here’s a true story: i hate couples. with a few exceptions, and i mean a very few, i find couples insufferable. i can’t stand to spend time with them together. i might like individuals, but i’ll pick the separated couple to hang out with every time. because guess what? couples can be separated. i know you’re shocked because Dick and Jane and Jane and Janet and Dick and Rick are so rarely seen without one another, but it’s real. you know how i know they are not the same person or conjoined? because one person can’t shit for the other. if they could, i might consider becoming part of a nauseating couple, too.
the trouble as far as i can tell is that couples seem to believe these useless aphorisms about being in love. some kind of real life two halves of a heart, you complete me nonsense. i see so many men and women melt into one another–people who used to have their own brain and mouth and limbs. they go everywhere together, they do everything together, they are so rarely apart that perhaps they forget what it is like to stand without some other body at their side, back, front, wherever. and it’s not charming or a measure of their happiness. more often than not their camaraderie is forced, their faces turned toward one another, speeding toward each other in tunnel vision, toward a collision into one ugly boring roped off scene that closes down the tunnel and the passage of others completely. it’s a developing co-dependence, a shift from desire to necessity that never ceases to make me sad, and frankly a little angry.
i’ll be honest, part of my resistance to couples is that i’ve lost many friends that way. people who stop being able to balance friendships with their partners unless it means the friend always taking the back seat. and that’s some selfish bullshit. in the long scheme of life, the people who have sustained you most and best are your friends. good luck finding everything you need with one person, amazing or douche-y though they may be.
part of my resistance is also how fucking inconsiderate couples are. so readily they believe the myth of their unity that they seem to assume that everyone else has as well. an invitation to one person is not also an invitation to their partner. if you are in a gift exchange, it’s person to person, not couple to couple. if you are having a dinner party, the couple doesn’t sit on top of one another, only requiring one chair, one plate, one serving of ham. likewise, at a potluck, a couple uses up double the resources. ergo ipso facto hereto therefore, they should contribute double the resources. it’s not rocket science; it’s math, and fairness.
as bridget jones so deftly reminds us before becoming part of a couple herself, couples often seem to feel pity or sadness for single people. admittedly, as a single person, i’ve felt those things for myself. but here’s a twist, something fresh to consider. maybe what keeps me from entering into a relationship is not something terribly lacking or wrong with me. maybe it’s that i don’t want to be like them, maybe like you. maybe i feel pity or sadness about who these people have become, which is mostly a testament to the parts of themselves they’ve lost. maybe i am tired of seeing bright effervescent people become dull and staid. maybe i am guarding myself against what seems to be the inevitable dissolve of my personality into a puddle. maybe i prefer marble cake over one that’s been stirred too much and is now that homogenous muddy color. maybe, this couple nonsense is just another elaborate guise to keep people from finding out who they are and what they actually want. and maybe, just maybe, our lives would be so different if they were filled with actual people and not these fused but diminishing entities.
