A Girl...

Signs

When Simon was a teenager, it was pretty much accepted that he and his childhood friend Lauren were destined for each other. I don't know if they ever even dated, but they were part of a big pack of kids that was extremely (freakishly) close, and I guess somewhere along the line those two got a reputation for their potential as a couple.

Obviously, they didn't end up together (and she's getting married at the end of May), but what's interesting is that Simon can tell you exactly when and why they never hooked up. One time he visited Lauren when he was home from college, and they ended up talking about the summers they had spent together way back when. Simon was all twinkly-eyed with nostalgia, speaking fondly of that golden-hued bygone era and saying things like "Gosh, those days were the best" and "We'll never have friends like we did back then."

Lauren's response? "Yeah, it was cool, but I don't really think about those people any more. They're a part of my past now and I'm pretty much over it." In that moment, Laruen's complete lack of sentimentality flashed like a big neon sign over her head reading SIMON: THIS IS NOT THE GIRL FOR YOU. "I knew I could never be with someone who didn't get all gooey about things like that," he told me. "I need someone who understands old-falling-down-churches romantic."

That may seem like a small detail, and certainly not one worth giving up a relationship for (although they weren't even involved at the time), but what I want to talk about is the value of heeding those flashing neon signs, which we're sometimes tempted to overlook because we luuuv someone. If movies and books and rock and roll have taught us one thing, it's that romance should be about indulging your emotions at the expense of your rational mind, and I'm here to say that now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their futures and not be dumb about love.

Allow me to explicate:

If you're a "don't date 'em unless you wanna marry 'em" type of person like myself, little things become big things in an awful hurry. Instead of focusing on short-term issues like how a guy will look on my arm at a party or how his taste in music affects his Coolness Rating, I find myself evaluating a potential life mate on things like how safely he drives, you know, for when there's a carseat in the back.

Now, the driving thing falls into a different category than the qualities I fall in love with (intelligence, humor, cute little buttcheeks), because while it's unlikely that I'd even get involved with a flat-assed dummy who can't take a joke, it's perfectly likely that I'd find myself in a relationship with hell on wheels, and that is where we get the two separate categories--the emotional stuff (why we love someone) and the cerebral stuff (why we should allow ourselves to stay with someone). Paying attention to the place where the heart stops and the head begins is, for me, essential to knowing when something that feels good actually is good, and I'd like to think I'm strong enough to acknowledge a dealbreaker when I see it, although damn it's hard.

After a broken engagement and years of dissecting the gap between loving someone and being able to live happily ever after with him, I think I've cornered my most-important "requirement" in a mate--the thing that I could love someone in spite of but probably not live with him happily forever without. It's this: My partner and I must have our priorities aligned. Specifically, family first, then everything else, including work, recreation, friends, hobbies, whatever. I've tried before to make it work with someone who constantly counted me second to his career (or third to his career and whatever random thing he was devoted to that week), and although I went along with it then because I thought I was doing it for "us," it turns out that he was actually just doing everything for him, and I was merely background noise a lot of the time. Which is fine for him if that's how he wants to live his life, but it wasn't fine for me and thank god I figured that out. Bottom line is that I can clearly love someone with different priorities than mine, but I can't live with them forever and ever and be happy about it.

Several times last weekend Simon and his mom found themselves alone, and that apparently meant it was time to gossip about yours truly. Apparently all went well, and I got good, solid reviews (hooray!), but perhaps the most telling comment to have come out of those conversations was Simon's mom asking him if he thought I'd be a good mother (!!!). From "Hello, it's nice to meet you" to "Let's paint the nursery yellow" in 2.5 days. Not bad, eh?

After he recovered from his heart attack, Simon told her that yes, he thinks I'll be a good mother because I talk a lot about how I want to be just like my mom, who was super fun and creative and crafty. She and my dad made Tim and I a little theater that hung in a doorway, and mom sewed about fifty of the most darling handpuppets you've ever seen, including a whole arkful of paired animals--lions with fringed cordouroy manes, snakes with rickrack tongues, terrycloth elephants with floppy felt ears--and other characters, including googly-eyed monsters, cowboys with ridiculous moustaches, and this crazy redneck housewife in a pastel muumuu and pink foam curlers. She also had an overbite. How awesome is that?

Where was I? Not babies (again) or even about how great it feels to be accepted by Simon's mom...Oh yes, my point is: There's a time at which it's good and necessary to get intellectual about a relationship.

Hopefully those of you out there who are in love or falling in love have picked mates who are caring and honest and respectful and generous and kind and all of those things that add up to them being good and decent human beings. But hopefully you've also searched your psyche for the myriad other qualities that are important to YOU, whether it be must love dogs, must love god, or must not speed and crash in a fiery wreck on the way home from daycare. Even if it feels stupid and shallow to say "I can't be happy with someone who doesn't love love love hockey," please do yourself the favor of paying attention to those feelings for however long it takes for you to either say 1. it's really not that important and I'm willing to compromise and let it go and not resent my partner forever and ever or 2. it is that important to me and if I ignore that now I'll really be sorry in ten, twenty, fifty years. If it's something you truly can't get over, you owe it to yourself--and your partner--to honor that feeling and do what's right.

I'm sure it goes without saying that in Simon I've found someone who not only fulfills my heart but fulfills my brain. He's all that good and decent stuff, but he also believes family is number one and he's a real whiz behind the wheel. WINNER! WINNER! WINNER! I'm lucky to have him.

And in me, I think, he's found a pretty good and decent gal, not to mention one who can watch home movies until 3 a.m. and then ask if we're going to watch some more videos tomorrow night too. If asked, he probably wouldn't say the "old-falling-down-churches romantic" requirement is the most important thing to him, but it's still a big part of who he is and what he needs in his mate. That said, when he looks at me all twinkly-eyed nostalgic about someone else's seventh-grade band concert, I hope the flashing neon sign over my head reads SIMON: THIS IS THE GIRL FOR YOU.