So this morning I'm working at my bench, making solutions for the experiments I want to run today, and Labmate comes in. She says hi, settles in at her desk, and promptly comes over to my bench with an expectant look on her face.
Me: What's up?
LM: Oh, nothing.
Me: (crickets)
LM: So, how was yesterday???
Me: What about yesterday?
LM: Where did you go???
Me: I...didn't...go anywhere(?)
LM: I thought you went out.
Me: I went...to tap class, but that's it.
LM: Oh, when I came back at 6:30 and saw you were out, I thought you had a date or something!
Me: If I'm not here, it's probably safe to say the last thing you should assume is that I'm on a date.
LM: I thought maybe you'd met some cute guy or something!
I know it's asking a lot of her to allow me to have a life that doesn't involve her, but shit like this is seriously starting to get on my nerves.
Oh, and if you think I'm being a bit unreasonable in finding her annoying, here's a little anecdote for you. A couple of weeks ago, Labmate informs me that her boyfriend is supposed to go to a salsa competition (as in the dance, not the tasty condiment) on what is supposed to be their first anniversary. Keep in mind that LM MET the boyfriend through salsa - it's something he's very involved in and passionate about, and to my knowledge his only hobby (and I know all too well how lifesaving a hobby can be when one is in the final throes of graduate school). She was very adamant that if he went to this competition instead of spending their anniversary with her, that she was breaking it off. Seems to me an anniversary is about celebrating each other, your love, and your ability to survive whatever life has thrown at you in the last year. The actual date on which you celebrate is pretty meaningless, as far as I'm concerned, so I told her I thought she was being a bit extreme about it.
LM cannot be swayed, and a few days later gets into a huge fight with the boyfriend, and delivers the very threat she has told me she is going to.
He caves.
Not only did he cave, but this is the anniversary itinerary, as gleaned from the PHOTOS SHE POSTED ON FACEBOOK:
1. Snacks in the Distillery District - fantastic (and fairly pricey) chocolates, pastries, etc.
2. Dinner at the revolving restaurant on top of the CN Tower. This is NOT a cheap dining experience - my major excuse for not having been up in the CN Tower yet (aside from my massive fear of heights) is the exorbitant cost of admission just to get up there. And they did it right...appetizers, desserts, etc. - I mean, I get it, it's your anniversary, you want to go all-out, but dude...on a grad student's salary??? Oh, and while LM was making little jokes in her captions about the boyfriend's etiquette classes paying off, apparently those same classes taught them that it's perfectly acceptable in a nice restaurant to MAKE THE WAITER TAKE YOUR PICTURE. REPEATEDLY.
3. Pastries from LM's favorite bakery (i.e., the bakery she discovered a week ago and is now suddenly her favorite) and icewine back at home to end the evening. Again, special occasion or no, icewine is a luxury item that any grad student I know has no business buying.
4. If there was a #4, I sure as hell don't want to know what it was.
Any one of these alone would have been plenty to make me happy were I celebrating an anniversary. Frankly, a quiet dinner at home would probably have been preferable to any of them. But this is apparently what I'm doing wrong, because apparently I SHOULD be making completely selfish and unreasonable demands, so that some man can go ABOVE AND BEYOND my already unreasonably high expectations. And then maybe I can post photo albums on Facebook with lots of exclamation points and excitable misspellings that make people stop articulating sentences and just make "phffffft!!!" noises at their monitors, accompanied by all manner of rude gestures.
Don't get me wrong...she can be very sweet. I just don't understand why any man would put up with her shit.
If God has a sense of humor, that little red dress she bought for formal and has been "dieting" to fit into will look like a sausage casing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Ok -- I have to agree she is extreme. And if you are doing "something wrong" then I most certainly am as well!
There are a lot of guys that put up with that kind of behaviour and expectations. Usually after the 'lady' breaks it off because he isn't doing enough, I end up meeting them. That lasts for about an hour.
You guys aren't doing anything wrong, I just wish you two would compile a list of like minded people and let me have a peek.
Ian...meet #1. #1...meet Ian.
That's pretty much the list. :)
I do so adore you. For so many reasons, not leastly the comment about the sausage casing. (yes, spell check, I know "leastly" isn't a word, but I don't care.)
But also because you said "Seems to me an anniversary is about celebrating each other, your love, and your ability to survive whatever life has thrown at you in the last year. The actual date on which you celebrate is pretty meaningless, as far as I'm concerned"
This is why Josh and I choose to celebrate our anniversary not on the date we had our first kiss, but on the date that, two weeks before the first kiss, he took me to the hospital after I had been vomiting for 9 hours.
Tonight we celebrated our 5 month anniversary with Josh making me a turkey sandwich for dinner before I went to work. It might not have cost much, but it was a yummy turkey sandwich. Oh, and the afternoon delight. I think my bourbon and diet coke is talking now. Am I allowed to babble on your blog?...
And yeah, the guys that put up with that kind of thing just help perpetuate it. Bad. BAD.
Post a Comment