Lucky to be his investment

Freshman year of college, after hanging out in my suite for a while, Sam Reverferd asked me to take a walk. We met at orientation before school started. He and his high school friend, Gary, his future roommate, came over to sit with me and the girl the school roomed me with for the weekend orientation. We were in the dining hall, and I was eating a cheese sandwich—soon to become the staple of my college diet.

Within the first few weeks of school, Sam and I became very good friends. He and Gary came to mine and my roommate Lisa’s room a lot. Everyday after classes and in between classes Sam would lounge in my chair and chat with me while Gary would sit at Lisa’s desk playing minesweeper.

Taking a walk with Sam was not unusual, but when he stopped in front of the vending machines in our dorm before we even got outside, I got a little curious. He turned with his back to the wall, leaned against it and folded his arms with his palms against his chest. I notice many thin guys fold their arms like this. His movements were cool and casual. His leg was bent so the bottom of his sneaker was on the white wall. “I’m interested in you,” he said. He was so nonchalant, almost as if he wasn’t going to care what my response was going to be. I don’t remember what I said to Sam after his confession. Honestly, I don’t think I remembered by the time I got back up to my room, because I was so caught off guard by his words. I had only thought of him as a friend and only wanted to be that much.

“I’m interested in you.” I kept replaying the words over and over in my head and out loud to Lisa. It would make us laugh…but why? Maybe the words he used made it seem like a business transaction was about to happen, like I’m interested in by 20 shares of stock. Maybe, coupled with his body language, they seemed arrogant, like he was letting me know I was lucky enough for him to make an investment in me. He wanted to become a stakeholder in the S-ie S. estate. Sam’s words were so mechanical and cold.

It’s so easy to see how G lured me in to be his girlfriend and to move in with him. It was his romantic human movements, his warmth, his compliments and how he showed me he wanted to give me happiness.

We wouldn’t have moved in together if he initiated our relationship by acting as though I was the piece of land where he was trying to stick his flag post…

Sports-my new hobby

I don't mind watching football and basketball. In fact, I think sports could be fun to watch. Even if I didn't like sports, I would still read an overview to learn who won and if teams are in the finals or playoffs or just the regular season. Sports are such a part of our culture and I like to be able to be a participant in a conversation if sports come up. Also, in business, there are so many analogies to sports that I think having sports knowledge puts me a step ahead, instead of a step behind.

Sports are on tv all the time. If its not Saturday through Monday night football, it's a basketball game every other day, or a baseball game every single day. When your boyfriend is such a sports fan that he watches a game almost everyday, it's like a hobby. Just because it's his hobby, does it have to be mine?

We're away from each other for a majority of the week working, so when we're both home, I want to spend time together and he says he wants to spend time with me too. Sometimes the only way to do that is to watch the game with him. I want to take walks together and eat dinner without the tv on--but miss the game? Not an option. Now that I am living with him am I forced to make sports my hobby, or leave during game time to take part in my own hobbies? When we were living separately, I'd go to his house with the intention to watch the game, but now that we're here together, I think of all I could accomplish on my own instead of watching the game.

Trust

Perhaps my previous blog was too idealistic. Sometimes a relationship feels so perfect. You feel like you can trust the other person 100%. Every moment you spend together is fun and still very exciting. I'm really not this idealistic. My parents divorced after 25 years of marriage. It was partially a trust issue. If one told the other his/her thoughts instead of letting a bad mood turn into a screaming match, the straying feelings for each other wouldn't seem so much like lies. You can't always help your diminishing interest in someone, but shouldn't it be possible to talk about it so the other person has warning...a single chance? It seems so rare that people can trust that their mate will have one focus --you--for their whole entire life. This all sounds like it comes from an insecure person, but I am definitely not insecure. In fact I believe in falling in love with one person forever, wanting their happiness more than your own and doing anything you can to make life easier for them. My parents' divorce didn't inflict a huge scar on my soul, but maybe it added a little caution to my personality. When I am not told the truth, I do throw up a shield because I can't have a 25 year relationship die.

No more unknown

Isn't it nice to not have to worry about things like whether he wants you for a relationship or just to fool around? I get to come home every day and kiss his lips without any fear that I will want him more as a boyfriend and he will only want me for fun...OR...the sad situation for him where I may be fooling him because I only want him for an occassional date with benefits and he thinks we are something special. I get to throw my arms around him knowing he wants me to do it every time and he wants me around today, tomorrow and the next day.

I was talking to a friend recently about his new prospect and he said he asked this new guy, who he met on line, if he was looking for a friend, a relationship or just a hookup. Whatever the guy said made my friend think he wanted a hookup, but they guy never actually said the word hookup. My friend got a call from the guy one day asking him if he was home, because he wanted to stop by. My friend was not home, but wouldn't have had him come over anyway, he said, because to him, the call meant he just wanted to come over to fool around. My friend wanted more than just a hookup. He said he would not rush to the bedroom (or in his case, the other side of the bookcase which partitioned the bed from the couch in his studio apartment).

A few days later, the guy called my friend at work and asked him if he wanted to go out for a coffee in the afternoon to take a little break from the workday. My friend went and took this as a sign that the guy does not want just a hookup, but would like to establish a relationship with my friend.

There are so many ways to interpret people's actions. If the guy just said what he wanted: a relationship, a friend or a hookup, my friend and I would not have to have endless discussions about what the minute things this guy does actually mean.

When I was dating different guys, my uncle once said to me, "I don't envy you." It is hard on your emotions to have to figure someone out and possibly misread them, but don't we also love the unknown, the challenges and the possibilities?

Maybe there is a time in your life for everything, because right now, I am so content that I can just know.

Can I finish before we talk about bills?

When you're dating, the time you set aside for your boyfriend is solely to concentrate on him and be in the moment of enjoying your togetherness. You eat together, talk to each other, kiss each other, warm each other.

When you live together your talking involves food shopping, cleaning, plans, and things you need to do as part of making your home together. The days of dates filled solely with you and him dressed in blinders to only see and think of each other are over. Having children must enhance this by 800 percent.

When we're making out, the last thing I want to think of is if we've paid the cable bill...but I do think of it because he is the person I'd talk to about paying the cable bill. I try to wait and push the thought out of my mind, saving it for later. Sometimes I do wait, but other times I don't trust my memory. Thinking I'll forget I say it, "Did we finish paying the bills this month?" This one question can be tolerated, but if I ask another or say , "We really need to remember to shut the lights when we leave a room," the mood has become less passionate.

We need to bring the dates back and I should remember, that I will remember to tell him about the bills and the lights...later.

The Boss

We woke up at 10:30 am and our company was coming at three o'clock. We still had to cook every item on our tapas menu, clean the apartment and run to Whole Foods for all the ingredents we forgot to buy. It seemed like plenty of time and it was, especially because G does half the work. He really does. When he isn't sure what to do, he asks what he can do. When he is done with one job, he asks me what he can do next. He's the greatest partner in everything.

As he's chopping onions and I'm stirring the pasta, the water bowls over, I'm simultaneously seasoning the vegetables, lowering the burner, wiping the counter, and I speak outloud. "The floor still needs to be cleaned...the couch pillows are messy...can you go to the store to get more tortellini?"

I guess that was a loaded statement because after 4 or 5 more tri-compound statement/questions, G told me I was bossy. I didn't think so.

Still, I thought about it. He was doing everything that needed to get done to prepare for our company and the day. I felt I just needed to say what else needed to be done out loud so that one of us would do the remaining tasks. I didn't mean to be bossy.

I realized I may have come across as bossy. He lets me tell him everything that needs to be done. He gives me the option of what choices to make and how they should be done I apologized for sounding bossy.

I wonder if being bossy is something that's in me or something that he has fostered by doing everything I want and I have taken advantage. Hmmm.

Your half is bigger than mine?

Going to sleep with him is so comfortable. We get under the t-shirt sheets and big down comforter and snuggle up close together. It feels so nice to be close with his arms around me. It's getting later, and I still havent fallen asleep. I realize that I'm not so comfortable and I need to turn over. I think he realizes the same because we mutually let go and retreat to our sides of the bed.

In the middle of the night I'm awaken because my right leg is tense trying to keep itself from slipping off the side of the bed. He's migrated over to my side and I'm scrunched up trying to tell myself that I have enough space be relaxed and to fall back to sleep. After about a minute (which seems like 10 when you're awake in the middle of the night) I give up and push him over. He says, in a raspy whisper, "what?" "Can you please move over," I say. "I'm on my side," he says. "No, you're right in the middle," I say. He moves over, submitting to my request, probably because he is very disinterested in striking up a debate at 3am.

In the morning he tells me he thinks my half of the bed must be bigger than his. I tell him there was room for another person on his side of the bed at 3am. He disagrees.

Sheets

I changed the sheets today. We have multiple sets since we both came to the apartment with our own and haven't bought new ones. As we went through our "stuff," while unpacking, we made the collective decision to throw out his sandpaper textured sheets from 1995 and kept only his soft t-shirt sheets. We also decided to keep my purple sheets because they are jersey knit (very comfy), only a year old and there really is no reason to throw out perfectly good sheets.

I changed the sheets today, taking off the dark blue, gender-neutral bedding and redressed the bed in Monet lillies. Oh how I love Monet. Despite, our common love for the painter, G actually vetoed the sheets, saying they were too girly. I'll agree, that flowers are feminine, but they are just on the sheets...not the entire comforter.

G insisted we go back to blues. I told him I would definitely take his opinion into consideration.

I changed the sheets today and I will make my decision to change the beautiful sheets of blue ponds with green lily pads and pink flowers by the time the sheets need to be changed again.

He needs his own

The little things you have to get used to about living with someone would be the things you’d laugh at if you were an outsider watching as the scenarios play out.

I was at CVS yesterday where a couple was walking down the travel aisle where you can get anything you need, miniaturized. The girl picked up a tiny tube of toothpaste and placed it in the basket she held. Her boyfriend did the same. She told him she had already picked up toothpaste, thinking he did not see her. He said he knew, but he needed his own. She said, what he probably already knew, that they were only going away for a short time and one toothpaste would be enough for both of them. He agreed but said he needed his own. She called him crazy and he laughed. They kept discussing it. To him it was simple. He needed his own.

Why though?

To her, it was impossible to understand—why spend more when we have what we need? And why don't you want to share with me? Perhaps she, the woman, was acting as the more practical and rational one this time.

Less independence

When you're 30 and you move in with your boyfriend, after living on your own for many years, it's much different than if you acquire the boyfriend roommate when you're 22 or 23. You have to get used to letting someone know what time you'll be home and where you're going. You have to comply with their standards of cleanliness and neatness, share in the regular household chores and agree on how to decorate with your stuff and his stuff. You have to accept that my furniture is much newer and nicer than yours, so we'll keep it and get rid of yours.

The longer you've lived on your own, the more selfish you become. I don't mean to say all people who live on their own are extremely selfish or think the world revolves around them. I just believe it is more likely that they have to pay extra attention and work extra hard to realize their actions or inactions are much more important in the new “living together partnership.” My parents were 19 and 24 when they married and did most things in sync at the beginning of their marriage. I think, at 30, we'll start out less in sync and grow to be more the same in the future.

If you moved in with your boyfriend at a younger age you may not have had the chance to do only for yourself over the course of years. You and your boyfriend will learn together how to live on your own away from the parents. You will buy furniture and decorations together and not have to throw away the things you've collected on your own while living without him.

So when we're 30 and moving in together, he agrees his furniture is crap and we can keep mine, even though it's white shabby chic. He agrees that I have more clothes then him and the bigger closet is in the bedroom so I get the bedroom closet. Lying on his bed makes us sea sick, so we keep my bed and trash his. Everything in the bedroom is mine and now he doesn't feel like it's his bedroom. He has to make a major adjustment because not only is he used to having his own room, but now he will have one that looks nothing like the way he'd decorate his own room. The two smaller closets in the hallway are his. He says his bedroom is the hallway. I tell him to buy pictures or anything he can to add to make it more “our bedroom” and I really mean it.

It was so easy to enjoy his company and fall in love with him, but compromise and sacrifice are harder when you're older. You've lead more of your own life for you. I'd never regret first moving in with someone at 30 because I think the experiences I've had on my own were amazing whether good or bad...just because they were my own. Living together is so different, and even while there may always be some small bumps in our merged paths, partly because we have developed independently for many years, we will be so much happier that we are together now.

The ease of being patient with him

I moved in with G and his roommate for one month during this transition time until our apartment is ready. Their living room is a lot smaller than it was before because my boxes line the walls, decreasing the size of the room by at least three feet on each side. We moved all my stuff from Huntington Beach to Culver City using two cars in 4 trips. Now we’re going to move again, into our new apartment. G packs his stuff, making the apartment even smaller and sometimes forgetting to leave a pathway so no one trips over random trinkets from the past 10 years of his life. There is nothing like clutter and moving over a one month span to agitate a person. This may be one of those little trials to see how well two people work/live together and get along in close quarters before they get married. We haven’t fought or gotten angry at one another. In fact, I believe we will pass this test because even as I sit here typing in the midst of mountains formations created by cardboard boxes, I watch him make these mountains into the Alps and I still want to pull him over and kiss his head.

Fighting to Agree

G and I started talking about how men become possibly more attractive and distinguished as they become older, while women seem to have to work harder on their appearance as they change with age. This is an opinion both G and I share—not about everyone, but most. In our discussion, we tried to figure out why nature lets this course of action occur.

I think that men will sleep with anyone and women are much pickier. Therefore, men have to keep looking good naturally, so they will be chosen by a woman. This way, a woman will be more likely to choose an attractive man, even as he grows old. G thinks, in most species the woman are dominant, choosing their mate. Humans have just created a social dynamic where men have been dominant in the past. Therefore, it is up to the woman who she will be with, not the man.

Using different reasoning, we came to the very same conclusion. This happens a lot. We will explain something in two very different ways, but arrive at the same determination. Sometimes we think we are having a disagreement for fifteen minutes before we realize we mean the same exact thing.

Drapes

My boyfriend (let's call him G for short) saw an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where the brother moves into a new apartment and his girlfriend wants him to get drapes. The brother doesn't understand the purpose of drapes and doesn't like them, but the girlfriend is of the opinion that drapes are very necessary. Now G referrs to the "drape" scene often whenever I talk about decorating our future apartment.

One thing we agreed we both wanted was a dark brown--espresso or chocolate-- leather sofa. We learned that so many of the sofas at furniture stores around L.A. are bicast. G defines bicast leather as bologna leather. When I looked it up I found that it's a mix of some leather with a plastic covering or no real leather is used at all. In the UK and New Zealand, they aren't allowed to call bicast leather. After researching furnture further, we learned that pieces can be up to 1/3rd of the price in Mexico, which is just a few hours drive. Showrooms in L.A. even go down to Mexico and buy there to to sell here.

On Saturday we borrowed G's parents' big car, and headed south of of the border, starting in Rosarito. (U.S. truck and trailer rental companies don't let you take their equipment to Mexico.) There was lots of wrought iron and wood and some bologna leather in the tiny huts along side the dirt road. They were beautiful creations, but not what we were looking to find. Just as we were thinking we made this trip for no reason, a cop pulled us over. I quickly pulled out a 20 and slipped it into G's hand, just in case this policia would take a bribe. The cop wore braces and sunglasses and spoke to G in Spanish. Luckily, he's fluent. He said G made an illegal uturn. Hmmm...I know we made a left turn, but not a uturn. Perhaps driving into Tijuana in a massive Ford Expedition with California plates attracted Mr. Brace Face Policia's attention and he was looking for a bribe from some rich Americans. If we didn't find furnture that day, at least we would add to the Mexican economy through bribery. The cop told G that he was going to take his license down to the "place where you pay tickets" and after G and I were done shopping, we could pay the small fine and get his license back. Since G knew that having to find a cheap motel in Tijuana for the night was not option for me, he slickly pulled out the 20 I handed him and asked the policia if he'd like to buy some beers on us instead. The cop thought that was a great idea and let us go. Then we saw a furnture store and found a modern livingroom set for $1,2000, $1,000 less than the bologna leather in California. The day only cost us $1,2020.

I think we need pillows to add color to our livingroom since the furniture is all brown. "What color do you like for pillows," I asked G. "Brown," he said, completely missing the point of using pillows to add color to the livingroom. We finally agreed that red would look nice and I set out on my mission to buy red pillows. Five stores later, I found pillows that are not floral, not too shiny, not feminine and without any girly hints of pink. Hopefully they'll serve their purpose as a decorative accent, just like drapes in Everybody Loves Raymond.

Old School

Moving in with a boyfriend was always an unspoken and known no no in my family. The strong Sicilian old school style of my father pervaded our home and my Jewish mother submitted to this ideal. I submitted to this “ideal” and my younger sister always had too. Then we got older and my view, and I learned my sister’s also view became; get engaged, then move in with him.

She got engaged and moved in with him. They weren’t 19 and 24 like my parents when they got married, but 27 and 30 instead and they were ready to start combining their stuff and buying more stuff together. Also, after having many roommate experiences (some great, some traumatic and horrible), something my parents never had, they wanted to learn how to live with each other before the ultimate commitment.

“What about religion?” my father said to my mother. “Don’t they believe in God?” he went on. This sin against God--moving in with your boyfriend--is the worst thing that someone could possible do.

He never took us to church or said a prayer with us. Not once during our entire childhood. My mother took us to the Synagogue a few times and said a Chanukah prayer with us, but religion was more about food and culture to us. I used to think and think about what I wanted to be…Catholic or Jewish. My mother’s friend told me I didn’t have to choose, but that didn’t make sense to me at the time when I was so young. I decided culture was enough for me for now. If anything my mother should be upset, but she wasn’t. She feels that as long as you trust that there is a plan to get married and have children, at this age (I’m 30 and she’s dying to have grandchildren) it’s ok but still not ideal.

So, what about religion? Don’t people who have chosen a strong faith live with their boyfriends? Yes! I know plenty of them. In fact, they have babies before their vows are taken too.

Stew of Life

I am in a stew. A stew of happiness, love, sadness, fear and hopefulness. Happiness for being so in love with someone and for feeling there is actually someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and for seeing him as someone I would be so lucky to have in my life each and every day forever. Sadness for not being near my family and for seeing them only a few times year. Fearful for not winning him over enough to want to move away to NY with me, from California—the place he loves. Still hopeful that he will come and love me in NY, and more importantly love who he is in NY.