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By Ali Elkin
April 13, 2018
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Recently, Joe and I were watching a “Black Mirror” episode
in which technology assigns relationship expiry dates to couples.
(It’s “expiry” because they are British.)
Just as I was wondering how that might apply to us, Joe
said, “Maybe if you never check the date, you never get one.”
Joe and I are engaged, by the way. But I am plagued by
doubt, wondering if this is right. I look at data on failed
marriages, wanting to fail-proof my own. I read articles that say
criticism and defensiveness will eat away at a relationship, and I
worry because I am a rather critical and defensive person.
Contempt, I read, is “the kiss of death,” and I worry I have some
of that too.
In search of a formula for happiness and certainty, I sift
through “Dear Prudence,” “Ask Polly” and “Savage Love.” I
examine the marriages of friends and acquaintances. I look at
engagement photos, scanning the faces for clues.
“How happy are you?” I wonder. “How certain?” I scour
wedding websites for evidence of doubt, but in these polished
places I never find it.
I read online accounts of broken engagements, identifying
signs and symptoms, my heart pounding the way it does when I
wake up with a stiff neck and read the meningitis page on
WebMD.
Part of the problem is I met Joe when I was 22, when I
believed the romantic comedy of my life (based on “When Harry
Met Sally”) hadn’t started yet. More accurately, I was in the
flashback phase of that rom-com: Harry and Sally driving from
Chicago to New York together.
For a time, whenever I liked someone, I would try to game
out the circumstances that would force us on an extended road
trip, which would set the stage for us reuniting at some
unimaginable age, like 27. By then my stock would have risen. I
would be thinner and more successful, possibly even famous. I
would have the necessary collateral to ask for what I wanted.
I envisioned this scenario with several men, not one of
whom gave any indication of being a viable long-term prospect.
There was the guy who said, “I value our friendship too much”
but would begin pawing at me when we were alone; the guy I’d
go home drunk with throughout college (but only when it was his
idea); and the guy who would come to my apartment late at
night to get stoned and lecture me about Radiohead.
These quasi relationships were accompanied by hours of
texting or G-chatting that mostly involved me being an attentive
sounding board. The challenge of trying to impress thrilled and
unnerved me.
I would hungrily read back through our witty exchanges,
congratulating myself on points I had scored. Doing so would
convince me that, like in a rom-com, I had met the love of my
life. Hell, I’d already slept with him! But it wasn’t the right time
for us to be romantically involved. We still had at least five years
to go before we would reunite. (That I envisioned this fantasy
with multiple men seemed like a smarter bet, diversification.)
In movies, if a man is looking only for sex he is a cad. If he
wants to talk, he’s interested in something more. It took me
years to understand that men can want any combination of sex
and conversation while having zero interest in a relationship.
The scant attention I received from these men felt safer
than asking for more. Also, it was dramatic: My whole life was a
“Will we or won’t we?”
And then I met Joe at a bar. He talked to my friends and
me and asked for my phone number. Watching him tipsily jab at
his screen, I told him to call my phone to make sure he had typed
correctly. He hadn’t, so I typed it in. He texted two days later.
Joe fell into my lap so casually that I thought nothing of it.
I considered dating him to be a good use of time while I worked
on becoming that more valuable person for someone else.
Joe was 30, I learned. We each suspected an age difference,
but this eight-year gulf surprised us. I had grown up on Disney
Channel Original Movies and the earliest viral videos. Joe had
seen almost every network sitcom — “Cheers,” “Malcolm in the
Middle,” you name it. We overlapped on “Friends.” He would say
things like, “Did you know ‘Roseanne’ had one of the first same-
sex kisses on network television?” I had not.
We talked about our favorite movies and I told him the
truth, that mine was the 1994 “Little Women” adaptation. I told
him how much I loved the Olive Garden and lamented that the
Times Square location was too busy and expensive. He told me
about his dogs, a Boston terrier (Pez) and a miniature dachshund
(Little Buddy).
On the phone to my mother during those early weeks, I told
her that Joe seemed to like me an unprecedented amount, and
this filled me with a surprising dread. “It seems too easy,” I told
her.
There was no drama with us. No “Will we or won’t we?” Just
a “We are.”
“Let it be easy,” my mother said.
I worried because my text conversation with Joe rarely fell
into that rapid-fire rhythm I found so thrilling. But I also wasn’t
performing for him.
In July, we went to Vermont on our first vacation together.
One evening, after we had done the requisite frolicking in nature,
I asked Joe what he wanted for dinner.
He looked at me slyly and said, “How about the Olive
Garden?”
I threw my arms around him.
On the drive, I burped in front of him for the first time. I
remember it happening in slow motion, including the part where
I cried out “No!” right after. When I recovered, Joe told me that
the first night he stayed at my apartment, I fell asleep on his
chest and drooled all over him.
Joe said “I love you” first. I said it back, then retreated into
my own head. In all of my scheming before Joe, I had never
conceived of a situation in which I would have the power to break
someone’s heart. I had assumed the man would have that power
and my life would be a constant charm offensive to stop him from
using it. I thought when someone said “I love you” to me, it
would be the result of my hard work or even trickery.
“What’s going on in that dome of yours?” Joe asked as we
stood on my building’s fire escape. This is truly how he speaks.
“I don’t want to say it,” I said.
“You can say it.”
“I’m freaked out because I can imagine a day that I wind
up hurting you,” I said. “Not that I have any plans, but the
potential exists, and I can’t imagine it the other way around.”
This is truly how I speak.
Joe said: “There’s an episode of ‘Malcolm in the Middle’
where Lois is upset because Hal loves her a little more than she
loves him. He tells her it’s O.K. because two people can’t love
each other that much. If they did, they’d never leave the house.”
We had one big fight that first year. I was dusting a ceiling
fan in his apartment and he got angry that I was doing it in his
prized Black Sabbath T-shirt. I stormed out of the apartment and
walked to the subway.
“I guess we’re going to break up,” I thought. “It’s not like
he’s going to chase me to the F train.” I needed to refill my
MetroCard but had only pressed the first button when I felt him
tap me on the shoulder.
I’m 27 now, the age I imagined I would be when one of
those guys from my past would realize I was the One. In some
ways, I am the version of myself I hoped I would be. I am more
successful, by virtue of being six years out of college. I’m a little
thinner, though I try to think about that less.
I sometimes wonder how I would do on the dating market
now, imagining Harry and Sally reunions with those indifferent
men from my past. I’m in touch with a few of them and, to be
honest, they don’t seem to be pining.
I try to remember that I am worthy of anyone, but mostly
that I am worthy of Joe. It’s common for a woman to have that
kind of realization at the end of a movie, to discover she was
enough all along. But what the movies get wrong is that once the
character realizes this, she is transformed forever. In real life, I
have to keep reminding myself.
Ali Elkin, who lives in Brooklyn, is a researcher for “Full Frontal
With Samantha Bee.”