In-laws are one of life’s greatest ironies. I didn’t choose them explicitly, yet I need to live with them for the rest of my life.
When given the choice for friends I chose poorly, from an eccentric assortment of junkies, outlaws, degenerates, hoarders, gamers and racists. As my interest and lifestyle choices changed, and novelty became drudgery, maturity was a blessing, and I distanced myself. Who knew that the types I sought for transient fun were undesirable for long lasting camaraderie?
When I got married I inherited a new family with virtues I’d never previously considered valuable: strong work ethic, aversion to legal and social mischief, and genuine good looks. Despite our differences in most things, we have easily gotten along so far, a testament to my social game. For friends do not require a peacemaking dynamic like in-laws do; friends become memories, in-laws remain reality—every major event from here on out will be spent with my unchosen in-laws, as required by the laws of decency. I need always be decent.
Now that I will never be alone for the holidays, an objective good, there can also be major drawbacks: learning to live with people who are better than me. This is a good drawback. Having good character is contagious. I have become obscenely polite because my future depends on it. I avoid divisive topics at the dinner table—thankfully, we agree on all the important stuff—and choose soft conversations, like books, true crime, or asking my surgeon brother-in-law about skin grafts.
Years before accepting the challenge of getting married, I was put to the test to tolerate the guy my cousin married. He always needed to be the loudest and funniest person at the table and plagiarized jokes from the plagiarist comedian, Carlos Mencia. My clueless aunts would enable him with adoration because he was the loud new guy. He saw a tepid and quiet family and decided to become the center of attention.
On the rare occasion I see him now, he ignores me completely. I must have said something to offend him in 2016. At a barbecue a few years ago, I stood in a group conversation under the tent by the potato salad. When I asked him something for the sake of polite conversation, he addressed my dad with the answer. He addressed everyone around me with his loudmouthed quip or question.
Another time, I was leaving a family lunch at a restaurant just as he was arriving with his two children. My cousin was in the Sephora next door to the restaurant, and as I stepped onto the street in front of him, we made eye contact, and I waved. Not to initiate small talk. Just a modicum of acknowledgment for a guy I’ve known for 20 years. All he had to do to keep the peace was wave back. Instead, he used both hands to shield his eyes from the sun and pretended like he was looking for his wife in the store, standing on his tip toes. He couldn’t even nod his head.
Luckily, I don’t even see him once a year; he will avoid events that I am attending, including my wedding.
On Survivor, he would be voted out early. That is bad social game, and he turned me into an enemy. He has an ego and no self awareness; he mistakes attention for affection. I am an expert at detecting the annoyances of others, and would gladly lead a campaign to get him out. Not immediately, though. I’d need him to annoy others first. He is a lawyer and litigator, and his phony personality would do most of my work for me.
In contrast, my new sister-in-law, whom I decided yesterday is my arch-nemesis, is someone to study. She possesses a rare combination of athletic prowess, strategic mind and social ease. She is interested enough in others to engage everyone in conversation. She doesn’t possess any self-doubt; not from arrogance, but competence.
She is the mother of two boys who she fairly and lovingly parents; she is charismatic but not obnoxious or overstimulating; she is quick witted, and effortlessly commands respect from all in her periphery. She is a shark for some investment bank, I think, and might have an MBA from an Ivy League school, albeit one of the lesser ones. I want to keep up with her, but our worlds are too different: I can only ask silly questions about golf and business. Golf, the sport I once prided myself as being too unrefined to learn, and business, where competency in math turns douchebags into millionaires.
She is the type of girl whose interests and habits are so alien to mine, that it was better to pretend that her kind didn’t exist, and didn’t also run the world.
That backfired, and now “her kind” is my sister-in-law forever.
After spending the afternoon with her at the golf tournament, and dinner at home, I can say that she would easily win Survivor, dominating the entirety of the game: physically, socially, strategically. Survivor is my thing! She doesn’t get to be effortlessly better than me at my thing because she works hard, isn’t neurotic, and possesses all the traits that make her a genetic winner in life!
Everyone thinks they will win Survivor in their own way; that their quirks and even social ineptitudes will still grant them favors from the game’s randomness, that they will always be the hero of Survivor, even when they lose. That is a delusion. My sister-in-law would win Survivor outright and put my delusional “super fan” to shame. She would probably get a hero’s edit too!
So, the best way for me to appreciate her role in my life is to study this personality and behavior as a blueprint for a type of female competitor that I may come across on Survivor.
From a Survivor perspective, I would play under the radar. I would help around camp and I would share my rice and vote with the crowd for the the guy my cousin married. I would appear as a goofy non-threat at first, and ingratiate myself to the power players, careful not to reveal my intentions to vote her out to anyone too early.
My sister-in-law would be the tribe’s de facto leader on her charisma alone, and earn respect through her strength in challenges and likability at camp. I would secretly want her attention—which is exactly her strategy—but I know there would be someone else she would choose to be her number two. This would hurt my feelings, because one of my weakness is being overlooked by people I admire, but I would not let my emotions cloud my stratagem. To mount a secret offense against her after the merge, and carefully eliminate her before she dominates challenges, I would have to feel out other quiet players who also see her as a threat. I don’t know what other kinds of people I am playing with, so I can’t say too much more about that. Just that I can’t come on too strongly. I am sneaky, not aggressive.
The dynamics I experience with my in-laws expose me to sophisticated personality types and prepares me for interaction with genteel types, but also how to treat and speak to the lowly.
I already intuit that finding common ground is a necessity for trust, and a skill I practice. More importantly, it is a skill I have seen my sister-in-law use on me. Most of the time, I do not want to know someone superficially—five minutes of polite banter with a stranger at a party barely scratches the surface, and when there is nothing to gain, it is not worth engaging. I need to change this negative outlook; being interested in your neighbors is a brilliant strategic and persuasive social tactic.
In our real relationship, there is nothing to win; I exchange pleasantries sporadically, maintain peace, and recognize boundaries. Yet, I continue to observe, strategize and practice for Survivor. I don’t feel envy, I take notes. In learning from her, I refine my understanding of human behavior, social strategy, and the art of patience.
Thankfully, my sister-in-law is too busy to think about me, and too disinterested to read this. Our rivalry is one-sided. I am a gnat among thousands vaguely smeared across her windshield, on her way to work to hollow out a small town’s local business by off shoring the four generations of craftmanship to a third world country.
If she read or found this, she would find it funny in a pathetic way, then instantly forget it because of her busy work, family and life schedule.
And in person, it might be weird. But I wouldn’t make it weird. I know how to play into my weirdness and be oddly charming to smooth it over. I’d make a great Survivor underdog. Defects are more interesting than perfection.