I spent most of my life as a
single woman, and had been until recently a Prestige Card holder of the NBSB (No Boyfriend Since Birth) Club.
Being single was fantastic – I wasn’t aware then of the amount of freedom I
had. I was living in my comfort zone and as the name implies it was uber
comfortable. I do what I want to do, have enough time to do what I need to do,
and what’s left is still enough time to go around for friends and family. And the
best thing about being single was having the license to imagine how you would
be a much better girlfriend than whats-her-face.
Take me for example, I loathed
high-maintenance girls. The ones who make their boyfriends scurry and hurry and
pamper them up to powdering their noses. I have had a string of unrequited love
situations, and every time, I knew with a conviction as big as the gates of Mordor
that I will not be like the girl they fancy
in my stead.
I will treat my boyfriend like an
equal. I would be fun to be with, I would be low-key and down-to-earth and laid
back. I’d be the type to say, “Wassup?” and when answered with “Nothing much” I will reply with “Cool.
Wanna hang?” In my imagination, I am also well-versed about big-bosomed science
fiction babes, violent video games, and stats of each and every player in every
fuckin’ sports league you could name. When my boyfriend tells me he’s hanging
with the boys, I’d be all “Go Ahead, Have fun.” If he says his Mom wants to be
driven around on an endless errand on the day we agreed to meet, I’d say with
Mother-Teresa-kindness, “It’s ok. Take care and say hi to your Mom.”
That girl. She was perfect.
And that girl, I now discover,
isn’t me.
I tried so hard at first, to
follow the script and remain in character as the ideal GF. I’ve read enough
novels to know that men like them strong but tender, willful but pliant, nice
but not entirely nice. But like an amateur thespian, I dropped my lines,
skipped scenes and made a general mess of things. It. Drove. Me. Nuts.
I was so scared he’d run away
screaming if he saw the real me, but what I was doing was driving him away
anyways. SO I might as well be dumped for being myself, than be dumped because
I got admitted to an asylum.
The real me is not nice. I may be
the picture of pleasantness for acquaintances and some of my friends, but on a
daily basis to the people closest to me -- I am an irascible and unpredictable
creature. And if my boyfriend wasn’t such a sweetheart, he would probably call
me the most irrational person he’d ever met. And then there are the days I am left with my
own thoughts and my struggle to maintain my identity and still be able to share
a huge chunk of myself to somebody else. It comes easy to a lot of girls, but I
learned not to me. I wage an endless battle against my insecurities and my
control issues. The unwitting collateral damage remains to be my guy, who takes
most of the brunt of my struggle.
One thing I’m sure of is I were a
boy, I may not have the patience and stamina of dealing with someone like me. I
make his days a living purgatory (the place of in-between heaven and hell), and
yet every night, I still hear the best three words sincerely offered to me. (And
no, it’s not “Go To Hell.”)
So at some point in our relationship,
I relinquished the idea of the perfect girlfriend and submitted myself to just
being the quirky nerdy drama queen that I am. I’m still irascible, irrational,
demanding, and sometimes clinically insane, but it is me. And I’m learning that
it is not an ugly thing at least to one person out there. I hope I never
stopped being amazed every time he reaches out to touch my face, or to kiss me,
or to tell me he loves me completely devoid of in spite and despite.
I don’t deserve it, but I found
him.
And the air feels nice without
the mask on.
No comments:
Post a Comment