Were expecting

Question

Maybe life is not the party that we were expecting, but in the mean time, we're here and we can still dance.Why does it should appear as were instead of are sentance above?Thanks for annotation.

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

Maybe life is not the party that we were expecting, but in the mean time, we're here and we can still dance.

Why does it should appear as were instead of are sentance above?

'were expecting' Suggests to me that the writer was expecting this at some time in the past but is no longer expecting it. You migtht say that he has lost his illusions, lost much of his optimism.

'are expecting' Suggests he is still expecting it at the time of writing.

Best wishes, Clive

CalifJim · Answer

expect is one of those verbs that implies a time relationship.

You expect something to happen in the future.

I am expecting the stock market to fail. = I believe (now) that in the future the stock market will fail.

If you expect something now, you can't also know now whether your expectation will be fulfilled or not. You have to wait and see. To make a contrast between an expectation and its fulfillment (or non-fulfillment), you have to make references to two different times: the time of the expectation and the time of the fulfillment (or non-fulfillment) of the expectation. So if you already know the result of an expectation, the expectation itself must have been previous to the result.

We were expecting that (We believed that in the future) life would be a party.

But now we see (contrary to our expectations) that life is not a party. We are here and we can dance, but there is no party.
_____________

Compare your sentence with this situation:

-- I hope that Robert will return the book I lent him when he comes to see me later today.

Later: Robert arrives. He doesn't have the book.
-- I was hoping you would return the book I lent you, but now I see that you don't have it with you.

(When Robert arrives without the book, it's too late to say: I hope Robert will return the book.That hope was in the past. You have no hope left in the present because he doesn't have the book. Your hope in the past is now disappointment in the present.

)

CJ

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