While You Were Sweeping
My boyfriend unplugs my laptop when it's charging and plugs the charger into his, despite knowing that I need my computer charged for work. This is actually part of a pattern -- a general lack of consideration, from constantly being late to always leaving messes for me to clean up to knocking the shower door off the track and then just leaving it leaning against the tub. Recently, my dad emailed him three times without hearing back -- in response to a favor he'd asked of my dad! -- and I had to bug him to reply. How can I get him to be more considerate?
--Disturbed
There are people who go all crazybiscuits if you don't immediately email them back -- confusing the ability to reply nearly instantly with a mandate to do that. Still, there's a middle ground between frantically responding to every message and taking so long that somebody sends the cops around to peer in the windows for a body.
When you're romantically involved with someone, it's kind of a problem if the most reliable thing about them is their unreliability. Granted, we all fail in the follow-through department every now and then -- like when my car got ticketed because the registration sticker I'd paid for remained in a pile of unopened mail that had gradually migrated under my bed.
But when somebody has a pretty pervasive pattern of carelessness -- when they're basically an entitlement-infused, corner-cutting slacktastrophe of a person -- it points to their coming up short on what psychologists call "conscientiousness." This is one of the five core personality dimensions (along with openness, extroversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability), and it reflects a person's level of self-control and sense of responsibility to others.
Personality researcher Brent Roberts explains that people who are "high in conscientiousness" "tend to write down important dates, comb their hair, polish their shoes, stand up straight, and scrub floors." That last one is an unexpected plus if you have dingy grout; however, there's such a thing as too much conscientiousness -- which is cool if your "type" is a rigid, perfectionistic mini-Mussolini.
Meanwhile, on the perennially chillaxed end of the spectrum, people "low in conscientiousness" tend to break promises, cancel plans, watch more TV, oversleep, and see credit limits as credit suggestions. The plan-canceling and promise-breaking reflect something noteworthy -- self-centeredness and a lack of concern for how their behavior affects others. (Essentially, they tend to do things halfway -- but only when they can't get away with doing them a third of the way or less.)
Not surprisingly, researchers find that people's lives work better if they keep their promises, don't go around with yesterday's sloppy Joe on their shirt, and get to work at an hour that does not require an explanation that opens with "you'll never believe what happened this time!"
However, it isn't just your own level of conscientiousness that impacts your life. Psychologists Brittany Solomon and Joshua Jackson find that having a partner high in conscientiousness makes you likely to have higher income and job satisfaction and a better shot at getting promoted. They suggest that having a more conscientious partner makes for a more satisfying and supportive home life, allowing a person to focus more on their work.
Personality traits are, to a great extent, genetic and are largely stable because of that. However, Roberts finds evidence that people can increase their level of conscientiousness. This starts in the smallest ways, like making the bed and tidying the house in the morning so it looks more "lived in" than "ransacked." Repeated behaviors become habits, and collectively, our habits form who we are.
Of course, changing starts with wanting to change -- valuing conscientiousness enough to be motivated to make it an integral part of everything one does. This sometimes happens when a person gets a tragedy-driven wake-up call. Absent that, your best chance for inspiring your boyfriend to want to live more conscientiously is by using empathy as a motivator -- gently explaining to him how unloved you feel and how disrespected other people must feel in the wake of his constant sloppy disregard for anyone but himself.
If he says he wants to change, give yourself a deadline -- perhaps two or three months down the road -- to see whether he's making meaningful improvement. If you decide to break up, you might want to make conscientiousness one of the "must-haves" on your "What I Need In A Man" list so your next relationship feels more like a romantic partnership than a remedial finishing school for one. Lesson 36: One should email the girlfriend's dad back in less time than it would take to deliver the message by pony express -- if you first had to get the mare and the stallion to hook up to make the pony.
“Slacktastrophe” got a snort-laugh.
That was me until kid #1 when I was 24. It hit me “this will die if you don’t take care of it and it will be your fault.” Straightened up, settled down, flew right. So there was hope for me after all.
Brad at November 21, 2017 8:27 PM
Reach down.
Take hold of big-person pants.
Pull up firmly.
It's not about HIM changing, LW, it's about you deciding whether you want to put up with it. If you want him enough to live with the slacktastrophe, STFU. If you don't, DTMFA. It really is that simple - that old adage about having and eating cakes really is true.
Grey Ghost at November 22, 2017 5:50 AM
Yeah, if you're a conscientious person, dealing with people who aren't can drive you insane. It's a trust thing. If you ask someone to do something and they say yes, how much can you rely on them to actually do it? To me, an honest "no" in response to a request for a favor is preferable to a "yes" that is said just to not appear "disagreeable", without the person actually thinking about what I'm asking.
My wife and I have a friend who generally is a very conscientious person, but she has one character flaw: she's habitually late for things. It used to drive us up the wall, because it seemed like such a lack of consideration. Then one day we realized that it was a side effect of the fact that she tends to throw herself lock, stock and barrel into whatever she is doing, whether it be a work project or a date, and she simply loses track of time. Once we realized that, and figured out how to make accommodations for the fact that she will probably be late, it became a lot less annoying. (Not complely un-annoying, but much more tolerable.) We also realized that, anytime we do something that includes her, it's on us to make sure we keep an eye on the time for her. So, for instance, if I have lunch with her and she tells me that she has to be back at the office by 1:00 for a meeting, it's on me to wrap up lunch early enough so that she'll be back at the office in time. She's a delightful gal and fun to hang around with, so we work around this quirk.
However, the situation with LW and her BF sounds intolerable. If the laptop was all there was to it, I'd say, "get another charger; they're not that expensive". But there are multiple things going on in there. I'm not totally convinced it's genetic; I think there's a fair amount of bad parenting involved -- I've seen a lot of that in people that I know were catered to as teenagers. But whether it's genetic or environmental really doesn't matter, because the fact is, it won't get better until that person decides to fix it. It's like the old joke: "How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the bulb has to really want to change."
Cousin Dave at November 22, 2017 6:39 AM
This guy is self centered and always has been. He only thinks of himself, and always will. You can not "get" or "make" someone do something. When will (women especially) learn, that you cannot change people, or make them do something? Dump this guy and find someone who is not so selfish and self centered.
Stormy at November 22, 2017 7:23 AM
I like the part where he interferes with LW's ability to make a living by unplugging her computer.
Or the part where he makes additional work for her by breaking the shower door - and then leaving it.
Or where he creates tension between LW and Dad by playing weird communications and control games.
A slacker wouldn't bother with this crap. Her guy is a passive-aggressive saboteur.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at November 22, 2017 9:32 AM
It's possible the guy is self centered.
It's possible the guy is just oblivious because his parents raised him as the center of all creation.
I tend to agree with Gog though, inconsiderate and self centered people don't sow quite so much havock
lujlp at November 22, 2017 12:02 PM
Deer LW,
I'll share something that's taken some time to come into focus for me.
He is who he is. You have to learn to accept him as he is, just as he has to accept you for who you are. If he promises to change, give him the 3 or so months, and revisit the situation then. If he's made progress and is happy with things then continue. If he's not, he may pull the plug on the relationship himself.
I R A Darth Aggie at November 22, 2017 12:18 PM
Reminds me of a college roommate I once had. Used to help himself to my hygiene products every morning for his shower. No matter how many times I told him not to, it was his morning routine. Pull himself out of bed, nonchalantly walk to my closet, open it up, grab my body wash, shampoo, toothpaste and anything else he felt he needed.
Confronting him on it simply set off a screaming, profane rage, so I ended up locking my stuff in my footlocker. Kind of a pain, but at least it forced him to use his own stuff.
Patrick at November 23, 2017 3:35 PM
Yeah, the first time my WORK laptop got unplugged I would have told him to GET OUT. No sex is that good.
notgonna at December 23, 2017 12:55 AM
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