Plus je connais les hommes, plus j'aime mon chien. Part I.
One fine bright sunny Southern California Friday, Our Little Heroine wakes up in a royal funk. "I can't date a lawyer," she thinks to herself. There's no rhyme nor reason to it, there was no stimulus to provoke such a thought - it's... well, just because. And so, she goes through the whole day, in this mood of all moods. It might help to add that such moods are on an exquisite monthly cycle, if you know what I mean. And generally she eventually sees how ridiculous she's being, but it takes her awhile to work herself out of such a state.
But anyway. She's in a state. Anything will push her from merely being in just a state, to being in a brooding state, which involves cold shoulders, no smiles and a pointed nonchalance. And of course, as could only be expected, she did get pushed over the edge. First of all, her boyfriend, let's call him Stupidhead, gets out of work an hour later than expected, so she's stuck wandering around until his roommate gets home so he can let her in to rest. And then on top of that, he tells her that the firm event he had thought she could go to on Saturday? Right, it's summer associates only; their significant others are not invited.
Normally, she'd deal with this in a level-headed matter. Not today. And poor Stupidhead has never had to deal with her in one of these moods before, because their relationship is primarily long-distance, and he's not around when she's in this state.
And she'd like to stay in, but it's Stupidhead's roommate's birthday, and it wouldn't do for her to be at dinner. So she goes, largely ignoring Stupidhead or just shrugging off his questions with a bored, "I don't care," while gaily talking to the rest of the table. Stupidhead is not a complete dunce, and he picks up on it, so At The Table, while the others are engaged in conversation, he asks her what's wrong.
If he had had to deal with her in this state before, he'd know that the wiser thing to do would be to leave her alone, as 90% of the time she can coax herself out of the state, because she does realise that they sometimes border on the unreasonable. But could he let sleeping dogs lie? Oh no. So he prods and pushes at her until, in a burst of quiet anger, she asks him, "Is the entire summer going to be like this?"
There is no need for a scene-by-scene recap. Suffice it to say that he says something - she doesn't remember, because by this point she is well on her way to becoming nice and blackout drunk, and they party on like usual and eventually go to bed.
The next morning, Our Little Heroine wakes up and sits in bed and stews for awhile. Stupidhead has already woken up, and she can hear the drone of CNN from the living room. It doesn't help that she's hungover. Finally, she gets up to get a glass of water, and returns to the bedroom to play on the computer. By this time, surprise surprise, she is in a slightly better mood, and wants to get to the beach. Then Stupidhead comes into the room, reclines on the bed, and says, "I've been thinking; I think we should end this relationship."
Yes, this comes as somewhat of a shock. After all, aside from the previous night, she thought things had been going along swimmingly. Also, this had nasty echoes of last summer's talk, where he started out in the same manner. And it turned out that he had some stupid misperceptions that he drew up out of thin air, and everything worked out then. So they talk. He says that this is only the beginning of his work experience, and that it's only going to get worse, and that obviously she can't deal with these work time commitments, and that perhaps it's just better to end it now. That for the past week, he had been thinking over whether to make things more serious or not, but that he's leaning towards the latter.
She counters this with a, I think we can work on it, it's stupid just to end it right now, and besides, my problems with your time aren't that, per se, they're just safe non-emotional manifestations of a greater problem I have, that namely, for the past two years, she hasn't quite known where she's stood on his priority list (because really, these two never talk about anything that might touch on the emotional realm), and that it's kept her more or less in a state of anxious limbo. That's right, two years in anxious limbo, because she was always too chicken-shit to bring it up. And that while she doesn't want to force him to stay in a relationship he wants no part of, she thinks that they can work things out.
And so they talk back and forth like this. Our Little Heroine is getting increasingly frustrated that Stupidhead refuses to see her point, and.. well, eventually it winds down, with him saying essentially that there needs to be a change of some sort, and that he needs a week to think. So she'll give it to him, what else can be done? Contrary to what she was thinking on Friday, she's not ready to end it yet.
Then - and this is the best part - they go to move her car, she showers while he swims laps, she picks him up and they go grab lunch. He picks up some beignets for her while he's getting his gumbo as she gets her sushi, and then she feeds him pieces of salmon roe because he's never had any before. It's like nothing ever happened - except that it did.
And she drops him off at his apartment, as she's escaping to Santa Barbara 'cause she needs to get out of town, as all of this was entirely too much for her poor system, and she knows that her Fabulous Friend who lives up there will understand and help her talk things through. And he asks her to call him tomorrow, as though she was just leaving on a normal weekend trip, instead of a fleeing caused by his asinine ways.
So we leave Our Little Heroine in a most upset state, as she's driving up the 101 with the music blaring and the wind whipping through her open windows. What happens next? For the conclusion to this little tale, tune in tomorrow. It has quite an unexpected twist.
But anyway. She's in a state. Anything will push her from merely being in just a state, to being in a brooding state, which involves cold shoulders, no smiles and a pointed nonchalance. And of course, as could only be expected, she did get pushed over the edge. First of all, her boyfriend, let's call him Stupidhead, gets out of work an hour later than expected, so she's stuck wandering around until his roommate gets home so he can let her in to rest. And then on top of that, he tells her that the firm event he had thought she could go to on Saturday? Right, it's summer associates only; their significant others are not invited.
Normally, she'd deal with this in a level-headed matter. Not today. And poor Stupidhead has never had to deal with her in one of these moods before, because their relationship is primarily long-distance, and he's not around when she's in this state.
And she'd like to stay in, but it's Stupidhead's roommate's birthday, and it wouldn't do for her to be at dinner. So she goes, largely ignoring Stupidhead or just shrugging off his questions with a bored, "I don't care," while gaily talking to the rest of the table. Stupidhead is not a complete dunce, and he picks up on it, so At The Table, while the others are engaged in conversation, he asks her what's wrong.
If he had had to deal with her in this state before, he'd know that the wiser thing to do would be to leave her alone, as 90% of the time she can coax herself out of the state, because she does realise that they sometimes border on the unreasonable. But could he let sleeping dogs lie? Oh no. So he prods and pushes at her until, in a burst of quiet anger, she asks him, "Is the entire summer going to be like this?"
There is no need for a scene-by-scene recap. Suffice it to say that he says something - she doesn't remember, because by this point she is well on her way to becoming nice and blackout drunk, and they party on like usual and eventually go to bed.
The next morning, Our Little Heroine wakes up and sits in bed and stews for awhile. Stupidhead has already woken up, and she can hear the drone of CNN from the living room. It doesn't help that she's hungover. Finally, she gets up to get a glass of water, and returns to the bedroom to play on the computer. By this time, surprise surprise, she is in a slightly better mood, and wants to get to the beach. Then Stupidhead comes into the room, reclines on the bed, and says, "I've been thinking; I think we should end this relationship."
Yes, this comes as somewhat of a shock. After all, aside from the previous night, she thought things had been going along swimmingly. Also, this had nasty echoes of last summer's talk, where he started out in the same manner. And it turned out that he had some stupid misperceptions that he drew up out of thin air, and everything worked out then. So they talk. He says that this is only the beginning of his work experience, and that it's only going to get worse, and that obviously she can't deal with these work time commitments, and that perhaps it's just better to end it now. That for the past week, he had been thinking over whether to make things more serious or not, but that he's leaning towards the latter.
She counters this with a, I think we can work on it, it's stupid just to end it right now, and besides, my problems with your time aren't that, per se, they're just safe non-emotional manifestations of a greater problem I have, that namely, for the past two years, she hasn't quite known where she's stood on his priority list (because really, these two never talk about anything that might touch on the emotional realm), and that it's kept her more or less in a state of anxious limbo. That's right, two years in anxious limbo, because she was always too chicken-shit to bring it up. And that while she doesn't want to force him to stay in a relationship he wants no part of, she thinks that they can work things out.
And so they talk back and forth like this. Our Little Heroine is getting increasingly frustrated that Stupidhead refuses to see her point, and.. well, eventually it winds down, with him saying essentially that there needs to be a change of some sort, and that he needs a week to think. So she'll give it to him, what else can be done? Contrary to what she was thinking on Friday, she's not ready to end it yet.
Then - and this is the best part - they go to move her car, she showers while he swims laps, she picks him up and they go grab lunch. He picks up some beignets for her while he's getting his gumbo as she gets her sushi, and then she feeds him pieces of salmon roe because he's never had any before. It's like nothing ever happened - except that it did.
And she drops him off at his apartment, as she's escaping to Santa Barbara 'cause she needs to get out of town, as all of this was entirely too much for her poor system, and she knows that her Fabulous Friend who lives up there will understand and help her talk things through. And he asks her to call him tomorrow, as though she was just leaving on a normal weekend trip, instead of a fleeing caused by his asinine ways.
So we leave Our Little Heroine in a most upset state, as she's driving up the 101 with the music blaring and the wind whipping through her open windows. What happens next? For the conclusion to this little tale, tune in tomorrow. It has quite an unexpected twist.
posted at 11:12
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