Dr. Alan Godwin is a psychologist in private practice in Tennessee. For over 20 years he has helped individuals, couples, and organizations develop better ways of handling conflict. Certified in Alternative Dispute Resolution, he conducts seminars, writes magazine articles, and consults with businesses. He and his wife, Penny, have been married for 30 years and have three children.
The Porcupine Dance
Love is the irresistible desire
to be irresistibly desired.
Mark Twain
Just as lotions and fragrance give sensual delight,
a sweet friendship refreshes the soul.
Proverbs 27:9
It was a big day for me. I had recently passed the driving test—on the second attempt, I might add—and successfully convinced my mother to let me take her Blue Pontiac to school. In my mind’s eye, I pictured this occasion unfolding in the following manner. First, I would pull up to the school and park. Then, as I emerged from the vehicle, groups of girls would gather and watch from a distance, impressed beyond words, yearning deeply for the chance to date me. Members of the “in-group” would say to each other, “We need to ask that guy to hang out with us. Man, he is so cool.” Driving the car to school would be my ticket to popularity.
Assured that all had gone as planned, I smugly took my seat in first period, having confidently crossed the threshold into the world of cool-dom. Just then, our principal switched on the intercom and said the following: “May we have your attention, please. May we have your attention, please. There is a blue Pontiac parked on Riverside Drive. Uh . . . the doors are locked and the motor is running.” The class exploded in raucous laughter, as did other classes up and down the hallway. “What kind of idiot would do that?” some questioned. “What a goob!” others exclaimed.
For a fleeting few seconds, I actually considered joining in to ridicule this anonymous nit-wit. “No way I’m going to admit this,” I internally reasoned. “I’ll leave it running. It’ll probably just run out gas.” But then, the little sense I did possess kicked in and I walked to the front of the classroom to confess that the car was, in fact, mine. My teacher displayed a mixture of graciousness along with a manner that suggested, “I’m so glad I’m not you.” As I ran the gauntlet to the principal’s office, classrooms were still racked with laughter laced with words like “nincompoop” and “loser.” I was told later that my friends (I use that term loosely) in other classes all loudly proclaimed, “Godwin. That’s Alan Godwin’s car.” For a single day, I had the dubious distinction of being the most conspicuous person at school but not in the manner I had envisioned. My mom wasn’t so pleased, either.
At times, what we desire the most, relationship, is the source of our greatest consternation. I was thrilled about taking the car to school that day not because I liked driving it—it was a powder blue Pontiac Catalina, for crying out loud. Instead, I was pumped about the relationship enhancement possibilities. My motivation had not been automotive but relational. And the discomfort I felt for the rest of that day had little to do with understanding the potential car damage and everything to do with the damage done to my esteem in the eyes of others. Relationships fulfill us the most but can also hurt us the most.
John Ortberg talks about the “dance of the porcupines” which works like this. A desire for connection draws us toward people. But the fear of hurt causes both of us to stick out “quills” for protection. The pain of getting poked causes us to move away. Alternating between moving in and moving out is the dance. Let’s look now at the individual dance steps and what must happen to alter the pattern.
MOVING IN
Understanding the fundamental need for connection, many songwriters have penned lyrics that reflect this deep human longing. That’s why our radios are flooded with romance songs that express notions like: I can’t live without you, I can’t get enough of you, I’m only happy when we’re together, or I’m not a whole person without you.
Throughout the lifespan, we need and desire what psychologists refer to as attachment. Infants need attachment so much that depriving them of it may even cause death in some cases. Adoptive parents are warned about possible difficulties if an adopted child’s early attachments were deficient. As we proceed through the developmental stages, we relish inclusion but hate being excluded. We form friendships, join clubs or teams, enroll in associations, join fraternities or sororities, go to parties, hang out together, visit chat rooms, text message each other, connect ourselves to the worldwide web, date, get married, and attend family gatherings. Some people join gangs. Others join churches, sing in choirs, enroll in small groups, serve on committees, or travel with others on short-term mission projects. We yell with others at sporting events, laugh together at comedy clubs, and cry together at funerals. We’re intrigued by TV shows that portray friendships or bars where “everybody knows your name.” Ex-soldiers recall fondly, not the combat they endured, but the deep friendships formed in times of battle. Retiring athletes talk about how much they’ll miss the locker room camaraderie. If we get sick, studies show that restoration of health is facilitated by healthy interpersonal connections. At the time of death, we prefer to be surrounded by those we love. From one end life to the other, we spurn loneliness and seek the company of others. In short, the “moving in” step of the dance is driven by this universal need to attach.
GETTING POKED
But when we attach ourselves to someone, we invariably discover that this sought-after object of attachment has flaws, rough edges that hurt when encountered. Indeed, there is something wrong with all of us. Psychologists call it “abnormal psychology” or “psychopathology” while theologians call it the “fallenness of man” or “depravity.” Most of us use colloquial terms like “screwed up” to express it. Someone once said, “There’s a little larceny in us all.” We are imperfect people living in an imperfect world with other imperfect people. We’re drawn to people’s positives but experience their negatives when we move in close. And coming in contact with those negatives can hurt.
While romance music expresses our attachment wishes, some country music speaks to the pain experienced when affections turn sour. I once heard a few spoofs on country songs that expressed these notions: “Now that we’re so miserable, I hope you’re happy,” “She chews tobacco but she won’t choose me,” and “Ain’t been no trash in my trailer since the night I kicked you out.”
Anticipating the potential pain of connection, we instinctively stick out “quills” for protection, the internal thought being, “If I let you in too close, I could get hurt.” When we move in, we get poked, and then the next dance step occurs.
MOVING OUT
We crave attachments but hate pain, so we move out. For protection purposes, we distance ourselves from the relationship—the very thing we desire the most. This strategic maneuver of using “relational geography” is displayed in several common renditions:
Buffered Connections
The basic stance here is, “It’s OK for us to be close, but not that close. We’re not going to talk about it, but I only let people in just so far.” These people have relational moats and drawbridges used to deny access to the castle’s inner sanctum.
I once watched a TV interview with a notable public figure and his wife. When the questions turned personal, his wife said, “Most people see my husband as friendly, gregarious, and warm. And that’s true. But what people don’t see is the steel wall that drops when you get in close. We’ve been married for a long time and even I have never seen on the other side of that wall.” The intrigued interviewer turned to the man and asked him to comment at which point the camera framed his head and shoulders. He paused, stammered, and began talking about his public achievements. The interviewer interrupted him and repeated her request for him to elaborate on his wife’s comments. The camera then zoomed in for a face shot only. Once again, he paused and began waxing eloquent about his career accomplishments. The television audience got a chance to see for themselves the very wall his wife described.
Walls aren’t bad as long as they have gates. In healthy relating, we need walls and gates to let some in, to let some in closer, to let a small number in very close, and to keep others out who don’t belong there. But for some people, “We’ll do fine as long as we keep our distance” is the unspoken relational imperative that governs all of their relationships.
Pretend Closeness
Here, the thought is, “Real relationships are way too risky. Let’s have make-believe intimacy for a while, what do you say? That way, nobody gets hurt.” This is the philosophical underpinning of friends-with-benefits, the casual hook-up, or the one-night-stand.
Anesthetized Connections
Since actual, up-close relationships involve pain at times, some people numb the pain with pain-numbing substances which serve as relational lubricants. “Closeness requires anesthesia to kill the pain if something goes wrong,” the thinking goes. Little wonder, therefore, that drinking holes often double as popular pick-up spots.
Purposeful Distance
When families move frequently, some kids sidestep attachments to avoid the pain of detaching. They deliberately keep their distance because they know how much it hurts to lose a friendship. Soldiers sometimes purposely decide not to get close to other soldiers, having experienced the pain of losing comrades in battle. Some people deliberately isolate themselves from others to avoid the complexities of relationships. There was a time when most houses were built with front porches, a place where neighbors could sit and visit. Now, we’re more likely to build houses with privacy decks that hinder us from knowing our neighbors.
Vicarious Closeness
“I get my closeness needs met by watching others do it. That way, I don’t get hurt.” Some people are spectators in the stands watching characters from pop culture, television, movies, or books taking hits on the relational field of play. Another form of this is pornography in which paying customers substitute contrived connections for ones that are real.
Techno Connections
“I’ve been burned so often in person that I prefer cyber-anonymity. It seems safer and quicker and, if I encounter a loser, I can always hit delete.” In some ways, technology is a means of connecting with others. But some people use it for protection, a way to form what they perceive to be low-risk attachments.
MOVING BACK IN
Distancing, in whatever form it takes, protects us from pain. But it gets lonely out there. Eventually, we’ll move back in, seeking the attachment we so desire. The cycle has now run its course only to repeat itself.
CHANGING THE DANCE STEP
The porcupine dance is an attempt to handle the tension between two competing drives—attachment wishes and pain avoidance. We want to be close but don’t want to be hurt. We seek what relationships provide but shun what relationships bring—problems. But the dance doesn’t resolve the tension, it only perpetuates it. And for some people, it’s a marathon dance that lasts a lifetime.
So, how can porcupines ever stop dancing? Or to ask the question in human terms, how can we be close to people when closeness is certain to bring problems with people? This book attempts to answer that question. Porcupines get close by relaxing their quills. People get close by fixing their people problems—problems that stem from being flawed and imperfect. Closeness to others necessitates fixing our problems with others. But our natural tendency is to handle those people problems poorly. That’s the subject of Chapter 2.
In a Nutshell
(Chapter 1)
We are all driven by two conflicting forces—a drive to attach along with a drive to avoid pain. When we attach to others, we have problems with others and that’s painful. So, we have a dilemma: how to be close to others when closeness involves pain. We become like porcupines whose quills protrude whenever closeness occurs. We want to be close but we don’t want to get poked. It’s a tough dilemma but if we could resolve it, we’d have what we seek—close relationships.
CHAPTER ONE REFLECTION QUESTIONS
1. Name some situations when you’ve noticed your quills pushing someone away. How have you overcome that? Or have you?
2. Do you think there are ways to be close to others and never be hurt? Why or why not?
3. What life events contributed to any reluctance you might have to be close?
4. Has our technology (TV, internet, video games, etc.) helped or hurt us in our quest for closeness? Explain your answer.
5. Can we live happily without close relationships? Why or why not?
