Urgency Is A Red Flag

If you're being pressured to say yes, you should probably say no.

A special thank you to

Nathalie Martinek PhD

for her insights from Hacking Narcissism, and our private discussions. The links in this article lead to her body of work, which I highly recommend. You can also contact her for personal coaching.

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Navigating new relationships can be tricky.

Sometimes we feel like jumping head-first into new friendships or communities. We believe we share the same beliefs or values, have a special connection, or that we have met “the one”, whether romantic or platonic.

Anyone who is well-versed in the warning signs of potentially toxic or abusive relationships knows that this is the primary red flag. But sometimes, despite ourselves, we get pulled in anyhow.

As someone who has uprooted her life and relocated to a new country, with new customs, language, traditions and cultural norms, I have been a little cautious and measured with new people. I’m a recovering people-pleaser (it’s a process!), but over the years, and especially with my husband’s example of interpersonal discernment, I have learned to slow down and take the time to get to know people before going all in. But sometimes, my old programming takes over and I find myself in sticky situations, in which I have undoubtedly contributed to the dynamics at play.

Last night we got home late from a children’s birthday party. It was our first big Mexican party, with music, games, entertainment, food, drinks, and lots of people. We had such a great time, and on the car ride on the way home I thought about how it came to be that we were sitting with strangers, making jokes in broken Spanish, laughing and connecting in such an effortless way. It was the sense of belonging that I have been craving more and more since we arrived, and it happened unexpectedly.

The person who invited us was the father of one of our son’s friends. Before the party, we almost decided not to go for personal reasons. But we decided to give it a go, with the plan to spend an hour or two and then leave if we wanted to. We ended up being the last ones to leave.

Everything happened organically up until that point. Our son made a new amiga a few months ago at the mall. Malls in Mexico are different than malls in Canada or the United States; they are like town squares with lots of open space, people meeting and greeting, and children running around and climbing up play modules.

Our son connected with a child there by biking around in circles, chasing her and being chased. As we were walking through the parking lot to leave, we saw her and her father driving out to leave, and the girl asked my son if he would come back to the same place tomorrow.

The next morning my son woke up and asked us if we would go back to the same place to see his new friend. Later on in the day, we decided to go. Lo and behold his friend was there, and they were very happy to see each other. We sat at separate tables from her father and watched our children play, and occasionally went over to his table for some small talk.

Over the following weeks, we met up at the mall a few more times, each set of parents doing our own thing while incrementally getting more comfortable with each other. Eventually, we sat at the same table, talked about business, projects, our children, and other broad topics. We knew our kids liked each other and enjoyed playing together, but there was no sense of urgency to become instant friends or get close too quickly. We kept a healthy degree of discernment and separation.

In the meantime, we went to other places and met new acquaintances. One day in a giant sandbox, our son met another new amigo, and his parents told us about a community they were part of that we should check out. They spoke very highly of the community centre, and suggested we visit to see for ourselves. A few days later, we did.

We were very impressed. It was a small, family-run place, built out of the desire for the founders to create a space for their children and friends, and grew from there. The founders had something in common with us: they were foreigners. They had found a way to bring together locals and immigrants, creating a centre for families and children that appealed to us. Being in a new country, we didn’t want to belong to an exclusively segregated community of emigres, but we also were cautious about putting our young son in a position where he would be the odd person out as a foreigner, without the language skills developed enough to feel confident about being different.

It was kind of love at first sight. Since it was before the holidays, we said we would think about joining over the next few weeks, and headed off to vacation with our extended family for Christmas and New Years. We would take the time to decide while away, we said, but we got so swept up in difficult family dynamics and navigating relationships with a high-conflict individual that we had little mental space to devote to our decision about the new community.

When we got back, I wrote to the co-founder and told her that I would bring our son over there the following week to see how it fit. We were craving stability, routine, and a return to normalcy. After so much time away, we wanted to get our lives on track.

Before we even stepped in the door, the co-founder, let’s call her Marcy, offered me a big role in the community. Flattered but cautious, I told her we could discuss in person.