Humpty Dumpty

One of my favorite things about business school so far has been that the concepts discussed in the classroom have immediate, observable application in the outside world. I’ll hear about supply and demand in class, then step outside and see that Taylor Hicks’ album is in the bargain bin. Or we’ll discuss branding, or more specifically, the possibilities for expanding your brand, and I’ll step outside and see that Madonna, author of the book “SEX” and the song “Erotica” is now writing children’s books. So, I get it – what I learn in the classroom translates to everyday life.

This was never the case with law school. I never got the connection to the real world. While we sometimes (read: rarely) read interesting cases, I never quite saw the parallels to reality, and this is a large part of why I never quite found it, well, compelling. Who really cares if your fox runs across your land into your neighbor’s? I don’t. I grew up with “finders keepers”. The end.

We studied a host of theories in law school, but I’ve finally found one that makes sense in my reality.

Here you go:

Recently a girl friend of mine broke up with her boyfriend. The guy took it pretty hard. As wonderful as this girl is, his meltdown (and that’s putting it nicely) had only somewhat to do with her leaving him. I’ll leave the details at that because frankly I fear he may be a reader of this here bloggy blog blog. But suffice it to say that he took this breakup to the hilt- to a point where we had to feel there was something much bigger going on.

What she was dealing with, in legal terms, is the EGGSHELL PLAINTIFF.

The idea is that you get someone how you found them. So if you get in a car accident and you break someone’s leg, sucks for you. But if you cause an accident and that person was already in a neckbrace, tougher shit for you. You can be responsible for all of it (depending on the laws of the state; this blog is not to be taken as legal advice, just opinion and blather, la la la).

Dating is just one big darn Eggshell World. We take people as we find them. You date someone who is hypersensitive to weight comments because her last boyfriend made lots of snarky remarks on her curvature or you meet someone who completely breaks down if Celine Dion comes on the radio because that’s the last song he danced to with his ex. You take people as you find them. Which seems unfair, because, when you start dating, you date people’s representative. Psychology commonly believes that it takes 2-3 years for the “true” self to show up, for you to start revealing the little flaws that you have been perhaps subconsciously hiding. My boyfriend and I recently discussed this, trying to pre-empt the ugly revelations with confessions. I admitted that I am a little more OCD than I’ve shown him (ok, my mom -- and now sister- call me "Monica", in a reference to the anal-retentive character on Friends). Fine, and I’m an all-out car stereo hog. I told him that too. He thought really hard about it and, only after consulting his sister, came up with the fact that he eats ClifBars instead of meals. But the truth of the exercise came to me -- the whole point of that psych finding is that people don’t even REALIZE they’re hiding their annoying quirks and behaviors. Interestink.

Back to the Eggshell Plaintiff: I realize this should make more cautious daters out of all of us. But then you might be thinking that, hey, obviously you take people as they come. But why is it that we expect people to be scar-free? We expect everyone to come perfectly packaged, straight off the assembly line. (By “we”, I mean “me".) It never occurred to me that I could be responsible for adding to previous damage. It feels like you should only be responsible for the damage you cause, but wise legal minds teach us otherwise.

And if they say it, it must be true.

Ultimately I convinced my friend that it wasn’t her responsibility to make up for years of hardship and torment this guy had been through before her, and that she was just the straw, he the camel, yadda yadda. But the idea remains- and he certainly believed it.

So, in relationships, is the case “Buyer beware?”