The older you get, the more you know what you’re looking for in a relationship. Call it wisdom or call it being worn down, but with age also comes the understanding that no partner can be everything.
When I met Joe, I was in my mid(ish)-30s, old enough to ask the important questions:
1. Do you like to cook?
2. Do you often pursue outdoor activities?
3. Do you like sports?
I was gunning for these answers:
1. yes
2. no (and I solemnly swear to never require you to sleep on the cold, hard ground)
3. no (and I particularly hate football)
I got these instead:
1. yes
2. sometimes?
3. yes
Factoring in our relationship’s other strong plusses, I figured fifty percent was acceptable. I agreed to replace my four channels and rabbit ears with cable so we could have Sports Center and we got married.
Here we are, our Le Cruesets merged and some amazing home-cooked meals behind us. I’ve only been asked to camp once in close proximity to our car and beared a fair share of sports on television. The gentlemanly banter and crack of the bat in baseball doesn’t bother me; basketball players have interesting hair to look at; but barring a good cheerleader routine, everything about football I find grating. The last time a game was on, I removed Joe’s arm from around my shoulder and dramatically shut myself in our room with a book in a martyred, intellectual protest. I followed up by giving Joe remote TV headphones for Christmas that he has yet to take out of the box.
I’m normally not the sort of person to applaud the installation of a flat-screen TV in a restaurant (a growing trend), but I had no issue with it when Joe told me he was going to put one up in Tacolicious, especially since he promised he had no intention of having it on all the time—it would just be used for key sporting events.
Which of course, right now, means football. But I’ve had a big a-ha: Football games on at Tacolicious means less football on in the house. A beautiful trade-off.
Still, hope springs eternal in relationships and Joe is a romantic. Clearly he didn’t get the wisdom memo because the other night he asked me if I was going to come in to watch the Super Bowl at Tacolicious this Sunday. I thought he was joking, but he was not.
So, while all of you are having a rollicking time, drinking margaritas and eating chili con queso (that stuff oozes Super Bowl), hollering and hooting and doing whatever barbaric things people do that watch football do, I’ll be at home, contently curled up with my National Book Award winning novel. I won’t see you there. But Joe will, and happily.