Monday, November 7

when you've got the face on

There is a song from Arctic Monkeys, "Mardy Bum," that I find absolutely perfect in the sense that it describes the exact way we react when we're are pissed off at our boyfriends. And that exact feeling is the one reason I'm happy I'm not in a relationship right now.

Basically we all start off happy. We start off playful and full of humor and everything he does makes us smile. We find the way he chews so cute, and when he's late to pick us up we're just that much happier to see him because we missed him so much more when we were waiting for him that extra half hour, and when he goes off on a guy's night we're A-ok with it and we cheerfully go on a girl's night too. And then comes the point in the relationship when all these things that never got to us start getting to us. And we start putting "the face on." He takes one look at us and he knows he's in trouble again because we're in our corner pulling that silent disappointment face.

It's the face we get when he forgets to do something we asked, when we think he talked to that girl more than he talked to us the other night, when he says something out of place in front of other people, or when he's late to our date-night because he forgot about it even though we reminded him twenty times in the last week. And so we can't help but pull the silent treatment, waiting for him to realize he's done something wrong and apologize. He says he's sorry he was late, the traffic was a state and he can't be arsed to carry on in this debate that reoccurs and we get mad because he doesn't care and then he gets mad because we said that. And then instead of taking advantage of the time we have together, we spend an hour silent, another hour arguing, and finally, in the third hour, we make-up and make-out.

But then, slowly, you realize that we put on that face more than any other. It becomes who we are in this relationship and we don't like who we've become and they don't like who we've become and everything starts to change. The times when we'd laugh and joke around and cuddled in the kitchen are what we are striving to get back to, and we have a hard time accepting that we've entered this "comfort zone" and maybe he's taking us for granted and maybe we're taking him for granted and the more we fight it the harder it becomes to get back to that special place.

I did that a lot in my last relationship. I spent so much energy being upset I forgot to enjoy the present moment and soon enough it was hard to remember why we were still trying. It's a mistake, I think, to get caught up in those little things and let them ruin the "us" that was so happy to begin with. Maybe if we spend more energy smiling instead of frowning, then we'd be happier as a whole. Something I'd like to try my next time around.




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