I have a feeling that this article will make a great forward for email lists.
By Jenny Bundock
This one is a 2-for-1! You know these people: they are a couple who have been together for at least a day (but less than six months) and for some reason, they think that they’ve got the market cornered when it comes to love and that the rest of us poor saps are just walking around like loveless apes with our hands stuck in our coffee mugs wondering where it all went wrong.
They talk in “we” and “our” terms almost all the time, and they touch each other — a lot. When the other one is missing, they text message them, even when you are, say, out for an quiet lunch, or in lecture. They say things like “Their eyes are just so deep, I get lost in them” or “We stayed up all night talking about our childhood dogs, and it was like, the best conversation of my life…” and you can’t help but think “Oh my God! That was the best conversation of your life? Really?” but you hold your tongue. It’s almost like you can see that big rosy bubble they are trapped inside, like a unbearable denial-pod.
What is also interesting about this 2-for-1 is that the actual people involved are, more often than not, friends of yours that you like (when they are alone). In the past they’d never given you the impression that they were this secretly judgmental of your own relationship, or as needy as they’ve become (but then again, they’ve never been in love like this, after six days, before). Oh, but once they are near that new person in their life, their brain chemistry does this Jekyll/Hyde thing, and suddenly “they” don’t ever go to concerts without the other person and it’s “so sad that you and your partner do that” sometimes.
I mean seriously, where the hell do these people get off? This happens to me all the time. Unsolicited advice from some pair of lovers who have been together all of four weeks, who start telling me (or some other person in close proximity) that they are sad for the sorry state of the relationships around them. Because the long-term couples have all but stopped making out in public, or needing the other person to say goodbye to them before they go to the bathroom, they must be less in love!
Do they not realize that we all (regardless of our own relationship status) see the colossal failure of their relationship just over the horizon? Did they not jump into the I love you’s eight days into a summer fling at some point in high school, and then realize that a burning sensation in your loins does not constitute a solid foundation for long-term commitment? That conversations about which fish-stick brand is best and why are not the stuff marriages are built upon? That it doesn’t matter eight months down the road if he looks more like Owen Wilson or Owen Pallet? Has no one ever taught them that healthy doses of independent interests and outside activities keep the conversation alive and well after you know all of their childhood traumas, and they’ve become the fodder of inside jokes? I mean my God!
All of this aside though, the real kick in the balls about the new “forever after one month” lovebirds that always comes next is the heart to heart with their most committed friend. This has been me several times (but I can guarantee examples out of all my friends in 2+ year relationships where this has happened as well) where one of them looks you in the eye and says “I think I’ve finally found my [insert the name of whoever the person you've been dating for 2+ years is] and now I know what your relationship is like.” Please, new lovers, spare us the additional justification. If you like that person, great, stay with them. Don’t seek approval by likening it to my own, or other people’s situations. The truth of the matter is, no one, ever, knows what his or her friend’s relationships are truly like. We can try to guess, but unless you eavesdrop on all their calls, and have video feed in their house, you’re probably 60% in the dark.
At the end of the day, only those of us who are willing to stop “eskimo kissing” in public, skipping work for picnics or morning cuddling, staying up every night talking about feelings, and making out the front porch for hours as a “goodbye” have the comfort of a strong relationship.
The “honeymoon phase” is hugely compromising, which is why it is the most fun and magical, and also why you can’t ever get it back. You feel like you are living outside the law, defying society and responsibility in the name of love! Damn right that part and that feeling is fun, but if you get fired, fail your exams, have to get up at 7 a.m. to hand out resumes, and then try to figure out where the hell your next rent payment is coming from, no amount of tickle fights or baby talk is going to solve your problems, but it is going to tank your relationship.
So stop pretending like you’ve got it all figured out. You don’t, and you’re annoying everyone else!
Evolve or die new lovers. Evolve or die.
Personally, I’d rather hang out with a couple in a new relationship than some bitter crank who hates it when her friends are happy.
I wish you all the best in your new relationship (that you are obviously in because you didn’t see the humor in this.)
and to my knowledge you don’t hang out with me, so good job there! Keep it up! I personally don’t like hanging around with shitheads who leave negative comments on articles with insults towards people they’ve never met.