Yes, poor joke. But it kind of neatly sums it up.
Yesterday was a monumental day. I finished off the cheap hair-gel which became associated with my ex.
I also finshed off the green milk that I bought especially for the last lad I was seeing.
I don't know why, but I associate items with relationships.
The hair-gel I can understand - the Ex often brought it up in conversation (because it was crap but cheap. The hair-gel, not the Ex). The milk is slightly more tedious: I normally drink red milk, but as a special exception - because I was expecting the boy to come back for tea again last week - I bought green milk. This is a perfect example of what I get like when I start out in a relationship (albeit in a very tokenistic way). I get giddy and I start doing things I would never normally do, purely for the benefit of whoever I'm trying to stick my willy in. Like buying green milk instead of red in the hope the gesture will impress.
It's odd considering how incompatible I am with relationships that I should be so desperate to try to make them work so early on. This has involved (with various different people) trekking around the country, buying things, making things, trying new experiences, even atteding a wedding as a plus-one. All just to impress.
But there is usually some sort of disposable, physical item that I associate with the relationship as well. With someone I went out with a long time ago there was the enormous bottle of shampoo. It had been on some sort of offer at the supermarket and he regularly commented on the ridiculousness of it. Me being me, even though I associated it with him, I still couldn't throw it out: I had paid good money for that stuff so was bloody well going to use it up. And I think that meant that - certainly in that relationship - I struggled to achieve that nasty Americanism - "closure" - until I had used it up.
There were certain other things which I could just throw out - things with little practical use like photos, cards, notes, pictures and things like that. And fortunately there are no items of clothing that I associate in quite the same way with any particular relationship.
So there was the hair-gel which, despite it costing 19p, and despite the fact the hold lasted for all of fifteen minutes, I still couldn't just throw it out. And, now that the boy from the last few weeks has decided "now isn't the right time to get into a relationship" (for which read "you're too odd to get into a relationship with"), there was the milk. But fortunately if you don't use the milk up, it goes off anyway.
It really is bizarre that I struggle to hold down relationships in the way I do. And it frustrates me. There is nothing more than I want than to settle down in a relationship. But no, I have to settle for second best: bonking as many different people as I can. I look at other people in relationships and I get jealous. I see people who are my age and have already been together for ten years. TEN years. It would take me at least ten years to get to that stage. And then I'd be forty. And even then, they'd still have ten years over me; I'd still be ten years behind. And that disappoints me. I see these old people on the news who are celebrating sixty, seventy, eighty years together, and I can't even do eight bloody weeks. And when I get as old as them, the best I'm probably going to be able to get it is forty years: half what they have managed.
Of course, it's not the be-all-and-end-all: being in a relationship. I do see people who just don't know any better. And there are those people who simply cannot be on their own. I don't know why: maybe they get lonely, desperate, just don't know what to do with their time on their own or how to cope; but as soon as they come out of one relationship they HAVE to be in another straight away.
Sometimes when you look at those couples who have been together for ten years or so, you do have to wonder why. They don't seem to love each other; they just depend upon each other - they are more of a housemate than a partner; someone else to do the washing up for them. There's no romance to it after a while.
And then I've seen people who could do so much better, they just don't want to risk being single; or worse still, they just don't want to rock the boat, have an argument, break someone's heart. So it's just easier to stick with a safe, comfortable if ultimately mundane and unsatisfying relationship because, well, things could be worse. Whereas I get to ride the storm: the highs and the lows of the many, many waves of the relationship ocean. This isn't a nice, safe cheese sandwich, day-in day-out; this is gourmet dining with the full knowledge you could be allergic to nuts or one of those mussels could be dodgy. And, of course, that you will get bored sick of the creamy sauce after a few mouthfuls.
Nuts, mussels and a mouthful of creamy sauce? Sounds like a good night to me.
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