Are You High Maintenance? What It Actually Means Might Surprise You
By Sarah Rae, BounceBack.com Editorial Staff
The term high maintenance gets thrown around a lot, but what does it actually mean?
We've heard it used to describe anything from needing to have your usual cereal in the morning to not letting anyone sit in your favorite chair. It seems to be a catch-all term. We make habits and preferences out to be extraordinary and bothersome, like wanting to chill a bottle of red wine. At the same time, we normalize absurd behavior by referring to it as high maintenance, like when your partner needs constant reassurance of your interest.
Sometimes it's a battle of the sexes: "Women are more high maintenance than men." How many times have you seen a man gripe over the temperature in a room, the texture of a food, or the size of a helping? Women accommodate them in so many ways: by cutting your hair short, wearing that dress he liked, or keeping your cat off the couch because he doesn't like hair on his pants.
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High maintenance really seems to refer to any behavior that your partner exhibits that requires effort on your part. The first thing to remember is that everyone has a side of the bed, even if it's the middle. Every person brings particular habits and preferences to a relationship. Some are so small and hardly noticeable that you don't even realize it. For instance, your partner likes to make his own coffee because no one else can get the right combination of cream and sugar. Perhaps your partner likes to refrigerate fruit and every time she comes over she puts yours away like you left them out on accident. Maybe his Blu-ray collection is in some weird, indecipherable order that only he understands or she doesn't like people to eat on her couch. It could even be a more social issue, like he needs a lot of attention at a party where he doesn't know many people or she doesn't like to be out too late. No, you don't have to adopt the needs of your partner to get by. With a little bit of compromise and organization, these things aren't that difficult to accommodate. Your problems and differences could run much deeper.
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High maintenance means your partner has needs that clash with your own at times. Maybe you love Indian food, but he can't stand the smell of coriander. On the other hand, low maintenance really means your partner's needs hardly affect you at all. He happily reads a book while you watch a reality TV marathon. Either way, make a side-by-side list of your needs and those things you compromise to suit the needs of your partner. You're in great shape if they are about the same length.
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Gender has little to do with high or low maintenance. It's an illusion. We have trouble seeing our own high maintenance traits because they seem so normal to us. We're all guilty of telling long stories that never seem to end, expecting our partner to listen intently and provide feedback. We're set in certain ways and constantly change our mind about other things. Sometimes we all need reassurance. We want to hear that we look nice or that we did a good job. On a bad day you might rely on the fact that when you get home you'll have a glass of your favorite wine. You'd be pretty disappointed if your partner drank the last of it. It seems like a silly thing to get bent out of shape about, but we all do it.
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Labeling behavior as high maintenance adds a value judgment, and because it's often your partner using this label it can make you feel self-conscious, inconsiderate, tyrannical, or just plain wrong. No one knows how to cheer you up, minimize your stress, or turn around a bad day like you yourself. It's not something you should feel guilty about. Don't let the high maintenance label bring you down.
Sarah Rae is a freelance writer and fiction editor for Prick of the Spindle. She lives and writes in Brooklyn. www.sarahrae.net
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