“
Jane started saying ‘Welcome to being in a relationship’ to me over and over again.
I’d tell her about all the compromises I was making and how much Andy’s self-absorption could irritate me and how I’d noticed that he’d stopped finding me sexy and started finding me sweet – that he used to grab my bum and kiss me, and now he kissed me on the head and pulled the zipper of my jacket up and down in a cutesy way. ‘Wait till he stops finding you sweet,’ she said. ‘That’s a whole other phase.’
I told her about how much time was spent comforting him and buoying him up and getting him out of low moods. How his emotions were always more important than mine – that when we had arguments, his feelings were discussed as facts and mine were interrogated as fabrications. ‘Jen,’ she said matter-of-factly, ‘do you even want a boyfriend?’
I asked her if this was all stuff she put up with and she nodded. ‘Welcome to being in a relationship,’ she said.
And I thought: I don’t want to be welcome here. I don’t want to get comfortable here.
”
”