Something I think about constantly is expectations.

I think about the outer expectations that others impose on us, like work deadlines, and the inner expectations we impose on ourselves, like wanting to keep a New Year’s resolution.

I think about these kinds of expectations, because they stand at the core of my Four Tendencies personality framework that divides people into Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels. If you want to learn more about this framework, and discover your Tendency, take my free quiz at gretchenrubin.com. More than 3.5 million people have taken that quiz.

But expectations are important in another sense. In our lives, we have expectations about how things will go, what we’ll experience, how we’ll behave, and how other people will behave.

And the responses that we feel to situations—whether we feel pleased, angry, resentful, worried, relieved, or whatever—is often a reflection of those expectations. If we expect something better than what we encounter, the experience feels negative, and if we expect something less than what we encounter, it feels positive.

This is a very common observation, and it has given rise to many familiar proverbs.

• • “Expect the best, prepare for the worst.”
  • “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”
  • “Expectations are resentments waiting to happen.” —often attributed to writer Anne Lamott

I was thinking about this truth in the context of the empty-nest stage of life. I’ve noticed that the empty nest—or as I’m calling it, the open door—is a transition when many people grapple with expectations.

For instance, parents show a wide range in their expectations of frequency of connection with their child, and whether they feel good or bad about that frequency depends on their expectations.

Often, parents and children don’t discuss those expectations explicitly. They don’t talk about what they expect, and then they’re disappointed, resentful, or annoyed by a parent or child’s communication style. 

For instance, many parents expect that they’ll communicate with their children in college just as much as they communicated with that child at home. Or because they see that a child texts all day long with their friends, they expect to share the same constant stream of contact themselves.  

Children, on the other hand, may expect a much lower level of communication.

It’s a very common source of tension.

But at the core of this issue is a clash of expectations. It’s not so much about what people are actually doing, but what is expected.

One mother told me, “My son texts me all the time, I hear from him every few days.” Another mother said, “I almost never hear from my son. In a week, I only get two or three texts or calls.” The behavior is the same, it’s the expectations and the framing that are different!

I learned about a striking example of this issue of expectations with the phenomenon of “Paris syndrome.” This is a sense of extreme disappointment exhibited by some individuals when visiting Paris, who feel that the city does not live up to their expectations. It’s a severe form of culture shock.

It’s typically discussed in the context of tourists from Japan. So why might some tourists from Japan feel this profound let-down when they visit Paris for the first time?

One reason is that many Japanese people have an idealized vision of Paris. In Japanese culture, the city is often portrayed as an idyllic place of splendor, romance, and luxury. 

And of course, Paris is an extraordinary city, rich in art, history, and beauty. But it’s also an ordinary city. It has its grit and grime (especially compared to the cities of Japan); it has inhabitants who may act rude or grumpy; it has bad weather. 

One expert commented that Paris syndrome isn’t really specific to Paris, but occurs when we feel disappointment, or even despair, when reality doesn’t live up to our romantic expectations. 

Maybe we’re disappointed because we thought Paris would be more immaculately beautiful. Or maybe we’re disappointed because we thought we’d text back and forth all day long with our college freshman. 

The more we expect, the more disappointed we may be. In Paris, or anywhere.