Letting go of expectations, not letting go of people

I have a friend from high school. We've known each other for over ten years.

Every time we meet, they talk. They share stories about work, family, or some third person. I listen, ask questions, and share thoughts.

And then it ends. We go home.

On the way home, every single time, the same feeling returned — one that took me years to finally name: they never once asked "and how about you?"

It wasn't that they didn't care about me. They would text when I was in trouble, lend money without asking questions, come to the hospital when I was admitted. It was just that one specific question that never came.

And I waited for it for ten years.

Do we love the real person, or the blueprint we drew?

There is something I think almost all of us do without realizing it.

When we meet someone and begin to care about them, we don't just look at them. We also draw a parallel blueprint: a best friend should be like this, a mother should be like that, a lover should know when I'm tired without me having to say a word.

That blueprint is crafted from two ingredients: what we lacked in childhood, and what we saw in movies.

Then we live with two people at the same time: the real person, and the blueprint.

Every time the real person acts differently from the blueprint, we feel let down. And we charge that disappointment to the real person's tab — even though they never read the blueprint, never signed it, and most of the time have no idea it exists.

My friend never promised to ask "and how about you?" That was a line I wrote into their job description myself.

"But shouldn't friends care about each other?" — I used to ask myself that, and the answer wasn't simple: should was my word, not theirs. They cared about me in the way they knew how. It just didn't include that particular box to check.

⚠️ To be clear, because this is easily misunderstood: this is not advice to endure abuse. There are basic non-negotiables that aren't mere expectations — not being humiliated, not being used, not being hurt physically. Those are not what this article is about, and no one should lay those down to preserve a relationship.

This article speaks of the territory in between: reasonable, gentle expectations that no one ever explicitly agreed to.

Signs that you are holding onto a blueprint

Three signs, and I recognized them in myself long before seeing them in anyone else.

One — you frequently use the words "should have".

"They should have understood." "Mom should have asked first."

Those words are the fingerprints of a blueprint. They don't describe what actually happened; they compare what happened to a document only you possess.

Try noticing how many times a day you say "should have", and about whom.

Two — you experience disappointment following the exact same script, repeatedly.

If for three consecutive years, with the same person, on the same occasion, you feel let down in the exact same way — that is no longer a surprise.

It's a weather forecast. And yet we walk out the door without an umbrella, get soaked, and blame the sky.

Three — you describe them primarily by what they DO NOT do.

This is the hardest sign to spot, because it sounds completely reasonable while you're saying it.

Try describing someone who is letting you down without using negative statements. You cannot say "they never...", "she doesn't even..."

Many people find they suddenly have almost nothing left to say.

At that moment, it becomes clear: what you are holding is not the person. It's the gap between them and your blueprint.

What remains when you set the blueprint down

This question is important, because setting the blueprint down can sound like abandoning someone.

It is quite the opposite.

When I stopped waiting for the question "and how about you?", something strange happened: I began to notice things my friend had been doing for years without receiving any credit. The time they drove thirty kilometers to bring me medicine. The 2 AM text asking if I got home safely.

Those acts were there all along. I just hadn't seen them because my eyes were glued to the empty box in my blueprint.

Here is where this piece differs from letting go is not forgetting. That piece is about no longer carrying a past event. Here, there is nothing to forget — the person is still here, still calling, still a friend.

What is set down is not the person. It's the blueprint.

And the biggest difference: by setting down the blueprint, I lose no one. But by holding onto it, I gradually lose the real person, because every meeting becomes an inspection.

One question before every moment of disappointment

Something you can practice immediately. A single question, asked inwardly, before speaking:

Am I disappointed with this person, or with my blueprint of them?

This question is not meant for self-blame. It simply separates two things that get blurred together in moments of hurt.

There are three possibilities, and all three are valid answers:

If it's the blueprint — try putting it into words aloud. Many expectations dissolve the moment they are spoken aloud, because hearing them makes us realize we never communicated them. And if you still desire that thing, express it directly instead of waiting for them to guess.

If it's the real person — meaning they made a promise and broke it, or crossed a real boundary — then it's not a blueprint issue. That is something that needs to be addressed, and can be stated without apologizing three times.

If it's both — as it often is — then separate them: speak up about what can be discussed, and set down the blueprint part.

And there is a second, harder question, reserved for relationships that have repeated this pattern for years:

If this person never changes, would I still choose to stay?

I won't give you an answer. It might be yes, and that resolves it — you stay with the real person, with a lighter heart. It might also be no, and that answer is equally legitimate.

The worst outcome isn't choosing wrong. It's never asking, and staying another ten years with a blueprint.

To be fair to the other person: no one stays completely still. They are changing too, just not according to our custom order or our preferred timeline. Waiting for them to change into our blueprint is very different from allowing them to change into themselves.

The question I waited ten years for

I still meet my friend. We had lunch together just last month.

They still talk, I still listen. And they still don't ask "and how about you?"

Only now, when I head home, that old heavy feeling inside me is gone.

Because I stopped expecting it where it was never going to grow. As for my own stories, I share them with someone else — someone who asks that question naturally, whom I hadn't noticed for years because I was looking in the wrong direction.

The blueprint — I folded it away. I didn't tear it up.

I just stopped pulling it out to compare every time we meet.

This article was created with AI assistance.