Team “Anticipation”

(does not have anything to do with Rocky Horror Picture Show)

I was originally going to put up a picture of cheerleaders or sports fans with this story — you know, something to convey my support for the ‘team’. But I will be talking about myself a lot in this story. And cheerleaders, sports supporters, that just isn’t me. Rocky Horror, that’s much more me. And the association is just as strong, if not stronger. You know the scene:

I bet you’re shivering already.

If anticipation is one team, you might be wondering what the opposing team is. The opposing team, dear people, is spontaneity. I imagine some of you might want to protest that the opposite of spontaneity is planning. It’s not, really. You still do a fair amount of planning to be able to be spontaneous. You can’t, for instance, spontaneously decide to have a picnic and not put a quick plan together. Make some sandwiches, get a bottle of something to drink, put it all in some sort of container you can carry with you, grab a blanket and a Frisbee, and then head out with a rough destination in mind. The planning required for a spontaneous event or an anticipated event, remains the same. The only difference is the amount of time you give yourself to think up and execute the plan.

Of course giving yourself more time to plan will allow for more detail in your plan. But detail isn’t the point. Drinking your picnic wine from the glasses you remembered to bring, or taking turns sipping from the bottle, doesn’t (or shouldn’t) make or break your picnic.

Side note: I own several brightly colored plastic wine glasses. They have stems and everything. Whimsical and elegant. Perfect for small children at parties and adult picnics.

Giving yourself more time, say a couple of days, to think up and execute your plan, allows for anticipation of the event. I do realize that this is a double edged sword. If you’re one to stress about the things that can go wrong at your event — ants at your picnic…rain…food poisoning…flash flood…meteor strikes…alien invasion — you’re much less likely to enjoy this extra time. But to a optimist like me, anticipation is half the fun.

I’ve always been on team anticipation. When I was growing up in the Netherlands, the high point of the summer always was my family’s visit(s) to the Efteling. I would spend months living up to those trips. I would draw maps from memory, plan out walking routes to beat the rush of people (with mixed success) and spend hours deciding beforehand what sort of souvenir I was going to buy in which shop. In the days right before our visit, my anticipation would reach feverish proportions. I wouldn’t sleep from excitement.

This amusement park seemed to be custom made for little me. Fairy tales and roller coasters. The memory of measuring myself to see if I had gotten tall enough to ride the Python (a roller coaster with two loops and two corkscrews) are still clear as day. I am sorry to say, the first time I realized I had indeed grown tall enough, I chickened out. I loved the Efteling so much, I would tell everyone for years that when I grew up, I was going to work at the Efteling. Just as clear in my mind, is the day I realized that the visit to the Efteling was only part of it. The biggest part, to be sure, but still just a part.

That year a sort of game show was being shot in ‘my’ Efteling. And I adored the show. I begged and pleaded until I was allowed to stay up an hour past my bed time so I could watch it. And I did watch it religiously. In part because of the Efteling, but also because the games show, based on the Japanese hit Takeshi’s Castle, was a lot of fun. (There’s a youtube video here. Just be warned, the 80’s puked all over this thing.)Every show, the participants came from one of the 13 provinces of the Netherlands, with 2 moving on to the grand final to become “best of the country”. One Sunday my parents loaded me and my brother into the car with some excuse, and secretly drove us to the Efteling. That day they were filming the episode with participants from our province. As a surprise to me, we were going to see the games live and spend the rest of the day in the amusement park. My brother and I only realized when we saw the Python track peek out over the trees.

Don’t get me wrong. It was amazing. I loved being in the audience of my favorite television show. I loved being at the Efteling. But that visit, compared to all the others, just didn’t measure up. While it should have stood out. And I realized the thing I missed, was the anticipation. I missed getting worked up. I missed loosing a couple of nights of sleep. I missed an essential part of the enjoyment of going on a trip to my favorite place.

It annoys me to no end that, in the eyes of team spontaneity, anticipation has such a bad name. Specially if we’re talking about romantic events. The comment: “I prefer to be spontaneous, it’s more special” just rubs me the wrong way. Really? You do realize we, at team anticipation, just spend days, if not weeks, thinking about our partner, considering what they would like, and getting excited for the event we’re going to experience together? But somehow, that all is less special than coming up with something in 30 minutes.

Now I don’t really want to get petty, but when such comments come from my partner; *pout* haven’t you thought about us…about me…at all before you walked in here? How is that more special?

I’m learning to deal with that preference thing. I don’t even really pout any more.

Just do me one favor. If you ever deal with someone from team anticipation, this goes from friends but it goes double for romantic partners. Never ever tell them taking that extra time to plan feels “forced”. Because, if we weren’t enjoying each and every second of that time we spend living towards the event, if we didn’t do it freely, happily and willingly, we wouldn’t.

In fact, you can start worrying about ‘forced’ only when we suddenly stop planning in advance.