The Michael Jordan Garlic Bread.

Years ago I was at Mohegan Sun with my now ex-husband on a work trip. We palled around with another couple. The whole weekend we heard rumblings about the garlic bread at the Michael Jordan Steak House that was on the premise.

“Have you had the Michael Jordan Garlic Bread? It’s unreal!”

“You have got to try the Michael Jordan Garlic Bread!” 

“The Michael Jordan Garlic Bread is life changing!!” 

I was so excited for this damn garlic bread. The four of us sat down at the Michael Jordan Steak House that evening and obviously the first thing we ordered was the infamous garlic bread. 

Welp, let me tell you. The garlic bread was… meh. All of us were in agreement that we didn’t understand the hype about this so-called magical garlic bread. I was disappointed. I was really looking forward to this garlic bread because my expectations were so damn high.

As we were finishing our meal, another couple sat down at a table next to us and the husband of the other couple in our party says to the couple that just sat down, “You have GOT to try the garlic bread!”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This whole ordeal has stayed with me and even this morning, I was speaking to my ex-husband and told him I ordered a Peloton and then said “I hope it’s not like the Michael Jordan Garlic Bread.”

And one of the many reasons I love him dearly, is he knew exactly what I meant.

I started writing a piece not too long ago titled, “Not So Great Expectations”, but “Michael Jordan Garlic Bread” seemed like a better fit and better lead-in to this piece.

I have found you are most disappointed when you have expectations of others – or expectations of anything, for that matter – even garlic bread, apparently.  

I have been working very hard on not having expectations of people. It’s not easy and frankly, I fail at this frequently. I come from a mindset of giving people the benefit of the doubt. But that has blown up in my face time and time again – and to no one’s fault – we’re all just people doing the best we can – and some days we do better than other days. 

I have my days where I’m sure I disappoint people. I have a busy day and I forget to call a friend I was supposed to call or I need to cancel plans because I’m exhausted. Or maybe I just don’t want to be social and need to spend time alone recharging. The person on the other side becomes disappointed in me because they were expecting me to be there for them. And I just couldn’t. I think about this scenario when I am in the place of that friend on the other side. We’re all just walking around in our own little bubbles as the center of our own universes.  We focus on how things affect ourselves primarily.

I try really hard to take others’ thoughts and feelings into consideration when evaluating my behavior. I used to do this to a fault. I used to say yes all the time because I didn’t want to appear “difficult” or not helpful. I still struggle with this, but I’ve become much better at saying no.   
I used to consider myself a pessimistic optimist – where I would expect the worst and hope for the best and that would protect me from hurtful disappointment, but I still found myself getting disappointed. I’ve been working towards trying to not expect anything from others. 

And I wonder if I didn’t have any expectations about the Michael Jordan garlic bread and I tried it for myself without any preconceived notions, how delicious I would have found it to be.