The Boyfriend Test

One thing that dating can teach you is what you are unwilling to tolerate in the person you marry. With every person you date, you are able to see what characteristics you like and the ones you don't. It is kind of great, though; you're shopping for people!

Sometimes I find myself thinking about the deal breakers that I encountered in my dating life and wondering if I overlook those same important (and awful) characteristics in Peter. Obviously the only logical way to make sure you married the right person is subject them to a series of secret tests all based on the things you couldn't stand in your exes*.

Peter and the Boyfriend Test

1) Ketchup, please!

When I was younger and stupider than I was now, I entered into an infatuation with a boy more clingy than cling film itself. He was particularly upset with any time I spent away from him, which meant that my friends got sick of him relatively quickly. One day after school I was playing on an arcade game with some friends, and he was giving us no space. While he was in the restroom a friend of mine remarked that no matter what I asked, this boy would do, even if it made no sense or served no purpose. This mildly bothered me, and I denied it, because the idea of having a blind follower is kind of an unattractive one to me. My friends then challenged me to request the boy to find me ketchup when he returned, saying he would do so without asking, even though we had no food with us, nor would ketchup be of any use to me. I agreed, and casually requested later when he returned. To my discomfort, he did so unquestioningly.
I understand that many could see this willing and open devotion as sweet, but to me, it indicated a lack of individuality. I knew that I could not be happy being with someone who never questioned me. I needed someone who, yes, was willing to serve me, but also had a mind of his own, and could call me out when I'm being completely unreasonable. This little ketchup scenario told me all of that. Because I over analyse n' stuff.

Thus, requesting ketchup when I was clearly in no need for such a thing was the first entry on the boyfriend test. One Sunday, while we were lounging around the apartment, I called to Peter from the bed. "Will you bring me ketchup, love?" I asked.
His head appeared around the wall, "bring you what?"
"Ketchup."
"Why do you need ketchup?"
"I don't."
"Okay." Pause. "Do, do you want me to bring... It to you?"
"Nah, it's okay. Thank you, though."

One point to Perter!

2) Understand the Importance of Cherries

I had been only dating one boyfriend for a few weeks when we went to McDonalds together. I ordered my meal with a milkshake, and then went to the bathroom while he waited for the food. When I returned, he offered me my milkshake. The drink sat with its beautiful whipped cream on top, cup sweating drops of condensation, but was obscenely incomplete.
"What the heck??!" I exclaimed, "they forgot my cherry!"
"Oh! Uh...." My traitor boyfriend stammered, "I ate it."
"YOU ATE MY CHERRY?!" I screamed, pretty irate and loud for a public fast food joint. "What kind of monster eats the cherry from on top of another person's milkshake without being offered it?!"
The relationship was doomed from the start.

I am happy to report that, since marrying Peter, I have never had a cherry disappear from atop a milkshake.

Two points for Peege! Yaaaay!

There were other tests, but they aren't as funny, so I won't force you to read them ;).

Obviously, there are more things that my exes have done that Peter does not, which is so great, and I totally married the crap out of him when I realized how insanely amazing he was. I hope when you find the person who you love at their worst and their best, you do similarly.

I hear so many people justifying bad relationship decisions by saying, "but she's not always like this!" Or "but I know he loves me." That makes me all sorts of uncomfortable, because it seems a way to push unacceptable things aside for silver linings. I bet I could have married Peter had he brought me ketchup and eaten things I was saving for myself, but only if those things were things I knew I could live with easily.

So go out there, you crazy kids! Go make friends and then get married when you find someone who you love even at their crappiest.

I don't know if I have a point, but if I do, it's probably that I'm #soblessed.


*there is probably a bunch of better ways to do such a thing than this. Readers accept any misfortune that may come from administering the Boyfriend Test, and cannot hold Tiny Anxiety responsible for the actions of any angered spouses. 

How my anxiety found me a perfect husband

When I was a 4 year old, someone told me that you needed to get married to get into heaven. This did not sit well with me, even though I was still 14 years away from being a legal adult. I faced, what I think in retrospect, was my first large bout of anxiety. My therapist tells me that the basis of anxiety is fixating on something that is beyond what we need to currently be concerning ourselves with. The fact that 4 year old me spent hours crying about the prospect of marrying and being a mommy sounds like a textbook case for such a thing.

My mom would hold me as a cried and promise me that I didn't have to get married and I didn't have to be a mom. Instead, I could stay at home forever, and be her little girl.

This apprehension towards marriage is something that stuck with me my entire life. While others around me seemed eager to bind themselves to someone else for the rest of forever, I couldn't think of anything except how utterly terrible that would be.
This meant that when Peter came into my life and I started to love him, I felt incredibly repulsed by myself and the thoughts that I began to have that indicated that marriage could be anything besides a horrendous mess. I was certain that he would leave to go on a mission, and I would recover from my temporary insanity and move on with my life.

Unfortunately, I found this was a more difficult thing to happen than I expected. One night I called my mother distraught over my situation, hoping for some solace. I tried to express to her how badly I was transitioning to Peter being gone. Before I could get very far in my explaining, Mommifer asked excitedly,

"Oh, are you still in love with Peter??"
"What? No..." I said, before quickly bursting into hot and hysterical tears.
"Oh, Melece, I know you're so sad right now, but I could just turn cartwheels! I worried and worried that I would have to watch my youngest daughter live without love!"

And thus my mother became Peter's #1 wingman.

Even though I was coming to accept the fact that I loved Peter, I could never go for very long without thinking about all the terrible aspects of marriage. In fact I would only have small lapses of reason in which I thought marriage could be sufferable, these moments overrode by a massive fear and distaste by the institution.

Fears I had towards marriage:

1. I would get sick of my husband.

This was a serious fear founded in the reality of my past experiences. I had never had a close friend who I spent time with on a regular basis for much longer than a year span or so. There were several people in my life who had always been present in the background, and who I had known for many years, but any close knit relationships I had sought in the past, both romantic and otherwise, usually burned bright and passionately for a season and then ended in awkward avoidances and "we should definitely hang out"s, which as everyone knows is almost legally a phrase that translates to, "I recognize that we at one point knew each other, and I want to be polite, but I have no intentions of ever spending time alone with you ever." The polite response being "yes, we really should," which in itself means, "I am glad you also acknowledge that we will never interact by choice ever again."

2. My husband would get sick of me.

These two items seem simplistic and repetitive, but they fully encompass a world of marital problems. I saw spouses bringing lunches for each other at work, and in my head I thought, "UGH, it's like you're legally obligated to feed someone other than yourself!" a problem that fits nicely under list item #1. Other times I would consider, "men only want you for your body," which caters to the second category, under the assumption that I will someday grow wrinkled, lined, and flabby, preferably not by next week.

All the ugly things that I knew could come from close companionship alarmed me; I worried that when Peter came home we would quickly find that a love letter affair is much easier to uphold than a close up and personal one. Thus, we had a long engagement. In that time we fought some of our biggest fights, which led us both to realize that we can handle the biggest of the fights.

There is a phrase I once heard that warns "you need to love a person at their ugliest before you can truly love them at their most perfect." I knew I was ready to become a wife when marriage no longer seemed heinous. I found someone who was able to be my exception to my rules, not someone I was willing to bend my rules for.

Someday (probably next week) I'll write you a post telling stories exclusively about how my mother helped me realize that I could (and should) marry Peter. She had so many wise words to comfort me during that odd 2-3 year courtship/friendship, and she loved Peter deeply before they even met. She once told friends that she didn't worry about me marrying someone who was a stranger to her, because, "Peter makes Melece happy, so I know he is worth while."

Oh, dating.

There is a deep dark time that most everyone encounters in their life: dating time. Granted, there are some incredible fun times that come when you're dating, but there is also a lot of dark murky crap that all of us have to wade in to try and cement some great and worthwhile relationships.  

When I was engaged, I felt as though I had outsmarted the dating world by pairing off with someone indefinitely. Never again would I have to worry about when or what to text, what to say, how I looked (oh, poor Peter, the effort I put into my personal appearance exponentially decreased lightning quick once we started dating. I should work on that), if my smile looked flirtatious or mildly threatening, holding in my farts... All the really stressful things that gives everyone stomach ulcers and headaches. Truly, I was right, and for a glorious eight months I had alluded dating. Then we got married and I learned a new fact: DATING NEVER ENDS. 

I'm sure for some people it genuinely does, but for Peter and me, it is still going on. Luckily, this time we know we're always going to be heading home with the person we love after every date. So there's that, but I digress. 

So, let's first discuss the ritualistic doings of dating culture. 

Step one: You find someone who you are attracted to. That attraction can be for their physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, financial, fertile, pet-owning-al, comedical... state, whatever you want. This attraction is super exciting! There is someone who you like and want to be around! Then suddenly emerges the first and most common dating dilemma: do they want to be around YOU? Sometimes you get lucky, and they do want to be around you all the time, and eventually want to kiss your mouth aggressively and possibly sign a legal document saying that they will continue to aggressively kiss your mouth and your mouth solely for the rest of their lives. However, even in cases where they do want to be around you, sometimes they just don't know it straight away. 

Herein many find the tango and sadistic game of dating communication. 

I have recently had a few friends turn to me for dating advice, surely thinking, "ah, here we find the all powerful and wise Married Woman in her natural and knowing habitat. Let us have her reveal all things unto us." Sadly, I have to disappoint them, because often I have no good advice to give. 

If you think about it, no one will ever be a fully successful dating expert. The people who have 100% of successful relationships aren't actually that useful to turn to, because they have, statistically speaking, only ever had ONE successful relationship (we're discounting polygamists here). Everyone has had a relationship end, many people have had a relationship go terribly, and most everyone has been rejected, those who haven't, clearly are way too privileged to matter at this point. So, does that mean it is better to receive advice from someone who has had a dozen break ups? Clearly that person must be terrible at relationships! They have had twelve relationships end. There simply is no winning. 

I can always tell anyone who wants advice what worked for me, but what worked for me was to refuse to be his girlfriend yet simultaneously depending on him for everything, get really over emotional and unreasonably angered when he leaves for two years, write him obsessively while he's gone, then get engaged immediately when you're reunited like there is no time to waste EVER AGAIN. Definitely something that doesn't sound even close to being a winning formula, but yet here I am with a ring on my finger and legal "Bet I Can Love You Longer" document signed. GUESS I'M A DATING GENIUS, GUYS. 

My original point that I was attempting to get at was how stressful it can be to communicate with someone who you're ridiculously attracted to, while simultaneously not being sure how they feel towards you at all. You don't know where their head is, so you don't know how they are going to respond to your advances. Will they find your banter endearing? Or worthy of getting a restraining order? The sad fact of life is that with the same exact behaviour and words you can simultaneously repulse one person while seducing the other. It all depends on how they feel towards you, which is ultimately completely out of your control. Whether you find someone's advances creepy, or romantic depends solely on how attractive you think they are.  

So here I am, married, thinking, "I have vanquished that foe Dating once and for all! Never again will I stare at my phone screen feeling like I may vomit and have violent diarrhoea repeatedly if that certain someone doesn't respond to my flirtation ASAP." The sad truth of the matter is the dating continues after marriage. Now Peter and I have become one person seeking after another couple to do fun things with. He definitely doesn't freak out over the possibility of rejection like I do, but we do have that same "getting to know you" awkward first dates and encounters just like the good ole' single days. We also have discussions of, 

"Do you want to text them?" 

"No. You text them, they never respond to me. They like you better."
"They like us both the same. I'll text them. What should I say?" 

"I dunno...." *suggests a text* "No wait!!! That's a terrible idea! Stop. Delete! Delete!" 

"I sent it." 

"Nooooo." 

"Calm down." 

"We'll never have friends." 

"Not if you keep acting psychotic we won't." 

Ah, romance. Do you like how I left out names so that some can believe I am the rational calm one in our relationship for once? 

It's also a lot harder to date as a couple, because you have to account for both of your preferences, as well as the like-ability of both husband and wife of the couple you want to double date. There's all sorts of losing combinations (you like her, not him, he likes him not her; you don't like either, he likes both; you like both he likes one, and so forth) with only one winning combination (*DING DING DING* COUPLE SOULMATES 5EVER!!)  

So here's to a future of double dating. I'm lucky to have a husband who I like aggressively kissing on the mouth, so even if we never find another couple to play with us all the time, playing just us two is still pretty fantastic.

Now for your viewing pleasure: modern dating. If you're feeling sad, remember: this isn't you! 

Oh, online dating, you bring me such joy even without having to try it myself.