show, the truth is such relationship expectation can take time to manifest (if it ever does). Moreover, single-handedly ‘adjusting’ our love symbols won’t make her feel differently, and ultimately such a symbol is useless to me if it doesn’t convey real intimacy offered from her interior.

Besides, “what may I do for you?” does everything I ‘need‘ it to: it allows me to show my interest in her whims wishes and desires, it shows my desire to do what she wants, and as a love symbol it works for both of us because it shows both my passion and my free choice.