Relationship

I didn’t have to start dating again to realize that men were a strange breed. After all, I was married to one of them for eight years, and before that I had spent many a weekend night sitting across a restaurant table from them tilting my head sideways to figure out if they had actually just said what I thought they had said. I’m not sure, then, if I’m comforted by the idea that the bridge between male/female reasoning is still alive and full of flood waters, or if it is a major source of unnavigatable dismay.

In January, the night long ago when I first ventured back out into public after a spell of social hiatus, I was fortunate enough to meet an incredible man. We have since spent quite a bit of time together, laughing at each other’s stupid jokes and pondering some of the universe’s more puzzling questions.

Long after our first kiss, countless dinner dates, and even long after he started calling me his girlfriend, I said what I can only now realize is one of the scariest words known to men: Relationship. The first time I said it, about two and a half months into dating, I noticed his eyes bug out just a bit.

“Oh, so that’s what we are in, is it?” He laughed nervously and moved away from me ever so slightly.

I tilted my head sideways, assumed it was something he had eaten, and let it go.

One week later, as we sat side by side on one of spring’s first warm nights, I said the “R” word again. He, again, made a jittery joke.

“What’s the deal?” I asked.

“I just wasn’t sure we were in a Relationship, that’s all.”

Head tilting. “Of course we are. We’ve talked to each other every single day for the last two months. What on earth would you call it?”

“No, no, I guess you’re right. It’s a Relationship.”

“Look,” I started when I realized he was no longer joking, “I’m not picking out china patterns, I have no designs on your house, I’m quite content with where we are, but this is a relationship. I have a relationship with my damn dentist, for God’s sake.”

“Well, yes,” he hedged, “but that’s a relationship, with a small ‘r’.”

“And we are…?”

“Big ‘R’.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Capitalization.”

Alright, alright, I admit I took some liberty with the dialogue. In truth, I don’t remember exactly what was said that night, except we jokingly concluded that we’d rename our “Relationship” after some vegetable, to keep it less intense. It was forgotten, almost, except occasionally, I would slip and say relationship, and he would quip back, with the just the slightest hint of a tremor in his voice, “You mean string bean.”

This whole issue should have stopped there. And I would have avoided digging myself out of blog hibernation, had the “R” word not come up in the exact same context two months later.

I was on the phone with an old friend, who happens to be a guy, and we were catching up on each other’s lives when he asked about the man I was dating. I filled him in, and then he asked It.

“So, is this a Relationship?”

“We’ve been dating for over four months now.”

“So it is, huh?”

“Um…yeah.”

“Oh...wow. I guess that means you’re getting pretty serious.”

I relayed this story to my string bean of a boyfriend and he almost fell over laughing. In his mind, this justified his two month earlier freak out. In my mind, it made me wonder what the hell I was doing dating again (and why I had never managed to make the switch over to women).
The whole thing makes me a little paranoid that he is watching me now for signs of digging for a big “R” commitment. Does he worry if I slow my pace down in front of jewelry stores? Has he heard me sigh at random glimpses of white taffeta? Does he suspect that I am measuring the north wall of his dining room when he is not around? It also makes me wonder if maybe, subconsciously, I’m putting that signal out there. I don’t feel like I want anything more serious than what we have, but what if, just by my very female nature, I am programmed to lasso, hogtie, and ruthlessly brand his more delicate, male areas?

I figured I had the male perspective on it, so I needed to dig up some female viewpoints. I asked my best friend, the most level-headed woman I know.

“Am I just completely nuts?” I moaned over the phone while quietly banging my head against the wall.

“Absolutely not. There is no capital ‘r’ in relationship unless it comes at the beginning of a sentence.”

“So you don’t think I’m sending out some little signal?”

She snorted. “Please. And even if you were, unless he was holding a remote control at the time, there’s no way he was picking it up.”

But I’m still unconvinced, and in my desperation to figure this out, my boyfriend and I have revisited this topic over and over again until he has finally begged me to talk about the more disappointing moments of my childhood.

Big “R”, little “r”. I give up because I just don’t get it. To my female credit, I never read John Gray’s book, but I’m starting to wish that I had. He would have had me as a captive audience long ago if he had entitled it Women Are from Venus, and Men Are Just Completely Ridiculous. And yes, even if it weren’t in a title, I think that last word would deserve the capital “R”.