Can't Take My Eyes Off of You

Last night I had a chat with the boyfriend about this Other Woman character. There's been a bit of cell-phone juggling lately, and somehow I ended up with a text message from her to him, saying just that she'd gone out to dinner, followed by "lol" which, like all internet abbreviations, I detest, and like some internet abbreviations, I never use. It was a pretty harmless message, and since I know they're friends, I passed it along to him.

Apparently it was a bigger deal to her than to either he or I; she made a big deal out of it over IM, at which point I came over and he got away from the computer, so she called him, and he hung up on her. This, in and of itself is a little weird, because the boyfriend (this is getting awkward, let's call him R) is one of the least angry/dramatic people I know.

His comment upon seeing my puzzled face was "I just didn't want to deal with it right now." This is as close to an uncharitable remark I have ever heard him make. R is the kind of person who will say things like "Dude is really getting on my nerves, we both need to get more sleep/our leadership styles clash/etc." There's a hierarchy of respect with him, obviously, but I have never known him to judge someone prematurely or let negativity affect him without a solid reason.

In the two and a half years I've known him and the nearly six months we've dated, I have never known him to take out a bad mood on anyone else. He has never snapped at me, or at anyone in my presence. He is always, even when angry, calm. The maddest I've ever seen him was on my couch over Christmas break, and he spoke in a completely reasonable tone of voice saying completely reasonable things.

Taking this trend of unbelievability one step further, I have a friend, male, two years younger than I, called J. I've known this kid since he was in eighth grade, and not only have I never heard a single unkind word out of his mouth, in the seven or eight years we've been friends, I have never heard him say he's down. He's never had a bad mood. Never been depressed, never been anything other than positive and enthusiastic.

Now, granted, J's family's has money (the J is from a very prestigious educational environment) and he and his twin sister have had pretty happy, sheltered lives, made easier by their personalities, which make everyone love them instantly. So it's not like he's had to overcome a lot.

Still. That kind of positivity. That kind of attitude. That kind of buying into things, what Nick Hornby would call singing with your eyes closed. The knowing devotion R gives to his fraternity--he buys all this love-truth-honor, believes it, lives his life by it--the way J has a completely unironic love for musical theater, the time he talked me into his backseat so that he could put something on and sing for me as we looked out the moonroof at the stars...people like this, and I keep finding more of them, make me realize that my cynicism is as unappealing as apathy.

I envy what they have. But in a way, I'm getting it.

The Other Woman, I know, at some point, told R she was in love with him. (I think he responded by shrugging. That's the way it plays out in my head) This is not a phrase that he and I have exchanged.

You have to understand, R and I do not have a mushy sort of relationship. We have good sex, we have interesting conversations, we like most of the same people, and our terms of endearment run more to the "buttface" rather than "sugarbean" end of the spectrum. R is not a mushy person. I have been in the past, but I much prefer bickering. There are only so many times you can hear proclamations of undying love before it gets old.

Point is, this statement of the Other Woman's came up in conversation last night, and I had something to say about it--primarily, that I was concerned that maybe he, in a moment of stupidity, would think that because I keep my feelings to myself that I don't care for him. He looked up at me and said "No, I know." Thence followed a conversation about how we both liked that we could just have a relationship instead of talking about it all the time.

This, I think, is my favorite thing about him. I trust him. I trust that he means his actions, and that he is honest enough to leave me if he doesn't want to be with me. It's a trust that's hard to gain in any circumstances, and one that I value when I find it.