I checked on his breathing many, many times that night like the mother of a newborn.
Obviously, he woke up the next morning. (Imagine if he had died and this was how I wrote the story?) He had survived the night, so I agreed to go back out again. We spent another morning walking around the city, strolling through gardens, eating delicious food, mapping out monuments we wanted to see, stopping in cafés. His hands were blue, but holding steady; he swore he didn’t feel bad at all. I had entered the point of grief over Dave’s certain death where I just wanted to appreciate what time we had left.
At some point in the afternoon, we made it back to the Airbnb because I needed a nap; I kind of always need a nap, to be honest, but especially after this shit. I shucked off my clothes and crawled into bed while Dave headed to the tiny, confusingVI bathroom to shower. As I was about to drift off into my first peaceful sleep of the vacation, from the bathroom I heard, “Babe?”
“Yeah?”
“Guess what?”
“What?”
“I figured out why my fingers are turning blue.”
“What is it?” (At this point, I’m annoyed because he kept me up all night and now we’re playing goddamn Blue’s Clues.)
“You know how I bought new jeans for this trip…”
That is correct. Dave’s hands were turning blue because he’d put them in the stupid pockets of his stupid brand-new jeans and they dyed his stupid hands blue and I lost a night of sleep over it.
I almost lost my mind. I mean, thank God he was okay, but also, come on! Are you kidding me?!
I was talking to Dave about this recently and he was like, “You know, if you hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have even noticed my hands turning blue.” Which, with the knowledge we all have now about indigo dyes and how this story ends, is fine. But what if he had been dying and was simply oblivious to one of the most glaring and obvious signs that his body was completely shutting down?
Was I crazy? I don’t know.
I don’t think it’s crazy to worry about a partner having blue hands, actually. I think I was in the right. I also think that a responsible adult would worry about that. Again, hands turning blue is not medically a good sign ever. But, by virtue of how things turned out, the story has become an anecdote about how much of a worrier I am, how high-strung and overwrought I can be. That would not be the narrative if he had ended up being seriously ill. Why is it so easy to dismiss women’s concerns? As a couple, we rarely dismiss his concerns. I can’t think of many times when I told him, “Don’t worry about that. We’ll just ignore it.” Part of that, of course, is our personalities; he’s not a worrier by nature. But also part of that is about who is asked to be vigilant about health and safety. It’s not usually men. So when things go right, the women who worried—and sometimes who prevented things from going wrong—are painted as hysterical.
Here is another story from when we started dating. A story I hate because I don’t think I come across well. Also, a story that is painful to retell. I would like to start this story with a spoiler, because the point of the recounting this is not to find out the outcome, but rather to tell you what happened. So here’s the spoiler: everyone involved is lovely. We all meant well and acted poorly. Everyone hurt and everyone got hurt. Also, spoiler: none of us die in this story or even get altitude sickness.
When I first started dating Dave, he lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment with no roommates. The glamour that has! A one-bedroom apartment! Are you the Queen? I was living with two roommates who frequently left dirty plates on the couch or in their beds. In their beds. Meanwhile Dave did his dishes after every meal. Dave is a “party boy,” which is what I call being an extrovert because I can; he likes having people around all the time. When I met him, the people who were around all the time were two friends of his, a guy and a girl. They all knew each other from Twitter, and I, in turn, knew Dave from Twitter, which is as embarrassing for me to write as it is for you to read. I understand.
Anyway, they were over at his house almost every single night, and they all three hung out pretty much every single day. They watched anime and Game of Thrones and the Olympics together. They went to the same bars, and when someone couldn’t afford to go out, they stayed in together. They smoked a lot and drank a lot and generally did friend shit. And then I came along.
I had known Dave for a few months from a different Twitter friend group, and I had, because of a misunderstanding in a loud bar, thought that he was dating someone else and that that someone else was male. So I had been friends with him for a while under the assumption that Dave was both gay and taken. Which made me feel very comfortable talking to him. And then, after a few months, I found out that he was both single and into women and within a month I had a crush on him. Dave was not someone I expected to ever have a crush on; he was not exactly my type at the time: namely, he did not treat me like shit and ignore me. So when I got invited to hang out at his place with people I didn’t know, I was of course going to go, despite that they all hung out in Pasadena.VII I was trying to get laid.
Well, I was triumphant. I started sleeping with Dave almost immediately, but I tried my hardest to keep it out of the friend group. Years of being overweight had taught me that there was something shameful about someone wanting to sleep with me, plus I was trying to be low-key. Casual. Blasé. “Oh, you like me and want to hook up? Ehh, I’m fine with that. I’m amenable. We don’t have to advertise this.”VIII
Eventually, we got more “serious.” We told other people we were hooking up/dating/whatever. We eventually agreed to be exclusive. Things were rolling right along despite my pathological fear of ever being in a relationship again—a thing which I had hated the last time it happened years before with Hockey Warehouse Guy. The one bugaboo other than my abject horror at the mere suggestion of commitment was: his female friend.
I have all kinds of character flaws. You could unfurl a scroll longer than a CVS receipt listing them in six-point font if you wanted to. One thing I did not think I was was the type of person who gets romantically jealous, especially not of female friends. To be a little fair, it’s not like I had any issues with any of his other female friends. He had many, many other female friends whom he hung out with both in groups and one-on-one that I had no problem with. (Of course! Because friendships are great!) Why would I not want my boyfriend to have friends?
But this one female friend of his seemed different. There were big things, like the fact that she had a key to his place, that she came over more often than I did, that she cooked for him often and left bathing suits in his bathroom. There were small things like foreign hair ties on his bedside table, photos of them that looked couple-y, the way he greeted her first (and with more animation) when he walked into a room. There was the fact that she was extremely hot, something friends of ours brought up often. There was the fact that she had older brothers and knew how to attract male attention and what to do with the male attention she inevitably garnered. There was the fact that he laughed more at her jokes (in fact, I think that might have been the worst). There were a million tiny moments where he chose her preferences over mine. At least, that’s how things looked from my end.
It’s not that I thought they were sleeping together, although of course I wondered on occasion; I reminded myself frequently that they’d had the option to sleep together at any point in their friendship before we got together. Like, why would Dave even start dating me if they’d been hooking up? I really didn’t think they were. I don’t think they were at all romantically inclined toward one another. They were just intertwined and I was left out. And it drove me nuts.
I wanted Dave to understand where I was coming from: Didn’t he think it was weird that he saw more of her than me? Didn’t he think it was odd for her to nap in his bed sometimes? Was I insane for telling him that I had a problem? That I wanted different boundaries than what he found normal? Did it make me a bitch? Jealous? Needy? I kept checking in with my friends, maniacally, frantically, repe
atedly, to see if I was in the wrong.IX If I was being unreasonable. If I was crazy.
To chill out, I reminded myself that either they were sleeping together, which I didn’t think was the case—and what am I gonna do about it if they are?—or they weren’t and then no big deal! But that wasn’t even my problem; that wasn’t my concern. I thought their boundaries were weird. The issue wasn’t about a dick going in a vagina. It’s not like I thought they wanted to be dating. It was about small looks and sweet favors and the way he looked to her for care and the way she looked to him for emotional support.
All my female friends understood this. Every single one. Most of them had been in a similar situation, trying to describe to other people (usually men) why they had a problem with someone based on small, tiny moments—feelings, even—rather than concrete Certified Bad Events. Most of us, too, had, upon telling men, been told we were simply jealous or competitive or petty or bitchy.
Let me reiterate that I don’t think I was completely correct, especially not in how I went about expressing myself to Dave and to his friend. I was trying to override my feelings, to be chill about them, to let go, but then every few weeks I would drink one sip of alcohol and then every thought I ever had came bubbling up and spilling over and I was at a ten and crying, which is not the best way to express yourself or have calm, rational, productive relationship conversations. I think I wasn’t listened to, wasn’t understood (or maybe I wasn’t understandable), and it made things worse. It made me feel worse. I felt like I had no grasp on reality. I wanted, just once, for one of them to say, “Yeah, we’re very reliant on one another. Perhaps too close. Sorry if that is uncomfortable sometimes.” The message I was getting was that I came second, because she had been there longer and she needed him more than I did right then and I could not and should not expect otherwise. I kept getting told, “This is friendship. Don’t threaten our friendship. This is how it is.” Which is fair, too. I’m sure Dave also felt like I wasn’t listening to him, like I didn’t get it, like I wanted him to not be friends with her. Which was not the case, but I’m sure it felt like that.
I can’t tell you what changed; as with most of life, there wasn’t one moment, one turning point, where we all got on the same page and stopped hurting each other. I think we all just got used to living differently; we all had to mourn and grow and change and those things are uncomfortable. Eventually, she started dating someone, and then she moved out of Los Angeles with him, and the distance and her relationship status shifted how we all interacted. But Dave and I still disagree about what happened and why. About who asked for what and if they were reasonable.
Was I crazy? I don’t know.
We all got through it by being well-intentioned toward one another, by being kind and patient. It all worked out, big picture. And now? Now I’m very close with her. I love her; she’s a magnificent friend to me. I think the world of her, and in many ways the issues from years ago feel like they happened to three different people. Close friends of mine, perhaps. Part of me didn’t want to write this because why kick up dust?
Well, simply because I’m not alone in this. One of my best, best friends is going through the same thing right now and is wondering how to approach the situation. She keeps saying that she doesn’t want to seem crazy or needy, she doesn’t want to seem like she’s asking him to end his friendship with this person. But she’s also like… well, Why does your friend keep calling you “baby” in front of me? Why is she commenting “I love you” on your Instagram posts? And the worst part of it for her, as it was for me, is How do I express discomfort with this without you thinking I’m being competitive or possessive or obsessive? Here’s how I felt at the time and here’s how she feels now: I don’t want to be talking about this. I want this to go away. I want this to not be an issue.
I cannot tell you the percentage of letters people write to my advice column, almost always from women, that I get describing the same exact thing. The letters always start with a plea to me, a plea that amounts to, on some level, “Please believe I’m not insane. Please, I’m begging you to believe that I’m not a jealous bitch. I’m reasonable normally and I think I’m being reasonable now, but everyone else is acting like I’m not.” It should be noted that many people in similar situations experience a more insidious ending. The friend they have a weird feeling about actually is something more. But even when the story does not end in emotional or physical cheating, it is not crazy to have boundaries, to ask your partner to understand nuance; it’s not crazy to feel left out, to ask for more or better or different. You’re not nuts, and people will at some point try to get away with treating you poorly by insinuating that you are, that your needs are irrational, your concerns absurd, your boundaries nonsensical.
The truth is, you are not crazy. You’re being reasonable, most likely—and even if you aren’t, we are all allowed moments of unreasonableness. Obviously, you’re not allowed to be harmful, and you must still cultivate self-awareness, but it is reasonable to ask for the things you need in your relationships. Your requests and boundaries have merit. It’s normal to ask for things. It’s normal to feel hurt, annoyed, and even envious from time to time. And it’s normal to check in on your partner when they sleep to make sure they’re still breathing.
A Short Letter to Responsible People
Dear Responsible People,
First of all, thank you for reading this letter. I knew you would; you do what is asked of you. But I’m thanking you because most people don’t say thank you to you for doing what is asked. Most people assume that you will do what needs be done, and that you don’t need recognition for it. It’s assumed that you will double-check the credit card statement for recurring charges and schedule the dog’s yearly rabies shot. No one else is even thinking about buying a radon test kit for your house. (Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer in the US among nonsmokers. Did you know that? Of course you knew.) You know where the Band-Aids are and whether you’re out of ibuprofen and if the dinner plates are microwave safe. You know where the copy of the lease is and which of your friends can’t eat walnuts. You’re holding shit down.
Here is what I have to say to you: you will never, ever, ever, ever get a break. You will never, ever, ever, ever get a break, because you will not give one to yourself. Even if you have brief moments of respite courtesy of friends and loved ones who take up the mantle of responsibility, you will never get a week off without worry. You will never be able to fully cede vigilance. Accountability is at the very core of you like a heartbeat and, like a heartbeat, it’s designed to never end. (Until The End.)
No one will ever plan Thanksgiving airport pickups the way you do, or turn immigration forms in correctly and on time as well, or apply to as many fellowships. No one will ever hold shit down like you do. And no one will thank you for doing any of this stuff. No one will rejoice at having you in their lives to take care of things, at least not in any way that is proportional to your work. You deserve a parade every quarter, or at the very least a $250 Target gift card. But who would step up to organize that?
Being responsible will cost you. You will sacrifice. You will pay. You’ll pay in fun, in excitement, in thrill, in leisure, in free time, in relaxation, in blood pressure readings. Even though you know you’re sacrificing—are you ever going to get to go to Mallorca, get blackout drunk and dance on a table? No. Probably not—you beat on, boats against the current and all that jazz. You take care of yourself and you take care of others and you show up and you do your best, and not in the “I’m doing my best” divorced dad forgetting to pick kids up from school kind of way. The real doing your best. You never say no; you rarely say you can’t.
Your responsibility will cost you so many funny stories. Yeah, the lead singer of Third Eye Blind invited you to his Malibu home to write songs together, but that’s sketchy at best and Malibu is far and you have work in the morning at your day job and songwriting for Third Eye Blind is a great story but no one at the Los Angeles Department of
Water and Power gives two shits about that story, they want you to pay your bill on time. Plus, you’re not a songwriter, so why the fuck is he asking you anyway? Seems suspicious. Better to play it safe.
Many, many times you will ask yourself, “What the fuck am I trying so hard for?” And, “Why does everyone else get to be a fuckup and still turn out okay?” And, “Why can’t I just take a break for once in my goddamn life?” And, “Why can’t I fail simply because I didn’t feel like trying?” And the answer to most of those questions is simply: Because you’re responsible. Maybe at one point you had to be, but now, even if you wanted to abdicate, you won’t, because this is what you know.
You will have to mourn. There is a whole lot of mourning to be done in life that has nothing to do with the death of a loved one. There are all kinds of little deaths to mourn along the way. One thing you will have to mourn is all the shit you missed out on because you were busy being well-behaved. Being a good kid. Making enough money to set yourself up well for the future. Not taking risks that were too big. Not trying that drug. Not heading home with that person. Not breaking into the chemistry building. Not getting your nose pierced. Not dyeing your hair a fun color. Not studying abroad. Not jeopardizing a job. Not quitting a job. Not picking a riskier career. Not having hot sex with a stranger. All of this is a loss.
It sucks, and I frankly think you should get to scream at the sun for one straight hour a day. You should have gotten a life that let you be irresponsible, that didn’t punish you for your dalliances. You deserved four thousand safety nets. I’m sorry you were forced to be good instead.
Well, This Is Exhausting Page 26
