We spend our whole lives looking for Mr. or Ms. Right, and then when we think we’ve found them, the complaints start bubbling up from your gut and the pairing can become suffocating, even if you’re not in show biz! Here’s my list of the 10 worst things about having that most glorious special someone in your life.
When you start hooking up into some kind of arrangement, suddenly everyone finds you sexually irresistible. Overnight, you’ve gone from available and alone to shackled and alluring. They probably want you because you have a significant other, but whatever the case, you’re suddenly in demand, and you can’t enjoy it because you’re stuck in a relationship! The problem is, if you break up with them so you can play around and enjoy your newfound allure, the people aren’t interested anymore. And then it’s hard to crawl back through the mud, explaining, “Sorry, but I thought I was in great sexual demand. Turns out I wasn’t. Can we date again?”
When you’re acting all charming, say, at a party, they know you’re being a big phony. They know your inner workings better than anyone and are fully cognizant that you’re a horrible bitch and are merely turning on some personality in order to win friends and influence people. And the fact that you know they know can be painful.
Not only do they know your MO, but they’re deeply aware of your flaws, insecurities and buttons and know just how to manipulate you in a shockingly effortless manner. Without even thinking about it, they’re masters at realizing exactly what to say to make you do something — or not do something.
Everyone perceives you as part of a couple, and they stop inviting you to things. You’re no longer “Joe,” you’re now “Joe and Laura” or “Joe and Jack,” and the perception is that you’re always busy with each other, so you don’t really count as people on anyone else’s social calendar anymore (except for those weird sexual come-ons I mentioned). But you’re more anxious than ever to be asked out (either as a couple or alone), just to spice things up and to still feel part of the world community. Giving up part of your identity for a loving symbiosis can surely be a noble thing, but it also fucks up your social life a lot.
They support all your doings by accompanying you to various events and congratulating you afterwards every time. You basically have a built-in fan who is always available to be your Plus One, cheerleader captain and best critic. And it’s absolutely wonderful. But then you have to go to their stuff, too!
When it’s not your event, they sometimes want to come along when, truth be told, you desperately want to run free once in a while. It’s not that you want to cheat, but you wouldn’t mind the sexy illusion of independence every few days, just to keep things relatively airy. You can always hang with the boyfriend/girlfriend spouse tomorrow.
When they go away for a few days, you go crazy wondering what they’re up to. But when they come back, you wish they’d have stayed away longer.
You’re dying to go through their cellphone and computer to see just who they’re communicating with and why. When they talk to someone on the phone for 20 minutes, you go nuts and want to screech, “Who was that?”, but you have to keep boundaries. You’re not even having sex with them anymore, but you still go into a rage of jealousy over the slightest thing because it’s a smudge on your ego, after all. And so, you live in constant proximity of all their technology, which teems with potentially dangerous information, but you’re not allowed to ever touch it. Torture!
There’s constant negotiating, a lot of it unspoken and involving solo guesswork. “Should we spend a night apart? It might be refreshing. But wait a minute, we haven’t had sex for a while. Tonight’s the night we need to stick together and make it happen. Should I initiate it? What if they reject me? What if I don’t even want it? Still, we should do it once in a while or it’s not really a relationship. Should I start saying some of these things or just keep it as an interior monologue?”
You’re ready to dump them, but you just don’t have the heart. And then they go and dump you! You’re extra distraught, thinking, “WHAT? I only held onto this relationship as a complete charity fuck because I didn’t want to devastate them, and then I find I’m the one getting the axe. This is rich!” If you say that out loud, though, their response would probably be, “Well, I wouldn’t have been that devastated.” Worst of all are all the hideous reasons given for the dump — either “It’s not you, it’s me,” which is so damned patronizing and insincere, or, worse, a detailed screed about each and every wrong thing you’ve ever did. “And then there was the time you didn’t wash the spoon before you plunged it into the pudding … And remember the time you thought you were licking my nipple, but you were closer to my navel? … And let’s not even talk about my last birthday present. Tickets to ‘Wicked!’” A simple, “Have a nice life” would be way preferable said whilst elegantly sashaying off that runway.
Michael Musto is a contributing journalist for TheBlot Magazine.
