Makes perfect sense. For me, I’m more of the “don’t look for lovey-dovey commitment” type because I feel no need to be paired off and have never really been a girl who dreams of getting married. It isn’t easy to find someone who is willing to do the “no strings” kind of thing. They either think you’re feeding them a line and you’ll pounce with both feet soon to tie them down, or they get clingy. I’m not a one-night-stand person, so that limits it too. Oh well, what can you do?
Your distinction is an important one. The communication really is key, and it seems like that’s one of the hardest things about any relationship.
I think Fish nailed my definition of high maintenance. Very well put.
There are certainly high-maintenance men, although I agree that the term isn’t used much in that context. Think of John Cusack in High Fidelity. Or all of the men on Seinfeld. Ironically, in When Harry Met Sally, Harry is the one who comes across as far more high-maintenance.
Hrm. Been thinking about this and trying to come up with a common thread/root of the varied behavior, since “high-maintenance” can manifest is so many different ways.
I think what it is (mainly, anyway) is that the person in question is unable or unwilling to manage themselves emotionally, so they want/expect/demand someone else to do it for them.
So the gold digger who demands all sorts of expensive meals/gifts/stuff… s/he’s using the money (your money) to validate his/her self-worth because s/he doesn’t know how to validate it with accomplishments or character. Those who get irrationally jealous can’t or won’t face and deal with their insecurities, but rather expect their partner to give up their friends to placate them. Etc.
There are levels of “high-maintenance” too, and what might be HM for one person is just a personality quirk for another. Some guys think it’s more funny/cute than annoying if their girlfriend takes an hour to do make-up and hair. Some guys would roll their eyes and get irritated. Some would call it a dealbreaker.
I wouldn’t, however, include having an occasional emotional crisis as being HM (as long as it’s not a constant repeating pattern of [manufactured] crises). If someone’s mom dies, of course they’re going to have trouble managing themselves emotionally for a while, and are probably going to need extra support to work things through. That’s normal, not HM.
I’d also like to chime in that men can be very high maintenance as well. My ex was emotionally high maintenance. If I didn’t say “I love you” enough, or cuddle him and give him physical affection almost constantly, he’d get depressed and start talking about how I didn’t love him anymore. God forbid I should cuddle my cats instead of him when he was sitting on the couch with me. “You’ll cuddle the cats but not me?” And it HAD to be verbal or physical affection. Me getting him a gift or cooking him a special dinner or something didn’t count. We had a big fight once and after we made up, I made him this huge special dinner. Went all out. Rented his favorite movie too. After dinner and during the movie, he was all sullen. Turns out he was mad because after we made up I’d only kissed him once.
Have you read **Cowboys are my Weakness **- a collection of short stories by Pam Houston? In this case, it sounds like you are one of the cowboys, not one of the women characters - you need your space, and want to chart your own course, and want to be with folks who understand that and don’t expect you to weave them deeply into your life. I can totally see where that would be tough to find and potentially a bit of a struggle for the other person if they aren’t wired that way…but you are quite the opposite of high maintence.
There’s nothing wrong with good grooming habits. There’s nothing wrong with taking an hour before the mirror in the bathroom (as long as nobody else needs it). I wouldn’t call that high maintenance.
Taking an hour, changing outfits 3 times, consulting your partner about the fatness-looking of each one, disappearing into the restroom twice during dinner to freshen up, refusing to leave the house if not perfectly dressed and coiffed, not wishing to kiss because it’ll mess up her lipstick, not wishing you to run your fingers through her hair (ditto; and sometimes not being able to run your fingers through her hair because of all the hairspray), and arranging oneself on the mattress just so during sex so that one always looks perfect, these are probably symptoms of a high-maintenance woman. It’s all about her own self-image and what part you play in that. You’re the boyfriend in her grand I Fall In Love script.
True. And it’s not just people in relationships. I’ve had coworkers (of both sexes) act in totally HM ways. There was on guy I worked with who was never happy unless he was the center of major drama.
For me, it’s when someone invests far too much emotional energy into every little tiny detail of their life. Every action, every comments becomes about the person. The universe revolves around them. If their spouse/partner forgets something it’s not just because he/she was thinking of something else, it becomes a test of love.
I see high maintenace as being demanding about getting others to meet your emotional neediness.
OMG - I think I dated him! He used to also sit at his parent’s house all sullen and type me messages on his phone (he’d hand them to me to read, not actually send them) about how many times they interrupted him, how he was unappreciated, etc. I once checked his driver’s license to make sure he was 32 and not 12.
And he constantly was in drama - both while we dated and while we tried to be friends. I finally called his bluff one day when he threatened to end our friendship - and I’ve been so happy ever since
I tend to agree with this. But a lot of the posters have said some really meat stuff - I just refuse to hijack the thread to applaud them all!
High maintenance simply a need to have everything and everyone “perfect” around them in a completely shallow and self absorbed way. Their makeup has to be perfect. Their clothes have to be perfect. They need the right bag and the right sunglasses and the right tiny dog. If you are dating them, you need to have the right car and the right job and be wearing the right clothes at all times and you must provide them with the right gifts (see above).
How is it not high maintenance? If I had to take a car for a tuneup or an oil change once a week, would you say that was a low maintenance vehicle?
A high maintenance girl gets up 2 hours before an 8am class to do her hair and makeup. A low maintenance girl throws on some sweatpants, puts her hair in a ponytail, throws on a baseball cap and says “screw it, I’ll shower after class”.
I’ve read the following argument in a relationship book. In response to the myth “women are high maintenance,” Barbara de Angelis writes “no, relationships are high maintenance.” If you had a valuable sports car, she argues, would you not wish to take it into the shop as frequently as the owners’ manual recommended? Would you not protect your investment in it?
I see her point, and I agree that good healthy relationships take work, but I disagree with her logic. A high-maintenance sports car gives value in return for maintenance: status, looks, power, handling, resale value. For those who wish to have a valuable vintage auto, one might say it’s worth the trouble for the reward it provides. You wouldn’t want a beat-up old clunker that required the same babying.
And that’s where Ms. de Angelis’ argument falls apart. Surely some women are more trouble than they’re worth: they demand more time, energy, affection, money, and more compromise, and give less in return. Those are “high maintenance.”
I think there’s a big difference in terms of who is expected to do the maintenance.
If it takes me three hours to go out, and I go to the spa every week, and will only eat certain things, I may require a lot of maintenance but the work all falls on me. So for the purposes of this thread, I would not consider that high-maintenance.
If, when I am getting ready to go out I keep asking you for validation (does this make me look fat? Which colour of eye-shadow should I wear? Do you like this top on me?), and I expect you to pay for my weekly spa trips, and hold you responsible for my diet (“How dare you make me a meal with white flour in it!” or “I know your family is taking me out, but I refuse to eat in this restaurant because there’s nothing on the menu for me!”), then the work falls on you (which it shouldn’t). That makes me high-maintenance.
My own example: I had this one relationship during which I had a job and volunteer gigs and generally a busy life. He didn’t appear to have any of those things, so he spent his days getting his errands done while I was at work, and felt entitled to all of my time and attention while I was not at work. I clearly remember one time I was having a nap, and I woke up to see him literally pouting and sulking beside my bed, because I was sleeping instead of paying attention to him. (I pretended to still be sleeping.) He would pout a lot, generally, to indicate that I had failed him in some way. So I was expected to apologize for my wrongdoing and coddle his ego so that we could have crazy make-up sex.
Our relationship consisted almost entirely of him trying to get that strategy to work on me. Everything was great when were completely on the same page and agreed on everything, but the moment we had even the slightest disagreement on the most insignificant thing (e.g. “what do you feel like doing tonight?”), it suddenly became all about him and his feelings. I didn’t go in for that. So then we’d argue. And of course it was all my fault for being so unreasonable as to advocate for my own feelings instead of unquestioningly supporting his.
I have high-maintenance platonic friends as well.
In every case I think what it comes down to is that high maintenance people take more than they give. Optionally: they demand things that they do not offer.
Cars aside, as I mentioned before it can depend on who’s defining ‘high maintenance.’ Certainly there are very needy people, jealous people, clingy people of both genders. But when one person gets to set the parameters of what is and isn’t normal when it comes to affection and relationships – whether it’s the guy who demands every minute of his wife’s time and doesn’t like her having hobbies, or the woman who read somewhere that one call every two days is standard, no exceptions – I think this term has a tendency to be overused.
I also have to say that appearance has nothing to do with whether someone is high maintenance in a relationship. The woman who was the highest-maintenance SO I ever had dressed like a slob.
Oh–and I’m sorry to hear about the divorce, Shagnasty. When did that happen? (if you don’t mind my asking.)
I’m not so sure. Granted, this example isn’t about relationships, but consider:
A person (the one I’m thinking of is female, so I’ll use she) is at a restaurant. When ordering a drink, she orders a soda with no ice. If the drink comes with ice, she’ll send it back. When ordering the food, she makes substitutions, asking for this to be left out or that to be added in, extra of that, so on and so forth. If it doesn’t arrive exactly as she expects, she makes the server take it back until it comes out correctly. At the end of dinner, she leaves a 30% tip.
Is that high maintenance? I’d say it is. She recognized the effort the server and chef had to put in on her behalf, but there was still a lot of effort. Appreciation doesn’t make it go away.
I think it really just boils down, at least in my internal dictionary, to how much effort the person expects another to put in toward the relationship. Whether they take without giving, or are generous to a fault, doesn’t really matter. If my girlfriend has to hear “I love you” three times a day or she starts to worry, it doesn’t matter if she gives it back tenfold, she’s still high maintenance.
Personally, I try to place as little of a value judgment in the term as I can. It’s not necessarily bad if someone’s high maintenance; there’s people who enjoy that mindset. The only time it is bad is when there’s an incompatibility in personalities.
That’s ridiculous, and I’m not really surprised to read it from you. I go to the spa often (although not weekly but more than once a month) because I like it. It is relaxing to get a massage or a pedicure or a facial or any other service they offer. As a bonus to the feel-good aspect, it improves me in a way that I appreciate.
I pay for it with my disposable income and have never asked or expected anyone else to do so for me so if a man thinks that makes me high maintenance, I’d say that’s his hangup. For me, it’s just a part of taking good care of myself.
Your generalizations make me wonder if you’ve only dated caricatures of women. Sometimes I spend a lot of time getting ready to go out, sometimes I wear a pair of jeans, a baseball jersey and a baseball cap.
I (oh my god, shock!) like to have things the way I like them. I pay for my clothes so I like to have them a certain way. I pay for my bags, shoes, etc and want them to be the way I like them. In your book, that makes someone high maintenance? What do you do, walk into a store and say “Just give me something in a size _____?” You just live anywhere as long as you can afford it? No, you want certain things that many would consider “shallow” and I’d bet a year’s pay that you have some self absorbed preferences too.
It is entirely possible to expect a LOT from and for yourself without demanding those type of things from others if one is a real, live person and not a sitcom stereotype of a person.
cowgirl’s comment nails it, IMHO. I expect me to take care of and maintain me and nobody else. If that’s so hard for you to imagine, maybe you should expand the circle of women you know and look at them as people who make choices based on their likes and dislikes and don’t have to apply your values to the choices they make.
A friend said it rather well (about his girlfriend at that time): “When she’s not completely happy, it’s a problem and all the world needs to find a solution.”
Almost there - the high maintenance girl not only gets up two hours early to do her hair, **but expects you to get up at the same time to keep her company **- even if you were working late the night before.
she wants a foot massage EVERY NIGHT, and if you don’t give her one, you don’t love her anymore.
If you let her choose the movie, you are “a wimp” if you do choose the movie, and she doesn’t like it you are either selfish or don’t know her well.
If she goes someone you don’t like, then its “her right”, if you go somewhere she doesn’t like you are being selfish.
If, after three hours in the mall you tell her that you are bored with shopping and would like to go home, you are rushing her and being an asshole, if you stay, but look tired you are rushing her and being an arsehole. If you tell her that she is free to carry on but you want to go to a bookshop you are not being supportive.
If she asks you to get the handbag that she used three weeks ago and bring it to her, but you can’t find / remember from her vague description (the square LV bag - sorry darling, which squarre LV bag? You have four of them) you are stupid.
THe high maintenance woman, if she calls you when she has finished work, you must leave THAT INSTANT to meet her, but if you call her when you finish work, you are rushing her and not being supportive and belittling her work. And you can make your own way home.
She will sit in the bedroom and call you to wait on her, where is my water, get me some chocolate, take out the rubbish - if you ask her to do something similiar the reply? What do I look like your maid?
