It may be worth sharing, anecdotally, that years ago my husband expressed annoyance with me over the fact that I only ever rubbed his back while he was doing dishes, and it made him feel much like how wedrifid describes.
This utterly bewildered me, so I agreed to pay attention to the behavior and see what was going on. Pretty quickly it became clear to me that this was absolutely true, for reasons I wasn’t entirely clear on myself, although my working theory was it was the only time that I’d regularly walk past him while he was hunched over in that particular posture, which apparently served as a “give me a backrub” signal for me, for whatever reason.
My response to this was to start giving him random backrubs at other times, which solved the problem.
My point being that (a) being annoyed by this sort of behavior is not at all unique to wedrifid, and (b) whether the behavior pattern is intentional doesn’t necessarily matter very much. (I don’t mean to suggest that it doesn’t matter to wedrifid; actually, they have made it somewhat clear that it’s part of what they’re objecting to.)
The main lesson I’m taking from your anecdote is “people are complicated, everyone is complicated in a different way, and for almost any action or behaviour X, there will be a person somewhere who finds it awful.” It’s hard to guess at the relative numbers without doing a poll, but I’m guessing there’s a range of people who wouldn’t care if their significant other used physical affection as a reward (or who would even like it, because “yay, more total physical affection!”), and there’s a range of people who would find it mildly to extremely unpleasant.
I’m guessing there’s a range of people who wouldn’t care if their significant other used physical affection as a reward (or who would even like it, because “yay, more total physical affection!”), and there’s a range of people who would find it mildly to extremely unpleasant.
Pretty quickly it became clear to me that this was absolutely true, for reasons I wasn’t entirely clear on myself,
Well, the whole thing where he is standing up against the sink with his back to you but his hands were busy and he couldn’t turn around (to engage in other forms of affection) seems like the obvious guess.
It may be worth sharing, anecdotally, that years ago my husband expressed annoyance with me over the fact that I only ever rubbed his back while he was doing dishes, and it made him feel much like how wedrifid describes.
This utterly bewildered me, so I agreed to pay attention to the behavior and see what was going on. Pretty quickly it became clear to me that this was absolutely true, for reasons I wasn’t entirely clear on myself, although my working theory was it was the only time that I’d regularly walk past him while he was hunched over in that particular posture, which apparently served as a “give me a backrub” signal for me, for whatever reason.
My response to this was to start giving him random backrubs at other times, which solved the problem.
My point being that (a) being annoyed by this sort of behavior is not at all unique to wedrifid, and (b) whether the behavior pattern is intentional doesn’t necessarily matter very much. (I don’t mean to suggest that it doesn’t matter to wedrifid; actually, they have made it somewhat clear that it’s part of what they’re objecting to.)
The main lesson I’m taking from your anecdote is “people are complicated, everyone is complicated in a different way, and for almost any action or behaviour X, there will be a person somewhere who finds it awful.” It’s hard to guess at the relative numbers without doing a poll, but I’m guessing there’s a range of people who wouldn’t care if their significant other used physical affection as a reward (or who would even like it, because “yay, more total physical affection!”), and there’s a range of people who would find it mildly to extremely unpleasant.
Yup, that’s consistent with my experience.
Well, the whole thing where he is standing up against the sink with his back to you but his hands were busy and he couldn’t turn around (to engage in other forms of affection) seems like the obvious guess.