Couplehood (5 page)

Actually,
everything
you do when you’re alone looks dumb. Ever watch what you do when you walk into the house by yourself? There’s no rhyme or reason to your actions. Just ten minutes of random, halfhearted, inefficient activity.

You put down the mail and stand still. For about a minute. You just stand there and stare at a chair. Then you take your jacket off, not even all the way. Halfway off, so your arms are still dangling. You open one piece of mail
and then get bored. You pop on the TV, flip through a few channels, looking for nothing at all in particular, and then forty seconds later, you shut it off. You weren’t even
watching
TV. You just wanted to have it on. Sort of making sure the appliance works.

Then you open the refrigerator, stare at the shelves. Smell milk, put it back. Eat half a banana, read six words in a magazine, look out the window for two minutes.… No sense of purpose. Just lost in your own home. But no one sees, so no one knows.

However, when you live with another person, you become self-conscious. I find I do the same things, but I
announce
them. Gives the impression I’ve thought this through.

“I’m going to watch TV for a while.”

“How long?”

“Fifteen seconds. Then I have to be at the window; I’m going to stare at the house across the street for a little while.”

“How long?”

“Not more than ten seconds, because I have to eat half a banana and stare at a chair. And I’m already running late.”

W
hen two people live in one place, their individual habits get amplified.

For example: I’m not lazy. But I don’t like to
move
a whole lot. I mean, if I’m doing something, I’ll do it. I’m as active as the next guy. But if I’m sitting, I don’t like to get up. Even if I’m facing the wrong way.

If I’m talking to someone whose chair isn’t quite facing me, I’ll talk to the side of their head. If I sit down and realize the TV is angled wrong, I won’t get up to adjust. I’ll watch it like that. I’ll sit there and wait till someone walks by and ask
them
to move the TV.

S
ometimes I may notice I’m sitting on something uncomfortable. I don’t care. Like a stack of mail or something? It doesn’t bother me. Certainly not enough to move.

I’m a big fan of Sitting.

I’ll watch a show I’m not enjoying for 30, 40 minutes because I don’t feel like looking for the remote control. Forget about getting up to actually, physically change the channel on the TV itself—that stopped years ago.

Once, we were watching TV and couldn’t find the remote control. (I should preface this by saying I was really, really tired.)

Now, I sensed I was sitting on something hard that may very well have
been
the remote control, but I didn’t have the energy to get up and confirm. (How sad is
that
? I didn’t even have the drive to lean to one side. Even if
just to dislodge an irritating piece of hardware from my person. Couldn’t do it.)

Finally, my wife forcibly shoves me to one side and we find not only the remote control, but a pair of scissors, a glove she was looking all over for, and a tangerine.

I realized I am either (A) really, really, remarkably lazy, or (B) I have no sensory receptors in my left buttock. Either way, it might be a problem.

A
nd once again, this kind of behavior is perfectly fine—
unless
you live with another human being. By yourself, who are you bothering? No one. In fact, it could even be an attribute. Nothing bothers you. You’re a guy who’s just okay with everything the way it is. But put someone else into the picture—now you’re bothering
them.

“Have you seen the new
People
magazine?”

“No.”

“You didn’t see it? It was right there, on the couch.”

“I didn’t see it.”

“Are you sitting on it?”

“No.”

“Get up.”

“Really?”

“For one second.”

I get up.

“Ha, I told you you were sitting on it.”

“Well, look at that.… Hey, when did we buy tangerines?”

S
ee, when someone else is involved, laziness doesn’t look like Laziness. It looks like Indifference, Presumption, Insensitivity, Hostility—a whole rainbow of things that all sound worse than what it really is—Sitting There Minding Your Own Business.

Like dishes.

If I leave dishes in the sink, my wife
assumes
that
I
assume I can just leave them there for
her.
Not true. I assume nothing. I’ll clean them—as soon as I notice them. Or as soon as they bother me.

Unfortunately, as I’ve mentioned, some things don’t bother me right away. My wife gets bothered
sooner.
It’s all a matter of timing. Learning each other’s Lag Time; how long you have between Event and Annoyance of Said Event.

For example, if I use the jar of mustard at nine o’clock, I may not notice that it’s still sitting on the counter until, oh, say—that Friday.

Now, if my wife notices sooner, does that make me insensitive? I think not. It’s just who we are.

I would argue that if it bothers
you
, and
you
need to put it away, then by all means, put it away. I’m willing to let you
do that. I will forgo my own schedule, so that
you
may honor
yours.
I will not be offended. Just don’t
you
be offended and assume
I
assume, because you’re assuming wrong.

I’m just Sitting Here Minding My Own Business.

T
he problem is, when two people live together, there is no more Business of Your Own. Your Own Business is closed. You’ve merged and gone public. You have to run everything by the partners. And if there are too many conflicts of interest, the business may go under, freeing the partners to once again open up smaller concerns by themselves.

Like all businesses, couples engage in endless meetings to discuss areas of management concern and division of labor.

“You know, we really should call the post office and tell them to hold our mail while we’re away.”

“
We?
You mean
me
, don’t you?”

“No, I mean
we.
I didn’t say ‘you.’ I said
‘we.’
You
or
me.”

“Oh really? Are
you
going to ever call the post office?”

A moment to think. “No.”

“Then you mean ‘me,’ don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

Sometimes it works out well, and certain household responsibilities fall naturally to those who like doing them.

For example, my wife likes to pack suitcases, I like to unpack them.

My wife likes to buy groceries, I like to put them away. I do. I like the handling and discovering, and the location assignments.

“Cans—over there. Fruit—over there. Bananas—not so fast. You go over here. When you learn to not go bad so quickly, then you can stay with the rest of your friends.”

T
here are things that nobody really
likes
, but one of you hates more than the other person does.

For example, someone has to take out the dog in the morning. Now, no one
wants
to get out of bed. But if you understand my affection for Sitting, multiply it a couple of times and you can imagine my enthusiasm for Lying Down. If I’m lying down, I really like to stay there.

So this particular task falls, by default, to my wife.

But there is actually a more complex negotiation at play here. You see, sometimes our beloved dog doesn’t actually make it through the night. We occasionally wake up to find things on top of our carpets that hours earlier were
inside
our dog. I don’t enjoy cleaning this up. But my wife
hates
it. I mean, she really hates it. She would rather not continue her life than be involved with this.

One morning, our dog was sick and left a particularly repulsive souvenir at the foot of the bed—a combination of grass, raspberry yogurt, and liner notes to a Ray Charles album. My wife, in a pathetically desperate last-minute plea bargain, blurted out, “I will take him out every morning for the rest of our lives if you clean up whenever he does
this.
”

Sold.

Being a man who knows a good deal when he sees one, I jumped up, shook hands, and started cleaning up. After all, the dog only messes up the house once in a while, but he has to be taken out
every morning.
I thought it was a very sound investment.

It was only later, while I was straining dog puke from a sponge, that it hit me: if I’m in charge of cleaning up future In-House Accidents, there’s no real incentive for my wife to rush the dog
out
of the house every morning. It’s not her problem. So once again, ladies and gentlemen, you see how even when negotiating in the best of faith with someone you love, you can get badly, badly burned.

T
heoretically, marriage is all about Two people becoming as One. But in the real world—and let’s be really clear about this—you ain’t One. You’re Two. And there’s only so much two people can blend.

Like in bed. For all the advantages of sleeping next to another person, it’s not always easy to figure out where everything goes. Arms and legs that didn’t bother you all day are suddenly a burden.

Many people opt to minimize their Limb Placement decisions by sleeping on their own side of the Team Bed, an approach known as “Individual Free-Style Sleep.” But even here there are choices to be made.

I myself am a big fan of the popular “One Arm Across Your Forehead, the Other Hand Resting Nicely on Your Groin.” (Nine out of ten men sleep with at least one hand guarding their crotch. Not that this really protects anything, but if anyone tries to attack or pilfer, you’re at least notified, and have a shot at dissuading them.)

But the real challenge is when you have
four
arms and legs to find homes for. Not so easy.

You got your “
Her
Head on His Chest,
His
Arm Around Her Shoulder” model, noted for its easy-access Chest Hair Fondling; there’s the “Face Each Other and One of You Wrap Your Upper Leg Around the Other One’s Legs,” or the easy-to-remember “Lie There on Top of Each Other Supporting Your Partner’s Body Weight With Your Own Rib Cage,” which again—effective for conversation but not really suited for lengthy, sleep-oriented couplings.

For sleep, of course, you have your classic “Spoon” and “Reverse Spoon,” both enjoyable, but tough ones in terms of breathing. One of you will suffocate, and I’ve always believed there’s no point in being cozy if you’re dead.

Then you’ve got the Thermal Levels to contend with. Not only are two people in the same bed never the same temperature, they’re not even close. One is
freezing
and the other is
boiling.
There’s no middle range. And you’re
both upset that your partner doesn’t see it your way. “How can you be cold? I’m sweating rain forests here.… Come on, be like me. Be hot.” The contention being that if the other person is uncomfortable, they should at least be uncomfortable in the same thermal direction as you.

B
ut the real work of two people blending—the behavior stuff—is where things really get interesting. Because after so many years of being by yourselves, no matter how much “Us” paint you throw on top of it, the old “You” still shows through. And that’s usually not a good thing.

A lot of guys think the highest compliment they can pay a woman is to treat her like “one of the guys.” The whole “Treat others as you would be treated yourself” rule becomes “Treat others as if you were
by
yourself.” They figure, “Surely we’re beyond the silly formalities, the need to be civil. Let’s relax. Be ourselves.” And the women are thinking, “Let’s
not.
” Because they know where this leads.

“Hey!”

“What?”

“Did you just fart on my arm?”

“Sorry. I didn’t know you were there.”

See, when you’re by yourself, you apply your own standards.
It doesn’t bother your Self that you stand in the middle of the room, drink 32 ounces of club soda, and belch out everything you’ve eaten since the Spring. Your Self may not care. Others, however, may.

And if you’re with another person all the time, every repugnant component of your life must, by definition, happen in front of the other person. There’s nowhere to hide.

So you learn to accept each other. Your best behavior is now and forever reserved for
outside
the house, and once you’re inside, you’re free to be the repellent American you really are. There’s a tacit understanding. “I know all about
you
, you know all about
me
, and it’ll all be our little secret.”

You become a little team. It’s the “two of you” against “everybody else.” And you look out for each other. Your partner becomes the one person in the world you can go over to and say, “Do I have anything in my nose?”

That’s your mutual job: protect your Ugly Truths from everyone but each other. Which is kind of nice, actually. Here is someone who will not only be honest with you, but whose love for you is so great it can withstand looking up your nose. Then they go right back to loving you like it never happened.