Dolls' House

My post-writing gland was recently manipulated to issue by Lovelorn Swain’s journal – of which I read every single post in a single sitting because, frankly, it’s brilliantly written and the most subtly protracted piece of slow devastation I’ve read in recent time. It was this passage (from this post) that made me put fingertips to keyboard and bash this crap out:

“I suppose the reason that things have gone on for a long time is that I believe, in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary, that it might be possible that L 's feelings for me might change from the present rather distant friendliness to love. I don't know of many instances where this has happened, and find it hard to imagine the circumstances which might cause such a change but it seems to me it could happen, perhaps if we were to spend more time together.”

This shot a barbed spear of nostalgia through my heart. I went through incredibly similar feelings to this a few years ago. Turn off the TV and listen…

I had returned to University to complete a Master’s course in earning fuckloads of money and managed to wrangle a nice, cheap rent at a lovely house full of students and cheapskates. One of these students was a girl whom, initially, I thought nothing of because she seemed quite stupid and her hair was awful. But to cut a long story short, as time went on, I found that her stupidity was actually a contrived mask on what was actually a bright girl, and when we spoke she’d drop her act and we’d enjoy long conversations where we’d introspect and convolute ideas until even the tiniest and most simple concepts were the subject of heated debates. At risk of understating; I like that sort of thing.

Then she straightened her hair and stopped dyeing it. I started falling for her.

Not her for me, you understand. Just me for her. Because we lived together, the fall was inexorable. One day she came out of her room and rolled her eyes at me in a funny way, and I was just left paralysed with my stomach knotted and knees as granite as she trotted down the stairs, leaving me overwhelmed by crazed, enveloping thoughts about just how perfect the way she’d rolled her eyes was. That’s when I knew it had occurred. Love. Damn.

Suddenly I realised I needed a plan. A plan which included both being able to admire every single fucking thing she did at point blank range, as well as getting her to fall just as deeply (in fact, slightly more deeply, to be safe) for me. My plan was simple. Continue to live with her.

See – I thought that, I don’t know, that we were right together. That she didn’t see it quite as clearly, because, well… Because she was a bloody woman and women don’t know what they’re up to even with a perfectly good map and directions and being seven metres from where they want to go. So I thought that given time, togetherness, and my continual yet subtle charm offensive, she would eventually come to fall for me also and there would be peace and fucking throughout the world.

Strangely enough, this did actually work. Whether it was to do with what I was doing, or whether it was just that the clouds lifted from her mind, I have no idea – but it did work. And beautifully, for both of us. We fell completely in love and we stayed together for a very long time.

The saddest day was when we both moved out of that house. We lived in different cities, and although we could see each other on weekends and such, it was the end of an era. The era where we were together, alone, every evening. Cooking for each other and eating in front of our favourite shows. Falling asleep in each other’s arms, and waking up together, every day. And shagging all over the place.

All of that was over.

In fact, every-fucking-thing was over. Because over time, as we met up, and stayed with each other on weekends, we found that something weird was happening. We found that we didn’t get on as well as we thought we had. For some reason, we didn’t like watching the same TV, or reading the same books. We didn’t like the same food, or going to the same restaurants. We stopped kissing in the way we used to – which was gorgeous and lasted hours at a time – all that was reduced to mechanical sex.

What the fuck had happened?

That house was a dream. A made-up dolls' house where we'd synchronised our body clocks and fallen in love with convenience and familiarity. I hate to cheapen what happened in that house - because the memories are gorgeous, and whether or not I had changed to love her, or changed afterwards, at that time and in that place the things we did put me in perfect bliss. So I am glad it happened.

Though of course, after we stopped living together, we sheared apart so violently it was like observing two trains running perpendicularly into each other from one of the driver's seats. But you know, shit happens.

So that's my cunt of the day: Familiarity can be just as blinding as love itself. And, I'd expect, creeps up on us a lot more sneakily and only reveals itself in certain situations. After hearing all these stories about people dating and then fucking up when they move in together, you'd think the opposite would be way easier. Well, no such luck. It's fucked.

Have a great weekend!