Saad and I operated in stony silence yesterday, a full 24 hours waging a cold war until late last night when he finally caved and deigned to call me. We had a pleasant enough conversation, made no reference to our argument the previous night, I was more than civil, and yet somehow, am left feeling resolutely dissatisfied. What is it about women who need an explicit acknowledgement of culpability and a grovelling apology before they are even remotely placated?
Right. Rewind. Replay.
We’ve been dating for almost a year and it seems that the things that attracted me to him in the first place are precisely the same things that completely and utterly infuriate me at the end.
Historically, from as far back as I can remember, I have always been wary of commitment and never really dealt very well with the idea of relationships. All that conscientiousness, consideration and organising yourself around someone else, well… it was just a bit much for me really… I like doing my own thing as and when I want, with whomsoever I choose, wherever I decide without having to run it by someone else to start with. O God no, I couldn’t quite bear those invisible handcuffs. Besides, I would much rather have my pick of men instead of ‘man’, because miaowww, there is a deep pool when it comes right down to it!
So when Saad and I first starting spending time together, and I have to admit he got under my skin, I was quite pleasantly surprised by his relaxed, laid back attitude. He never pressured me to meet or questioned my lack of phone calls or scrutinised my social diary. He was never jealous of the time I spent with platonic guy friends and some not so platonic ones, and didn’t even raise an eyebrow at the various exes who, for whatever reason, enjoyed calling round. Compared to my previous boyfriends, most of whom were generally obsessive compulsive, possessive suicidal wrecks, this was unimaginably liberating. Finally, here’s a guy who is confident enough in himself and in me to let me have my own life and yet keen enough to integrate me into his.
And therein lies the problem. Whilst I had initially though that Saad was demonstrating an acute sensitivity to my needs as a chronic commitment-phobe and therefore practiced an unmistakable maturity in giving me my independence and breathing space, it was in fact his innate inability to plan his time or make any plans at all despite the various state of the art PDA’s within his possession.
Literally a case of being so laid back, he’s horizontal, it never occurs to him to find out what my diary looks like or how that might fit in with his plans and certainly the idea of planning a “date” (like a real date, where we go to dinner and then the movies, or just drinks with me) is entirely alien. Somehow, it inevitably comes down to me to make sure we make time for each other every week. In fairness, that’s not to say that he’s not interested in seeing me, for he consistently pops up on my doorstep unannounced and spends a huge portion of his time at my apartment. He even has hanging space in my wardrobe, a shelf in my storage cupboard and toiletries in my bathroom.
So what’s the problem?
Well the problem is that he just doesn’t seem that interested. Laid back? Yes. Relaxed? Yes. Integrating? No. Keen? Not so sure. After all, what if I’m busy? What if I’m not home? What if I’m sleeping? What if I have guests? What if the only days I’m free are the days that he isn’t? What makes him so sure that I will be around if he doesn’t secure his time with me? And more importantly, why doesn’t that bother him? Is it because he thinks that I will always make myself available to him? Or that he’s just not that fussed whether he sees me or not.
Either way, whatever it is, it’s not good.
To make matters worse, what prompted the cold war was not just his failure to make any plans with me this week but the fact that he was able to make various plans with any number of his various friends except me.
Bad sign when the “boys” take priority over the “chick”.
So I finally snapped (again).
…
Perhaps the greater injustice is that he seems quite content to have me play “wife”, charged with decorating his new apartment, hosting his dinner parties, organising his legal affairs, counselling his younger brothers whilst simultaneously playing the glamorous girlfriend and effectively running the show, but not, in fact, invited to the show. Now if I didn’t know any better, I would have said that this was a bad case of the 1977 Housewife (v2) upgraded to the 2007 special edition. But then again, do I know any better?
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