Fighting for Your Man

Let me admit something big here in my guest post that I hope will not come back to haunt me in my own space: I have yet to be in a stable long-term relationship. Yes, I have two kids, but flies can have offspring and flies have never seen one episode of Dr. Phil. So the biological ability to have children means nothing in the long run of long-term stuff. They are, I suppose, my longest relationships next to the 38-year on-off relationship I've been having with my parents.

I think the main reason I don't stay in relationships very long is because I have no desire to kick butt or get my butt kicked over whose turn is it to fill the cars with gas. I'm not fighting over who lost the ATM card. I have no beef with socks on the floor. My nonchalance is very often mistaken for a distant, noncaring attitude. It's not that I don't care, I'm only confused why these things are mistaken for such a big effing deal and why you would think I don't love you just because I didn't yell at you for coming home from the office at 3 a.m. You said you had to work late, I believed you, I ordered a pizza, watched two movies and went to bed at midnight.

You weren't shot at with any caliber gun and your clothes were still in the closet (or on the floor of the bathroom, if that's your preferred storage location) when you tiptoed in the door after seven or eight cocktails. It was bidness, you proclaimed in harmony with my light snoring, challenging me to say anything different. I shifted slightly in my sleep, asked only that you brush your teeth before passing out in the bed next to me.

When I awoke, you were gone. Closet empty, bathroom floor wet and bacteria-filled. You were crushed that I cared not enough to accuse you of hanging out with the office slut. You thought I thought you weren't attractive enough for the office slut and you were insulted. Once again, I've ruined a relationship by never raising my voice.

Calling my sister, I don't even ask her what's wrong with me. I know what she's going to say. She'll quote the Bible then tell me I'm sleeping with the wrong kind of man. Neither of us has any idea of the kind of man I should be sleeping with, but so far, I'm zero for one hundred on my other choices.

I think next time I shall try wearing a watch. So I can keep track of time more diligently. When you are one minute late, I shall let you know that immediately and in a very loud voice. Men seem to like that. When you come home drunk and missing your underwear, I perhaps will yell things like: Do you think I'm stupid?

The neighbors will tell the police as you are placed in the back of the cruiser ("Watch your head, sir.") that you and I fight constantly. That I provoke you into hitting me. That you hit me in front of my kids. I will kiss you goodbye and promise to bail you out in an hour. You tell me to leave you in jail because the bail money is rent money. I tearfully (tears are good, right? Tears are emotional) ask the officer to release you to me. That you didn't mean it. It's just that, last time around, you thought I didn't care about you because I didn't yell enough and accuse you of lying to me enough, so I was giving us another try tonight and who knew the police would respond so quickly to one little 9-1-1 call? How did they get past the guards? This is, you know, a gated community.

From your cell, you use your one phone call to ask me to marry you. I scream into my cell phone, "That's more like it, motherfucker!"

My throat is sore from all this yelling and I think I'm showing signs of having had a small stroke. But if this is what it takes to get and finally keep a man around, no more calm and mellow and seeking a peaceful center for me. Bring it on, man. Bring. It. On.


Fringes