Written from an anonymous perspective:
I have to say you have a solid point here. It is horrifying to see so many who are seeking true companionship submit to the [clearly inadequate] notion that they must force it upon their would-be companion. Violence is indeed the word; cramming a friend or spouse into a frighteningly minuscule box of concepts has and always will beget more violence, and less companionship. If this is the only means of avoiding loneliness, then to heck with everyone, I’m moving into a cave somewhere.
As thoroughly appealing as a cave-dwelling life of loneliness might seem, however, I would submit that there is a slightly better approach to avoiding a life of violent crime.
The first step in that approach is nearly exactly what you said yourself: “…when I am able to coach myself into expecting nothing from others, I am truly self-sufficient.” Expectations are often, as I’m sure you will agree, the boss of us. They determine how we see, what we see, and even whether we see at all. “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.” Mr. Pope certainly makes a good case for learning to control our expectations, and implicitly indicates that this is possible.
I’m sure he didn’t advocate the eradication of hope. Hope is able to sustain humanity in the clutches of deepest darkness…could it not be useful in building bridges across which relationships could be fostered? How about replacing expectation with hope? No one ever had anything nice to say about expectation anyway, but lots of people seem to hold hope in high esteem. It is a critical part of life, one that cannot be done without: “To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death.” (Pearl S. Buck)
And what you should hope for? Hope that someone far beneath your intellect will surprise you with a bit of wisdom from the depths of their lamentably limited insight. Hope that their life and values might impress upon you some delightfully rare piece of understanding. Hope that the scales fall from their eyes and their vices become painfully clear to them. Hope that they are willing to bend to the task of improving themselves, and hope that they commit to see it through, though they fall and fall again.
You stated that “violence works.” With that, I must disagree. Violence works only to a point: the point at which the violence can be made to stop. A person will only allow themselves to be painfully squeezed into the box of expectations for as long as the person who owns the box is watching; look away for a second, and all that hard and bloody work goes out the window as the prisoner springs desperately to freedom, if only to have it start all over again. I am glad to know that you have rejected this deplorable method of obtaining companionship, although I do not believe your chosen alternative of embracing loneliness to be much better.
Embracing loneliness does have unfortunate consequences, but I believe they go far deeper and far wider than you suggest. “Erosion of social skills” may seem like a minor consequence, but as you lose the ability to converse with others in ways that are understood and accepted, so too will you lose your opportunities to share the vast wealth of insight that are contained in your considerable mind. Consider another dimension to the parable of the wealthy man who wanted to build barns for his wealth and take life easy. Do you dare hoard your God-given mountain of gray matter at the risk of having it burned away?
It is easy to detect the contempt you feel for social norms that you deem…contemptible. I don’t fault you there; if we all went about doing the “normal” thing, we’d all be moral-less drones with no aspirations. But it seems obvious that you have misinterpreted your husband’s words regarding the “offensiveness” of being polite. Most any genuine human being considers politeness a pleasant and necessary piece of social interaction. Given your insightful and intellectual nature, my guess is that you probably didn’t marry outside the genuine human being category, so I think we can assume that he also believes in being polite. As well, you have stated that you consider yourself lacking in social skill, so we can probably assume he is somewhat better equipped in that area. So if your husband, as a person who you know believes and even employs politeness, and whose social intuition outstrips your own, suggests that there are situations in which particular words that normally convey politeness actually do the opposite, do you not owe it to yourself to discover why? And perhaps even whether he is correct? If you discover he is not, then you have lost nothing, and gained truth. If you discover that he is right, then you have gained truth, and lost a small piece of your social inadequacy. It’s almost exactly like a win-win.
And don’t let yourself think for a second that the excuse of rejecting faulty social norms applies here. Social norms are only faulty when they break from the laws of morality. “Do to others as you would have them do to you”, says a pretty important Person. One cannot deny that if one knows how to behave in order to do well unto others, yet chooses to do exactly the opposite, they have rejected goodness, regardless of how deeply reasoned that decision might have been. There are certainly those who are “confined and defined by contempt”, but from my own experience I can tell you that these people are far from alone when it comes to feeling bizarrely snubbed at the word “please.” Would it not be a bizarrely interesting adventure to discover why this is?
Your last lines are powerful, effective, and full of potential, yet I again submit that there is a better way. Reject violence, and replace expectation:
The hopeful person is free:
Free to live fully, abundantly, without hindrance yet not without help:
to make life whatever he or she wishes:
to fathom the depths of truth, which yields true joy and
life.