Dorothea Salo: Intensity.
So what do you do if you’ve got an intense person on your hands?
- Decide whether you can handle it. Intense people do not change. The focus of their intensity may change (though rarely; David is and has always been a language nut), but the strength and effects of the intensity will not.
- If you aren’t practical, you are both in trouble, because the intense person will not be. Ever.
- Do not expect an intense person to fill every minute of your time. You had better have independent interests. This is not to say that you will never connect with intense people, or that you must be as intense as the intense person about the area of interest—they do come out of their shells. Just don’t expect a constant flow of connection. You won’t get it.
- Expect to make extra effort to connect. Comes with the territory. If you share the interest at all, that’s good, but not sufficient. Sometimes you’ll have to pull the intense person into the world—gently.
- Expect the intense person to talk about the area of interest. A lot. Past your boredom threshhold. A number of strategies will help you here, so I won’t prescribe one, but you must develop one. Or more. More is good.
- Learn to be assertive (but not nasty) about what you need. Don’t expect an intense person to intuit it. You will be waiting a long time. Conversely, pick your battles, so that you can win the important ones. This means tolerating some things that you otherwise might not. Double standard? Yes, if you want to live with an intense person.
- Don’t hold grudges. You can’t afford to. You will always have the short end of the stick in some ways. If you keep score, your resentment will kill your relationship or you or both.
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