After the crab crawled, or 'doormat-no-more'

‘She needs to grow up. She’s a dissatisfied middle-aged woman who sees herself growing old in an unhappy relationship, with kids taking away her life and she’s jealous of your freedom, although she wouldn’t have had the balls to make the choices you made, but wished she had. Hence the sourness… Rhonda can feel free to pinch my argument if she agrees with it.’ -- a friend about a typical 'crab'.

It seems I have inadvertently managed to put my crab-crawling theory into practice... with spectacular effect.

Having spent the first 30+ years of my life filling a particular niche in the lives of my friends and family, I have reached the point where I not only realise it’s a place I don’t want to be, but I have actively tried to re-define my position, or rather, affirm my identity and establish boundaries around it -- something I failed to do before.

Part of this process has involved looking at the way I have chosen to live my life, and asking if this is what I want for my present and future.

For example, I established my current career not so much by choice as by accident. I grasped at the first grown-up job that came along, and then worked my way up to something I actually liked. But I haven’t explored beyond that, so I’m taking some time to look at where to head next. So far on this front I’ve flown under the radar, but I’m bracing myself for some kick-back when I finally do make the move.

I’ve also decided to relocate. Leave Boganburbia to the nuclear-family-oriented and position myself nearer to the things I value and with more like-minded people. When I first raised this in front of my family, the response was, ‘What would you want to live in that area for? It’s full of hippies and weirdoes.’

Over the years I have thought about having children but have come to the conclusion it’s not for me. This decision has been attacked from more directions than I care to count. The response has ranged from the use of assumptive language, ‘When you have children’ rather than ‘If you have children’, to ‘What if you regret it one day?’ (to which my standard reply became, ‘What if I regret having children? You can’t take them back.’

More recently the approach was to tell me if I didn’t have children I would lose my then partner. ‘You’ll need to have children if you want to keep him,’ they said. I remember thinking, Wow. That’s a healthy basis for a relationship, and an even healthier basis for raising a child. And they didn’t stop there. ‘You only have to have one. You can manage that. It won’t interfere with your life too much.’ Imagine the therapy that kid would eventually need. In the end I was tempted to pretend to be barren, just to get them off my back.

Another choice that has come under fire is my decision to not remarry or even have a quasi-married relationship. I’ve tried the whole miserable-marrieds-with-weekends-at-Bunnings thing, and failed. It just isn’t for me. This decision was affirmed during a subsequent relationship where every time things veered towards domestic-bliss-101 I found my insides screaming. I was miserable. I was lonely. I was trapped. And eventually I left. Crawled out of the basket amid screams of protest. How could I be choosing not to stay with someone who was kind, considerate, loving? My response: ‘If you want all those things, why don’t you marry him?’

I have since moved into a new relationship and ‘failed’ to integrate that relationship into the mould. No going-through-the-motions ‘family’ dinners, no weekends at Bunnings. And an endless barrage of criticism.

All this is before looking at the hostile response I’ve encountered to reforming my slobbing-on-the-couch-eating-takeaway lifestyle. Apparently prioritising diet and exercise and maintaining a healthier weight is cause for all kinds of snide remarks. I finally got one sister to stop by pointing out that I'm not so rude as to tell her she is overweight and should really do something about it, so I don't see why she feels it is okay to discuss my weight.

I can only imagine their hositility is because as crabs who share my mould they are more comfortable with dumpy, tubby me. I have redefined the mould's shape, both physically and metaphorically.

The remoulding process has been slow, and is still underway, but as I make progress the attacks become more intense. Criticism, lectures, guilt trips, the works.

Because I don’t hang out with my sister’s kids at the weekend, my other sister tells my nieces and nephew that she loves them more than me, that she is the better aunty, and they openly discuss my being outside the fold in front of the kids.

Because I’ve changed the way that I use social networking, and part of this involved removing my family, I’ve received hostile messages, vicious phone calls, text messages and emails. ‘Total cow! what the hell???? You just don't do that!’ and, ‘What the hell is wrong with you. Why are you trying so hard to not be part of our family?’

I even received a similarly parroted message from my twelve-year-old niece, who has been dragged into the whole saga by her mother.

I want to stress that I’m not writing this to vilify my family, but to illustrate the consequences of leaving the crawl too long. If I had been comfortable enough in myself to assert my boundaries as a teenager, or even when I first left home, I wouldn’t now be suffering because those who shared my mould are feeling the shift so acutely. Previously my position in the mould was beneath theirs and effectively propped theirs up, which means my shifting makes them feel less secure, less in control.

And in this case it is about control.

Ideally I’d like to have a loving, respectful relationship with my family, where I accept them for who they are and they respect me for who I am, but right now that choice isn’t open to me: ‘When you feel like joining us again as [the person we expect you to be] then I am here with open arms’, was my sister's last text.

Now that I’ve peered over the edge of the basket and seen the possibilities waiting for me on the other side, I have a chance at freedom, but unless me and my fellow crabs can establish a new, flexible mould, it looks like it will mean cutting ties with the crabs trying to claw me back, and leaving the basket for good.

'Happily Ever... Before and After'

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When a crab crawls out of its basket

From a very young age we are each cast into a mould. It shapes us as we shape it. We grow and evolve among like-minded people, or at least, among people who share a part of our mould. But as we grow, that mould solidifies. It shaped us and was shaped by us, but now it holds us in place. We are trapped: crabs in a basket.

Those who share our mould have an interest in its solidity – in their stability. And so each time we maintain our position in the mould, reach each moulded milestone, we are congratulated. Our stability props up theirs, reinforcing the mould and our shared part in it.

If our fellow crabs go to university, get jobs, settle into suburban bliss, maybe get married and pop out a sproglet or three, and we each do the same, we are bolstering the mould’s walls. We can feel safe, secure. By choosing the same path, we reinforce the decisions of others, who see themselves as like us, but also in relation to us.

But what happens if we deviate from the path? Maybe we don’t get married. Don’t have children. Don’t go to university. Our fellow crabs will feel uncomfortable, but in most cases, superior. They will pity us for not filling out the mould, not achieving, but they are not threatened by our perceived failure. We are safely tucked beneath them in the basket.

But if we decide to follow a different path, achieve different goals, it’s another story altogether.

The moment we start to escape, our fellow crabs panic and desperately try to claw us back inside. Like boiling water poured over them they flail and cry, and grab and scrabble. There is no congratulation, but no pity either. Instead we are criticised, reviled, ridiculed. If we climb up and over, we leave them behind to face the boiling water alone.

But it is not only our leaving that weakens the mould. It is also changing our position within the mould in relation to them. We may have grown up being the Quiet One, the Left-Out One, the Sporty One, the Nerdy One, the Fat One or the Thin One. Whatever our role, it is part of the mould, and a part of our group identity. Break away from that, try to get louder, get noticed, gain weight, lose weight, binge drink, have a sex change, however mild or extreme, and the crabs will again claw us back. Because when we shift they have nothing to hold them, shape them, and also nothing to shape.

In some ways this is more threatening to the mould than climbing up and over. It is abandoning the mould – rejecting it, and their part in it. We will cause the mould to buckle and shift, showing others that it is not immutable, but malleable: they might have chosen another path, too.

Tappin' the glass

Rhonda Perky visits life's aquarium to find out what makes Tappers tick

You've seen those annoying people at aquariums, the ones who walk up to the glass and tap tap tap, over and over, just to stir up a response? For some people this need finds its way into everyday life. They can’t seem to help themselves, tap tap tapping away oustide the glass cage of a relationship.

Tappers can be found in various forms. A typical manifestation is the Blonde Coquette who bangs on about how much she loves banging to her male co-worker. He hasn't seen the other side of his wife's flannelette nightie since Christmas 1993.

Then there’s the Insincere Ingénue who claims she can't get enough of going down to the guy whose girlfriend thinks it's 'gross', all the while watching him salivate, eyes alight.

See also the Single Sister, whose tap is a boast about how much she loves anal. This one tends to tap at her sibling’s partner or girlfriends’ husbands.

Tap tap tap.

In its least sinister form, Tappin' the Glass can be a fun game for you and your partner (if you have one). An innocent tap here and there can help prop up your ego (and theirs).


How to play:

1. Find your location – anywhere Miserable Marrieds go. I’ve found the best spots to be shopping malls in Boganburbia, the local family bistro, a Saturday morning at Bunnings, or a Thursday night at Ikea.
2. Spot your targets – prime exhibits include the Nagger and the Whipped, or the Heffer and her Frog.
3. Tap away – if you're with your other half, take one each, and start making eyes.

Tap tap tap.

At first your targets will startle: Is he/she really looking at me? Then watch the body language change. For her, a flick of the hair, her hips tilting, tits perking. She'll try to pretend she doesn't keep looking back. His voice will begin to boom, one hand on his hip, the other gesticulating at the merchandise, all knowledgeable: a sudden expert on the two-by-four or the circular saw.

This glass tapping is a win-win encounter. You (and your partner) ride the satisfaction from your tapping getting a response, while your target(s) go home and shag themselves silly with rekindled belief in their pulling power.

Caution:

If played with the wrong types, tapping can quickly escalate from an innocuous ego prop, posing a genuine risk to the Tapper or their Target.

Take the Turtle-Tapper. Typically a coupled-up woman who keeps a constant Backup-Boy (the ‘turtle’). She would never actually go there, so she picks the safest terrarium she can find. Behind the double-glazing is someone older, someone uglier, sometimes single, oftentimes not. This tap is all about security. The Turtle-Tapper needs to know she has options.

The loser in this situation is the Turtle. By the time he makes it to the glass, the Turtle-Tapper is supervising her husband building their new deck, while he is left standing, possibly with an abandoned wife, beating his head against the inside wall.

In its most dangerous form, Tappers turn into Breakers. Having the target look their way and contemplate isn’t enough to sustain these damaged egos, so Breakers head straight for the Python enclosure, find the glass that is fragile and cracked, and tap tap tap, until finally it breaks.

Breakers are your archetypal Commitment-Phobes. They can't settle in a relationship with someone who is actually free to want them. It's far too risky. So Breakers take satisfaction from knowing they can tempt someone away from their partner without the risk of real rejection. The target is not free to choose, so they can never not choose them.

To the Python, Breakers seem like good-time girls, but at their core they are the most destructive. They won’t just set the Pythons free, they will use their toxic venom to bite back, then swiftly move on to the next cage.

Conclusion:

If you do choose to visit the life's aquarium, be sure to play safely and tamely. An innocent tap here and there can certainly provide a mutual ego boost, but you don't want to find yourself being someone's Turtle, unleashing a Python, or ending up a victim to a Breakers bite.

-RP