Metaphor & Dynamic: ‘Pointing’ Balance

If two individual’s interior ‘balance distance’ between (love) symbol and object come together to form a relationship dynamic (albeit still yet with need/room for some negotiation), describing that resulting dynamic directly in all its disparate aspects can be difficult, which is why we use metaphors.

Driving, of course, is commonly used even in ‘vanilla’ relationships to metaphorically point at which partner is “behind the wheel” and is ultimately in control of where the couple is going, how fast they’re going, what route they’ll take to get there. This despite the fact that at sea the one making such decisions quite often isn’t the one “behind the wheel” – or that many “in charge” people prefer to have a driver and to make those decisions from the back seat in a more ‘driving Miss Dominant’ scenario. Picking driving as a metaphor, no matter how complex one makes the metaphor or how accurate it is, will only highlight a limited number of specific relationship dynamic aspects and only to a certain degree; a metaphor always remains an illustration of part of something and will never be the ‘real thing’.

And by highlighting some certain relationship aspects, other aspects are diminished. Certainly the ‘passenger’ ‘drives’ his own life and likely ‘drives’ a number of aspects in the relationship as one person actively making every decision seems unlikely. At some point all metaphors break down and/or need other (new) metaphors to better adequately “point” at whichever aspects happen to currently be under illustration.

Perhaps rather than ”Mr. Submissive” driving “Miss Dominant” or vice versa (I should probably admit I never saw that movie), perhaps they each have their own car, each driver making equal and individual driver decisions in tandem coordination as they move along together, perhaps caravaning one in front of the other, perhaps sometimes side by side (almost as if in the same car), perhaps sometimes the other in front of the one depending on who has better information about the area they’re navigating at the time.

Of course there are going to be times when they get separated, either accidentally or perhaps intentionally in order to rendezvous later. And it might happen that they arrive at a ‘stop sign intersection’ simultaneously from perpendicular directions (or in another example from opposite directions). In such situations my old driver ed teacher taught me to make eye contact and communicate with the other driver over who would proceed through the intersection first. Will waving the other driver through first be the ’safe’ and ‘prudent’ choice or the ‘passive’ and ‘submissive’ choice? There’s always the ‘driver to the left’ rule of right-of-way and there’s always the possibility these two particular drivers may already have some prearranged rule on the matter. And then of course there’s always the option of merely waving a thank you at the other driver (or skipping this entirely) and ‘aggressively’ (hopefully not quite ‘recklessly’) gunning it through the intersection, perhaps thereby dominating the intersection? or dominating the other driver? Or ‘forcing’ the other driver to take the ‘passive’/'submissive’ position?

Well once again, at some point all metaphors break down, and I’ll be honest up front: in this example I’m not sure it matters who proceeds through the intersection first so long as there isn’t an ‘accident’ or ‘incident’ — and if on some level such a thing as “right-of-way” doesn’t matter, then certainly there’s will be a level at which labeling people by such relative and aspectual ‘relationship positions’ will seem silly too.

~

It is true that in both cars and relationships every person  fears ‘personal injury’ and the expense of ‘repairing’ their ‘vehicle’, or much worse ‘replacing’ their ‘vehicle’. These fears aren’t bad in or of themselves, but another fear we all have about ‘accidents’ or ‘incidents’ is that those we love might be injured, even fearing our loved ones’ subsequent emotional injury should anything ‘accidentally’ or ‘incidentally’ happen to us. And we tend to classify some fears as more noble because they’re focused on people and other people at that. Moreover when one has ‘too much’ self-centered fear when compared to fear on behalf of others, that person is usually considered ’self-centered’, ‘weak’ or ‘cowardly’ –precisely the words often heard in association with ‘passive’ or ‘submissive’. Yet clearly people can do the same thing (the ‘action’ of avoiding accidents and incidents however done) for different, multiple and even ambigious reasons, and a closer look at more than one aspect is often warranted.

For if in my real life driving I always wave the other driver ahead, always take the ‘passive’ or ‘submissive’ position largely (though admittedly not solely) because I fear for my loved ones, in my real life relationship I always wave my wife ahead, always cede to her the right-of-way, not out of fear, but because I passionately love her and passionately love seeing her go, quickly and lively, wherever she wants to go. In fact, I’m going to turn whatever way I need to in order to follow her through that intersection because I want to continue seeing her go, not because I am fearful of going, or passionate about ‘stopping’, or passionate about ‘ceding’ or about the ‘passive’ ‘following’ ‘position’. Yet even so, might someone accordingly, relativistically, relationally, positionally, label me (pejoratively or not) ‘submissive’.

And it is certainly true that my wife is more passionate about ‘going where she wants to go’ (obviously preferably with me) than she is passionate about ‘stopping me’ or my ‘ceding’ anything. Yet from another perspective (possibly about other aspects) this isn’t entirely true because I’m surely (at least) equally passionate about having what I want, even if what I want passionately is to be in the car/caravan/ship/whatever with her, even if my other interests and self definitions are more ‘portable’ than hers, even if we’ve made/negotiated other arrangements/agreements. My wife (who isn’t really interested ‘dominating’ per se) ends up ‘driving me’ (‘leading’, whatever the current metaphor is) merely because I passionately, uxoriously, wave her through/on/by the ‘intersection’ of whatever relationship choice happens to be current. Yet even so, might someone accordingly, relativistically, relationally, positionally, label her (pejoratively or not) ‘dominant’.

Thus I think there’s really only one thing that always remains important and relevant regardless of which relationship aspects one’s preferred metaphor illustratively highlights. If it is true that we ‘point’ with metaphors at aspects of our relationship, we shouldn’t be surprised our attention is on what we’re pointing at. (How many times has a driver pointed at something out the window for the benefit of others and promptly made a regrettable driving error?) Where and how we “point” is going to be where our attentions are, is going to be how we think about our relationship. How we choose to think about our relationship, even which aspects we predominantly choose to highlight, will shape our interior perception of our relationship and subsequently affect our relationship “driving decisions”.  A balanced approach to how we think about our relationships is important.

~

(And for the record, in real life when we do go somewhere in the same car, I do all the literal driving, largely because she thinks I’m a better (=safer) driver. Whatever aspect that may metaphorically point at about our relationship.)