| The Fixer Upper |
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I called them "fixer-uppers." These were guys I dated that were pretty good, over all. But they definitely needed some renovations. Sometimes, only a minor change, like a new haircut. But some guys, they needed to be gutted. I remember telling one, "There's just something about the way you laugh. Have you ever heard yourself? Because we could record you and then you'd hear what I mean." My thinking was, once he heard his normal, natural laugh played back to him, he'd hear for himself why the sound irritated me so deeply. The high-pitched cackle would just bug the shit out of him, too. And then he'd perhaps hire a vocal coach to change the sound of the laugh he was born with and had had all his human life. That's reasonable. I look back on my single self and I think, who was that asshole? And how did he ever get hitched? Guy after guy, flaw after flaw, I was caught in a cycle of dating people that needed to change, in order to fit with me and my lofty expectations. Not that I felt I was perfect. In fact, for most of my dating life I drank, smoked, and behaved according to a script written in childhood. I was a mess. But I could admit this. I could say over the rim of my martini glass, "I'm a disaster," and somehow, I felt, this made it acceptable. They had to take me as I was. But I could ask them to learn how to chew in a new way. It's one thing to introduce somebody you're dating to a haircut that would look better on them than the one they have. Or to say, "That jacket that you love so much? It really kind of makes you look like you have an extra set of shoulders." But I was basically saying, "I really think you're great. If only you weren't you." Years of this made me cynical. "Why are guys in New York so fucked up?" I asked my friends. Dated hairstyles, irritating mannerisms, bulbous nasal tips, still living with the parents, too much jewelry, long fingernails, short tempers, yellow teeth, bad breath. "Why does everybody need so much work?" And then when we broke up, I'd inevitably comment, "Great. So now I've fixed them up for the next person." And this made me feel owed. But then I got lucky and unlucky at the same time. A lot of really lousy things happened to me all at once. And I ended up with a dead best friend, ruinous sadness and exactly zero motivation to "fixer-upper" anybody or anything. I ended up in a place where I had really nothing in my life that I cared about. And no career. And no money. So in a way, I was starting with a life, wiped-clean. And then I started writing, which is what I love, and I found my focus. These are the cliff notes of what actually happened. But the result was interesting. Because for the first time in my life, I was pretty happy. I was writing every day. I wasn't making a ton of money but I didn't care at all because I didn't need much. And I'd started to realize, a lot of stuff that happened to me when I was a kid was still informing my behavior as an adult. And I couldn't let that happen. And by realizing this, by tracing the origins of my behavior, my behavior started to change. I realized, it wasn't OK for me to just "be a mess." I had to be a better person. I had to raise the bar. I had to reinvent myself. I, it turned out, was the real fixer-upper. So I started overhauling my ass. And at the end of the day, when you've been hoisting around your own, internal two-by-fours and rebuilding your joists, you really don't want to go fiddle with somebody else's parts and pieces. Which is about the time I met Dennis, the person sitting here to my left on the bed watching Charlie Rose while I write this. I really enjoyed Dennis from the very first date. But man, did he SPEAK IN A LOUD VOICE. I MEAN, HE REALLY SHOUTED AND PEOPLE WOULD TURN AND LOOK OVER AT US. Two years before, I'd have said something. I'd have tried to lower his volume. Instead, I shut the hell up. Because I liked what he was saying. And if he wanted to say it really, really loud? That was his business, not mine. So I didn't focus on the volume. I focused on the man. And like I learned in rehab, "What you focus on, grows." It worked. We formed a relationship. After a year, I asked him, "Are there things you don't like about me?" It was a question I asked in the middle of winter, tucked beneath a thick comforter. I knew the answer would be, no. It turned out, he had a list. A full list of things he didn't like about me. Wished were different. Sometimes hoped would change. And I was stunned. It seemed there was so much about me he didn't like, why was he with me? The answer was, he said, because he loved me. I wasn't the person he'd expected to fall in love with. But I was the person he loved. So, he'd let that other stuff go. My list was much shorter than his list, but I'd done the same thing. Both of us could name things about the other we wished were different. And both of us kept mute. Focused instead on the core of good things we had in common and enjoyed about each other. Over the years, I have actually tried to become more the person he would like me to be. I have made an enormous effort. Not to change because he wants me to change. But because I think his revisions would be improvements. I'd be a better version of myself. By not being pressured to change, I was inspired to do exactly that. And the things about him that once bothered me, I now find endearing. Although I will say that I have kicked him under the table many times and said, "Hey." Which is my code word for STOP SHOUTING BECAUSE EVERY SINGLE PERSON IS LOOKING AT US. One thing: I have begged, literally begged him to grow his hair so that it's long enough to run my fingers through. And not only will he not do this, he won't consider it for an instant. He knows it would make me so happy. But he likes his hair short and that is the end of that. And so, really, it is. And that's why it works. And that's how the asshole got hitched. |
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