I remember looking into my ex's big, round eyes, swollen and bloodshot from crying, and hearing her tell me how I should be treating her. I was stuck. I dug deep into my heart, but I could not find the will or desire to give her those things. They wrenched my ego to even consider. Yet, I told her that I loved her, and I believed I did. In the end, it would be my lack of cooperation that contributed to the relationship's demise. My whole romantic history is littered with cases of me refusing to compromise or give and now that I find myself in a relationship where everything I've always refused to do now seems reasonable, I'm wondering what happened. Who could have imagined me, Andrew, buying flowers and giving her the window seat? Words have always come easy for me, so it was simple to tell them I loved them, but I could never find the resolve to put aside my own desires for them. Suddenly, I'm turning into the guy I've always thought was a defeated, pussy-whipped chump. Strangely, I've never felt better about it.
These things come in baby steps, though. I've never believed in chivalry. Blame my middle sister and her brand of feminism (ironic that she's now born-again). There's never been a pussy on my pedestal. My previous girlfriends have all tasted my refusal to compromise and my rejection of romance. If they want to see a chick flick, I'd say, they can see it with other chicks. It wasn't that I didn't want to go to the movies with them, but more an effort to streamline my life. Why bother paying to see a movie with bad reviews just because it has some sappy romance in it? I didn't see the underlying importance of compromise. While I would have just as quickly agreed to see a movie of the same caliber of "Love, Actually," this was lost on my partners, who just wanted to do something with me that was their choice for once. How many times must one fail this test of love before they learn?
I did my marriage all wrong. Nearly every turn was an embarrassing disaster, sparked by my inexperience, magnified by my selfishness. Marriage itself was not something I cared much for. Why go through some elaborate and stressful ceremony just to profess the love you already have? It was perfectly acceptable to live as a couple without getting married. More streamlining. I eventually relented to the notion, but everything I did to placate it was half-assed. The rings, the ceremony, the life; all rushed, cheap and thoughtless. I reacted silently as she pleaded to me for more, but I felt that the ideas she had in her head of marriage and weddings were fairy tales made for suckers. Any man who would agree to them, thus, was a sap. I thought she was the one who should get real.
It is funny to me, now, that all those compromises I refused to make are things that I look forward to in my current relationship. I wouldn't mind getting her something nice and sparkly. I would proudly stand with her before our families and make those promises. I'll even agree to watch a terrible rom-com if I'm drunk enough. I'm not sure how I got here. I want to say that I've learned from my mistakes, but the mistakes I'm talking about are not the obvious ones. The truth is that, as long as you're thinking for yourself, you will never want to see a stupid movie if it has nothing for you. Likewise, you can't learn to like the idea of a full-on wedding ceremony if that's not who you are. I think what I've learned instead is how to know what I really like to see in someone. What I've learned is when to really use the word "love." I can say now that I want these things, not because they please me, but because of how they make my partner feel. It isn't that I've learned to play the game, but that I've found someone who makes the game fun and worth playing.
Dorkys, I love you.
12 nibbles: