{"id":2064,"date":"2011-04-04T09:08:18","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T16:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=2064"},"modified":"2025-11-02T21:07:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T04:07:56","slug":"expected-choices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=2064","title":{"rendered":"Expected Choices"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was watching a t.v. show the other day and was struck by the choices made by the characters.\u00a0 The man ran a showgirl-like club and he’d had an affair with one of his singers.\u00a0 The wife found out, insisted he not only end the affair but fire her or see him in divorce court.\u00a0 He did, the showgirl wants to sue and ended up in the laps of Harry’s Law<\/em> (I enjoy that show!) <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The twist being the show-girl was a hermaphrodite.\u00a0 Anatomically male & female but she chose to be female.\u00a0 So not only couldn’t her boss risk losing\u00a0 his family but if the case went to court his children might learn of his affair with someone anatomically male.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The poignancy was the way the two parties clearly loved each\u00a0 other.\u00a0 She was fighting being fired because it was the only way she could get just a little more of him, to see him.\u00a0 The scenes where he watched her perform, with his heart clearly dying inside him, were powerful.\u00a0\u00a0 Most likely the very reason she fought for the relationship.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

And I thought,\u00a0 why is he giving up love and denying himself something that makes him happy because its the “Expected Right Thing To Do?”\u00a0 Will his children respect him for sacrificing that part of himself for them or will they see a part of him mourn for what was “lost” and realize it was because of them.\u00a0 Will it truly save his marriage?\u00a0 If his marriage made him happy he would never had strayed.\u00a0 So probably doomed to end anyway.
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

But as people, we do this all the time.\u00a0 We make the “expected” choices instead of what we really want.\u00a0 Now, sometimes that’s a good thing.\u00a0 Like when we choose food & rent instead of lottery tickets & alcohol.\u00a0 But sometimes it means we limit who we are, what we can learn about ourselves AND about others.\u00a0\u00a0 We choose what is expected because its known as safe, approved, what everyone else chose.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps I’ve never understood it because I’ve never been a person who only chooses the expected.\u00a0 Don’t get me wrong, I’ve chosen many things that people would consider “safe and approved.”\u00a0 But I’ve also chosen things that are not.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lucky for me, I’ve never been a person to regret decisions I’ve made.\u00a0 I’ve always felt the past is the past.\u00a0 I don’t even regret my marriage.\u00a0 Nor the fact it ended in divorce.\u00a0 I WOULD have regretted giving up my desire for freedom for some other “expected choice” of what is “proper.”<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I guess the real kicker for me and this episode of Harry’s Law was the way he added her “difference” into the equation.\u00a0\u00a0 He set aside the fact it was an affair.\u00a0 He set aside the fact they loved each other.\u00a0 Ultimately he was giving her up because he couldn’t handle the public knowledge of what people would think when imagining “HOW” they were intimate together.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Which, for me, made it truly sad.\u00a0 Because deep down inside if he’d really had a problem with it he’d never have had the affair.\u00a0 And there she was…\u00a0 She’d found a man that not only loved her, but loved all of her and because he was too cowardly to admit he DIDN’T have a problem with it, he was going to abandon her and break both their hearts.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

My friends think I’m not romantic because I don’t “save myself for love.”\u00a0 When truth be known, I think I’m more romantic than they are.\u00a0 Love is so terribly important, so wonderful to receive and give, that I refuse to deny myself all possibilities of experiencing it based only on society’s Expected Choices of how I should have it. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I enjoy people.\u00a0 I want to love them all.\u00a0\u00a0 I may express my love a little more sexually than others, but that’s because I think and feel like a guy.\u00a0 If my enjoyment of you makes you happy, if my love of your company makes you smile…. who am I to deny you.\u00a0 And if my choices are beyond the limits of others, well then, those who are standing with me….\u00a0 outside those boundaries….\u00a0 we get to dance and rejoice together.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Like Bette Midler sang, “God is watching us, from a distance.”\u00a0 If he sees us loving, does he care how?\u00a0 And if HE doesn’t really care.. why should everyone else have a problem with it?
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was watching a t.v. show the other day and was struck by the choices made by the characters.\u00a0 The man ran a showgirl-like club and he’d had an affair with one of his singers.\u00a0 The wife found out, insisted … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-just-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2064"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2086,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064\/revisions\/2086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}