You learn to expect and ask for the bare minimum, in the end. The simplest, the easiest, the option with the least strings attached, the one you see the ups and downs of, the one you know exactly where begins - and ends.
You ask the bare minimum because anything more than that is difficult and confusing and you know that you can't ask for that and still defend your rational mind. It would be difficult, and out of control, and you can't even think you want that, because it scares the shit out of you.
You ask the bare minimum, and the bare minimum is offered to you, and you recognise that you should be pleased: because everything is working out the way you asked for it to. You're not. You're furious, in that muted, amputated way of people who dig their own graves. You weren't expecting to be listened to. You were expecting to be proven wrong. You were counting on someone in the audience to shout objection! at just the right time.
The audience won't object, because you've succeeded in convincing them you're absolutely right. Possibly, the audience is reading magazines and playing their gameboys. The audience, infact, doesn't give a crap.
You'll never ask for more. You'll take what you're offered. And you will consider yourself victorious;
and you'll look accusingly to the audience, your eyebrow poignantly curved, and none of them will even look you in the eye.
After all, you're winning.