Anticipation anticipation. It's not a typo. It's a confusing, non-intuitive name (that I made up) for a simple concept: it's when someone doesn't express their needs or desires because they are waiting in anticipation of their significant others anticipating their needs. They are anticipating having their needs anticipated. Hence, anticipation anticipation.

The fantasy is enticing, intoxicating even. What makes us feel more loved than being truly known, to an extent that someone important to use can meet a specific need in the moment we need it met.

Sometimes this can happen, but as with many things we see in movies and read in books, reality is mundane by comparison. To state the obvious: we can't read each other's minds.

While we should allow ourselves to enjoy and appreciate when someone we care about anticipates our needs, we shouldn't wait for it. When we hope for it to happen or expect it to happen, we will be disappointed most of the time.

When we interpret the absence of this anticipation as a negative reflection on ourselves, our loved ones, or our relationships with them, we end up feeling hurt or damaging our own self-esteem. It doesn't really mean something bad. To repeat myself: It just means we can't read each other's minds.

The alternative is to reject the idea that kind of loving gestures from the people in our lives don't count (or mean less) because we had to ask for them first.

Expressing needs can be scary, but waiting for our needs to be anticipated could have us waiting forever. And, paradoxically, expressing our needs and desires regularly makes it easier for people to anticipate our needs in the future. Waiting in anticipation of having our needs anticipated actually reduces the likelihood that it will happen.

S0, what do you need?
Go and tell somebody.