In grade school, students learn that colonization happens when people from one country (usually a European one) cram themselves into a ship and spend months at sea, braving storms, disease and food worse than what they serve in the dining halls, just to arrive in a distant land. After all the effort to get from Point A to Point B, the people decide they should control the territory they landed on, regardless of who or what was there before them.
In relationships, colonization takes on a new meaning. It's what happens when a person's interests take over his or her significant other's priorities, free time and sanity.
This use of the term, to my knowledge, was coined by the movie, Fever Pitch. In this Americanized version of the Nick Hornby novel, Drew Barrymore's character, Lindsey, starts dating Ben, played by Jimmy Fallon, in winter during baseball's off-season. But as opening day rolls around, Lindsey realizes that Ben is obsessed with the Boston Red Sox ' right down to the Yankee toilet paper in his bathroom. By mid-season, Lindsey's efforts to bond with Ben have resulted in baseball consuming her life, and her friends warn her that she is being colonized. Although the movie ends with a happy compromise and the Red Sox World Series victory, colonization remains a common danger in romantic relationships.
The first time I fell victim to colonization was seventh grade. In an effort to impress a boy I adored, I decided to try a ropes course activity ' the kind of thing that involves ropes, harnesses and climbing trees ' on a trip we were on together. In the end, I spent two hours 30 feet off the ground, hugging a tree, crying hysterically, all the while wearing a harness that made my butt look huge. My plan backfired. I learned two things from the incident: I'm afraid of heights, and doing something just because a certain charming someone enjoys it is usually not a good idea.
Even with the experience, I have still tried other things that I wouldn't have thought about if I had been single. I've taken up running, watched movies I never would have found on my own and even learned to eat with chopsticks. I haven't done anything as extreme as getting stuck in a tree. However, I'm in better shape, I've learned a little bit about film and can hold my own with chopsticks at the $3.75 Chinese place.
When I went to explore this tendency to take things up because your significant other enjoyed them, I wondered if it was something only girls did. Although I didn't find a boy that's gotten stuck in a tree trying to impress his girlfriend, I did find several male friends that have suffered through several chick flicks they wouldn't have gone to see if their girlfriends hadn't suggested it. Although I've never been one to force a boyfriend to take me to a sappy romantic comedy, I did drag one to a production of Romeo and Juliet. Although he went in thinking the play was overdone after seeing both movies, he ended up enjoying the theatrical experience.
Exploring the interests of someone you care about can be a great way to discover new interests and talents you never knew you had while growing closer to another person. It becomes an issue when it consumes your life and becomes completely unsatisfying and overwhelming to you. You can start to feel like your sacrificing too much to be in a relationship, or you might start to wonder what you had in common with each other in the first place.
In most cases exploring each other's interests works best if it's a reciprocal experience for both people in the relationship. Deciding what to do together should be an opportunity to learn new things rather than another chance to fight over who's dragging who where. One weekend you can go to the baseball game and the next weekend you can go to the play. Maybe she'll teach you who has the best batting average in the National League last season (for the record: Derrek Lee, 1st Baseman for the Chicago Cubs, with a .335 average), and he'll teach you a little bit about Shakespeare.
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Casey Westlake
