Neither Nor

maura:

What bugs me about concepts like Steak & Blowjob Day is the notion of relationship-as-chore, the whole notion that there has to be some “payback” for Valentine’s Day. Which I know is commoditized to all hell and given an importance that tends to overshadow-to-ruin the emotions that are supposed to…

Tangential story time!

The Friday after V-Day this year, I took myself out to dinner (because love self etc) (and I was hungry). I had stayed late at work that night, working on a freelance writing thing; as much as I love escaping my office when it’s time, the emptiness & solitude of the building once the working day is done is a lot more conducive to me getting any sort of writing accomplished than my apartment. In hindsight, though, I picked a pretty crap day to work late & then expect a seat at any vaguely popular restaurant. After finding myself stymied from finding a bar seat at most local eateries, I ended up eating at a Thai place. The only other people at the bar was a couple a few stools down. They seemed to be celebrating a belated Valentine’s Day, and it was not going well.

By the time I got there, they were both pretty blitzed. Either that, or they’re very deliberate with the way they talk to each other. (I didn’t get a good look at them, and after inadvertently eavesdropping on their chat during my meal, I was trying to avoid eye contact as much as possible.) At first, I wasn’t paying them much mind, as my attention was either on my iPhone or the (irony?) Bridezilla-esque debauchery happening on the TV above the bar. But when she started trying to convince her beau to EAT HIS DINNER, I couldn’t help but tune in to their little drama. (Also, she was speaking pretty loudly, so I would’ve had to work to not hear what was going on.)

Eventually, I figured out that eating at this (excellent) Thai place was her idea, and he was doing it to Make Her Happy / placate her / shut her up. Listening to her just about beg her boyfriend to try whatever food she was offering – “It’s chicken!” she pleaded, like she was about to make airplane noises and fly the fork into his pouting face – was a pretty big hint, though. That’s possibly the most galling part of this entire fiasco: he was presumably going “out of his way” to Make Her Happy, yet he was seemingly unwilling to do anything aside from going with her to this restaurant and just sitting there like a lump. He was a bit of a low talker, though, so maybe he was expressing his distaste for foreign cuisine in a chattier fashion that I just couldn’t discern.

By the time my appetizer came, it was clear that the night wouldn’t be about her being treated to a nice night out, but instead about her bending over backwards to get her boyfriend to stop sulking. At least, I hope they’re only boyfriend & girlfriend; as the evening wound down, shit got real on her part, and the way she was framing their relationship made it seem that the bond they shared was as much legal as it was emotional. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I have to at least mention the bartender trying to step in and engage her boy in something he might actual want.

I guess he ate whatever entree he ordered (or she ordered for him), and her constant drunken “you KNOW you liked it” hectoring made me lose a little sympathy for her. But after she noted her boyfriend’s lack of enthusiasm for the grub, the bartender got him to perk up a bit by mentioning the restaurant’s selection of whiskey. And not to belabor any kid metaphors, but I swear it was like he was a sulking child being offered a new toy as a way to make him easier to handle. Understandably, given how miserable her night had gone so far, she also perked up as the whiskey was sampled, and then poured. But even after the dude got his toy, he had to take one last shot at her, or the notion of V-Day, or whatever bug was burrowed up his ass. “It was OK,” he shrugged after she asked him for the umpteenth time about the whiskey. And that was when the real shit happened.

Listening to her simultaneously bare her soul and take him down was about as awkward a moment as I’ve ever experienced. (As a bystander, I should say; I’ve dropped plenty of trou as the focal point of an awkward moment.) Again, if her boyfriend displayed any semblance of empathy or sympathy or basic cognitive functions, her hectoring about wanting her Valentine’s Day to be special, and how she got him a card and he couldn’t be bothered because he was working, and how he always neglects her needs would’ve been as grating to me as I’m guessing it was to him.

If I was to jump to conclusions – and I’m writing about a conversation I eavesdropped on, so why not? – I’d say she was a high-maintenance type of gal, and he’s heard this song and dance countless times before, and its effectiveness and emotional impact had lessened to the point that she would’ve gotten more of a response if she was simply burping at him. But even if she was “high maintenance,” the dude should at least be savvy enough to know how to handle her. (Ideally, he’d give enough of a shit to treat her like a person and not a potted plant, but why shoot for the moon?)

By the time I think he bothered to even pretend to want to interrupt her, she was breaking down and crying, and repeating defeatist shit like, “I know you’ll never change, but I love you,” over and over as a way to try, at least temporarily, to ignore that fact and get pissed off at him. And by the point that she stopped feeling sorry for herself and was ready to just walk out on him (at the restaurant, and maybe even at other venues), broheim FINALLY started trying to “there there” her, wondering why she didn’t want to go anywhere else that night. I want to say she actually did leave him at the restaurant; I can’t recall whether he had gone after her or simply lingered well after I had left as well. Given what went down, I think the safe bet is to say that he let her dangle, possibly while wondering what he did wrong.

At any rate, all I know is if that those two lovebirds are still giving it a go, and he’s expecting some Steak & Blowjob bullshit (and, God help her, she gives it to him), then whatever little faith I have left in True Love and all that stuff just shriveled up and died.