The Push Pull Phenomenon~

Don’t get me wrong, I love my dog. But sometimes, he positively epitomizes typical characteristics of the male sex (evidence to the argument that gender roles aren’t solely socially constructed…but that’s another essay)

I’ll be sitting at my desk, settled in my chair, typing away and Calvin will come sit right at my feet to stare up at me imploringly with beautiful black button eyes.

Because we are so well acquainted, Calvin and I, I know this look is not asking me to feed him, or to take him out but is more a “let me curl up in your lap to love and be loved” look. For Calvin, life in a human’s lap is a deeply embedded biological desire. He’s bred for it. His ancestors adorned the laps of everyone from Marie Antoinette (who supposedly gave the breed it’s name…girl was good at turning phrases) to King Henry III (yikes) to Madame de Pompadour (probably the best choice of the three). I love that in my wanderings round the Met, particularly through the Robert Lehman wing, I’ve come across several grand accounts of royal family life, complete with little Papillions seated demurely in their ladies laps.

In short, in Calvin’s rather limited world, my lap represents a certain fulfillment of his life’s purpose. So it really makes sense that he so ardently desires to be in it. Which gets me back to the point that I started out with--the way in which my little dog behaves in a similar fashion to other, human, males in my life.

When Calvin sits there, on the floor, staring up soulfully at me, I smile down and ask, “Do you want to come up?”…he keeps staring. I reach down to lift him into my lap and what does he do? He scampers off, turns around, looks at me, and scampers in the opposite direction. “Fine” I say and turn back to my work. A few minutes later, however, he’s back to staring. The process repeats itself. “Fine”, I say, and turn back to my work. Tired of playing games, when he again comes and sits at my feet to stare, I ignore him. When he realizes his attempt at my attention has failed, he hops from the couch to the bed and sits on the edge of my mattress, right behind my chair, and stares some more. If you’ve ever tried to work with someone looking over your shoulder, you’ll understand why this absolutely doesn’t work. So I cave, I give into the request on his terms and turn the chair to face him. Only then will he hop from the bed, onto my lap, to curl up and snooze contentedly for a while.

It’s the old “push pull” syndrome worked out in canine form. He does it with his own kind too. We’ll be walking along, and towards us will come another canine-human pair. If the other dog perks up, interested and alert, Calvin feigns indifference. Once that dog has passed by however, Calvin does a complete 180, intending to follow the now disinterested animal down the street. Likewise, should another dog seem disinterested in him, Calv is all ears and eyes, fixated on the elusive other.

Let me paint a parallel situation for you, just to exemplify the connection my little dog’s actions have to those of his human counterparts. This is a fabricated example, although, one that is assuredly well founded. Girl and guy are in class together. Guy thinks to himself that girl is hot. Girl thinks guy is hot and suspects he thinks he is as well. As such, she warily and wisely ignores him. Guy’s interest grows, fueled by the girl’s indifference, perhaps because it poses a challenge of sorts. She notices him noticing her so is unsuprised when he finally gets it up to comment on her outfit, or something smart she said in class discussion. Girl is glad…everyone wants to be appreciated. Guy and girl strike up a conversation and leave class together. Girl gives guy her number. They part ways. Girl waits and wonders. Guy waits until the next day dawns before sending a text...nobody wants to seem desperate. Girl receives and is excited. She checks the clock, counts ahead four hours and decides that she will text at that point….again, nobody wants to seem desperate. As this dynamic goes on, and as the two get to know each other and eventually begin to hook up, one of the two, the girl most likely, starts to like the other, or to think she likes the other, more than the other wants to reciprocate. Once the more interested party feels this increase of emotional attachment, waiting the requisite four hours before returning a text becomes much more difficult than before, as does wondering for days on end when next she will hear from the guy whose attention she’s now invested in. On the flip side, the less interested party, having now solved the mystery of what the other looks like without her clothes on, is demonstrably less interested in the mystery of the back and forth text messages, when they’ll arrive and what they’ll have to say. What is more, because the other is more interested, the aforementioned texts come more often. Suffice it to say, the relationship fizzles, leaving the female party upset and feeling vulnerable for having put herself out there and undesirable for being rejected. These feelings are strong at first, giving way with the passing of a few weeks, to anger. This anger causes a cessation of all contact between the two, be it telephonically or in class where the girl ignores the guy with a nonchalant air of indifference, smiling and talking with other people, making clear that the hooking up that once was, really meant nothing at all. This lull in contact between the two goes on for a while before the guy finds himself wondering where the “other” went to. Ergo, he sends a text. The recipient of said text is at once satisfied, angry and intrigued by the reinstatement of contact. And so the process starts again.

In the same way that Calvin is invited into my loving lap only to run, the guy in the above situation balks at the girl’s attention and the attachment it alludes to. Once she seems less invested however, he becomes more. Push pull.