I read somewhere that there is a chemical in women’s bodies released after sex that fosters feelings of attachment to one’s sexual partner. Like shingles.
Glen and I see each other pretty regularly these days. He calls me his “lady friend.” When his friends call him while we’re together, he says, “I’m with my lady friend. Can I call you back?” Since sleeping together, with every date I find I like him less and less and yet, somehow, my heart continues to grow more and more attached.
Increasingly, I find myself adjusting my judgments of him to suit my feelings. My heart, a fierce and treacherous little muscle, is a dictator. It’s led a coup d’etat to oust my more democratic brain. My noodle, now a mere servant to the red fist calling the shots in my chest, works exclusively to figure out how to continue to love Glen, despite my growing antipathy for him. This means painstakingly revising his flaws into quirks, seeing his bad manners as unaffected naturalness, his ignorance as innocence, and his stupidity as simplicity. Thus my affection and my annoyance have become an inverse function of each other—I love him hard, with love as the last line of defense against contempt.
When we lie together after sex sometimes, and I look into his eyes, I feel so warm and happy, and then he’ll say something so infuriating that I want to punch him in the face, I want to scream at him, I want to tell him that I can’t stand him, that he is driving me crazy, that I hate him! Which all leads me to believe that I must love him, why else would I want this fool to wrap his arms around me? Yes, I think, I want to tell him so badly that I love him. But I can’t tell him that. Not yet. It’s too soon. So, I just look at him and smile instead.
“What are you thinking, Iris?” he’ll say, seeing a peculiar light behind my eyes. Maybe he’ll begin to stroke my hair then, and I’ll say, “Oh, Glen, I adore you!” and wonder if he’ll run away in fear because he’s never told me that he adores me. His eyes widen a little and he fidgets a bit uncomfortably under the pressure of my gaze, and I become excited by this idea of his running from me. Excited and afraid that I might finally be rid of him.
Glen has taken to calling me everyday in the middle of the afternoon, just to check in. The phone rings and I answer it. He breathes on the other end for a few seconds usually before he asks, “What’s up?” and waits for me to talk. I say, “You’re the one who called me?” “You tell me what’s up?” He says, “I just wanted to hear your voice.” And I say, “Okay,” and then there is silence, after a while some chewing.
“What are you eating?” I ask. “Cashews,” he answers. “Some people think it’s rude to chew on the phone,” I say. “I don’t have any of those hangups,” he says. “What kind of hangups do you have?” I say. “I have zero tolerance for inconsiderate people,” he says. I decide not to respond.
We are quiet for a few minutes. I wait for him to say something else. He says, “I like our quiet time,” in the same voice he always says this, as if he hasn’t made this same joke in the exact same voice a hundred times before. I wonder if he is legally retarded. I feel bad for him and try to laugh. “What?” he says. “I was just laughing.” I say. “You’re funny, “ I lie. Then he says, “Good times, good times.” Another joke that’s not really a joke he relentlessly repeats. It wasn’t very funny the first time he said it. Why does he continue to say it? I wait for something more. I wait. I wait.
After a few minutes, he says, “Well, goodbye,” and then we both hang up. Then I feel bad because the conversation went so poorly, because it was not charming and fun, because we are not getting along. I decide I don’t like him anymore. I worry he doesn’t like me anymore. I wish he would stop calling me. I worry he will stop calling me. Who wants to feel they are not liked in the middle of the afternoon?
He should only call if he has something to say, I think. What right does he have to decide he doesn’t like me when he calls me and is just as boring as I am? It’s just as much as his fault, if not all his fault, that our conversation was so dull! “What’s up?” he says. What the hell does he think is up? Why is it my responsibility to determine what’s up all the time? Why always questions? Never any answers. He calls me and ruins my mood, and then for that, he is going to decide he doesn’t like me anymore! I don’t think so!
I call him back immediately, and when he picks up I say lightheartedly, playfully, “I just called to surprise you. You didn’t think I was going to call, did you?’ He laughs. I’m delightful, I think. “No, I didn’t,” he says, and I say sweetly, “Goodbye, Glen,” and hang up. What an Asshole, I think. I can’t wait to see him again.
