A few months ago a miracle message came my way: One of my male friends, Chas, finally, after years of singleton, got a girlfriend: Allison. Well, sort of. Problem number 1 is she’s having some issues with her past. Problem number 2 is she doesn’t know whether she wants to bother Chas with her nagging about it. Consequently she constantly runs from him, comes back again, shuts him out again and changes her mind once more. Problem number 3 is that the poor guy is really in love with her and is determined to cope with all her doubts and neurotic behaviour.
Therefore Chas has some big girlfriend troubles. But his biggest problem is that he doesn’t realize this.
“I just want to support her in the best way I can. She needs to think things over now. She has to deal with her past and needs a shoulder to cry on. I don’t want to push her now, but let her be. Accept her the way she is. Then things will change and we will be together.” And so on, and so on.
A few things struck me by this. First of all: this is soooo sweet of him! Who wouldn’t want such a patient man? But secondly: this is the way a girl would feel, not the way a man would reason. Girls want to stick around because they believe they can emotionally elevate their men. A man would, unless maybe it would matter the love of his life, which I sincerely doubt in this case, turn bored and annoyed soon enough. But thirdly and more importantly: It just isn’t true!
Imagine the poor guy. Because she lives far away, he has to cross the entire country to be with her. Then he has to talk about feelings all day. No sex, just talking. Here’s my prediction: In a while she will be patched up and confident about herself again. Then she’ll need somebody who’s a challenge instead of somebody who thinks everything she does and says is okay. So in the end she will heartlessly dump him for somebody else.
I seriously object to the presumption that merely talking about emotions and personal problems is a good base for a long term relationship. Of course having long conversations about your inner self is important, I won’t deny that. But it shouldn’t be the central and dominant activity in a fresh courtship. There should be enough time for fun stuff: going places, laugh a lot, be in love, have loads of sex. To frolic around each other in the park, lay down and make out in the park, have a laugh when you realize afterwards that some elderly couple has been staring at you in the park.
Not only is this more fun than whining about how shit you feel, it’s also an essential build up for a real relationship. Because all the laughing and touching happen because of your “being in love” hormones. These will last for only half a year to a year. And when you’ve used them all up you’ll have to start really loving each other or otherwise split up. Then is the time to start talking. Because if you wait with frolicking in the park til then, it will never ever feel again like it felt in the beginning.
I felt sad for Chas, and thought about it often, long after he’d told me all this. I was really concerned. I believe, as a cheerful, loving boy, he deserves just a cheerful, loving girlfriend. In my opinion he should just leave Allison and try to forget her. Unfortunately I’d lost track of Chas a bit in the period after this internal pace of thoughts. I’d seen him around, but there was never enough privacy to ask him how he and his girl were.
Last week I finally caught up with him. Some shallow chit-chatting about Matt gave me a good reason to steer the conversation into the direction I’d intended: “And how about your love life?” “Not so good right now, I really got hurt last week.” Oh dear, nothing had changed. I was determined to let Chas know what I thought of his situation. That he had to bail ship before he got scarred too much. “Chas,” I began, “I’ve been thinking about you and Allison…” “Allison? I’m not with her anymore. I’m with Louise now… It was just a little fight, nothing serious…”
Right. That definitely put a stopper to my meddlesome love doctor behaviour. I grabbed another glass of red wine, sat back in my chair with a smile and let him tell me how he’d grown up in the past few months.
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