More'n Relationships
Have you ever noticed how some couples have absolutely no problem bickering in front of other people? Myself, I'd rather swallow my bile and burn a hole of resentment down through my stomach and out my large intestine than engage in such tacky behaviour. What's wrong with people that they think so little of others that they air their couple grievances in front of us?
When I was a kid, my mother used to make me - MAKE ME - visit our neighbours across the back lane. I'd get a pop out of it, but as soon as I was old enough to weigh the fizzy sweetness against the bitter aftertaste, I started trying to get out of it. Finally, one day, well into my 20s I said in exasperation to my mother, "YOU go visit them." And she said, "Oh, I'd never go visit them. I can't stand how they bicker endlessly in front of me. It's not worth the scotch. Besides, last time I went they only had stout."
Well, it turns out she had assumed they'd never carry on in front of a kid the way they carried on in front of other adults. But they did. All the way to the Dairy Queen, through the peanut buster parfait, right on down until the last gulp of Orange Crush back in the rec-room of their 1950s bungalow.
I thought they were a bit of an anomaly, that normal couples (normal couples being everybody else) didn't have conversations like this, "So, Sooey. I guess your Mother thinks that Goddamned Bastard Trudeau is good for this country." "I notice you didn't close the garage door last night." "I sure as hell did close that Goddamned garage door." "No. You didn't. And now that raccoon has got into the garbage." "Well I don't know why the hell you put the Goddamned garbage out 5 days before garbage day." "And that's another thing - why am I putting out the garbage? Do you think Gordie lets his wife put out the garbage?" "Goddammit! And here I thought I'd get through the next ten minutes without hearing about what that Goddamned Gordie does with his garbage." "You could learn a thing or too - SOOEY! Use a coaster!" "Yeah. Irma makes those herself, Sooey." "I do. But I bet you kids don't know how to crochet. Your mother never taught you, did she." "She doesn't have time to teach kids how to crochet. She's working." "Oh, so I don't work, eh?"
Eventually there'd be an uncomfortable silence which I would attempt to fill with aimless ramblings about banal subjects unlikely to cause offence and after a while they'd remember that the visitor was the common enemy and that they always left condensation rings on expensive antique end tables and only came over to drink pop and never said thank you and for some reason thought that because they lived in a bigger house were better than people who had lovely rec-rooms and free pop for whatever ungrateful kid decided to just pop in and take one. It was a thoroughly unpleasant remembrance of childhood that one would think would be left behind with paper garbage bags and crochetted coasters.
But no. I've met couples, not just my age, but younger who bicker quite openly and unrelentingly - not just in my presence, but in the presence of whole groups of people. The difference is, I used to feel embarrassed for me. Now I feel embarrassed for them. Imagine. What kind of need for attention would it take to bicker with your bitter half in public? How insenstive to your surroundings would you have to be to not realize your guests are actively praying (that's them on their knees) that the ground would open up and swallow you both - while leaving your booze and appetizers behind for them to enjoy in your absence? Seriously - why would you think we care even remotely about your petty jealousies and seething resentments with each other?
Because we don't. In fact, we care even less about your lives than you do about ours. And yes - that IS possible.
