Tales Of Relationship Bliss, Or, How I Threw My Girlfriend Out Of Our Apartment An Hour Before She Was Due To Write An Exam (686 hits)
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Submitted by Thinning Temples (View user info) at 2004-04-26 03:09:09 EDT
My girlfriend slammed the door on the way out of our apartment this morning, hard. I lie rigid in bed, listening to her angrily clump down four flights of stairs, then I hear the front door slam too, not as hard but hard enough to make our own front door shudder. Her parting words were "Then get another." Girlfriend.
It's not even eight o'clock. I think about our poor neighbours, hauled out from their sweet Saturday morning dozes.
I lie in bed for a moment or two, but the chance of falling asleep again is laughably remote. So I get up.
This all started last night. Anna, my girlfriend, with just the summer between herself and her final law exams, takes practice exams every Saturday morning at her university. Usually this doesn't prevent her from going out on Friday nights; she spends the week cooped up in the university library, and by Friday evening she's just about climbing the walls.
However, last night she stayed in. Probably she just couldn't get it together with her friends.
I called her just before I left work, and already she sounded pissed. I have a regular Friday night gig with some guys, but it's a guys night out, and anyway, Anna's too proud, much too proud, to ask.
Upshot is, early Friday evening I leave her lying in bed, reading. She doesn't look too thrilled, but things are OK.
I thought.
As it happened, I'd been fighting off a cold all afternoon, and by the time I made it to the bar, I wasn't feeling too hot. Also, most of the guys there I didn't know, and naturally everybody spoke Swiss German (another story), which with my passable high German I struggle to understand. And we were sitting outside, and it was cold and getting colder.
After I'd finished my first beer and tired of gazing at the Friday night crowd, and watching all of the advertisements on the TV in the travel agency across the street, I had a brilliant idea. I'd split, pick up a DVD on the way home and spend the rest of the evening with Anna, be a good boyfriend all, and anyway, it was obvious to my buddy that I wasn't feeling so great.
So that's what I did. I said my goodbye's, picked out a horror movie and walked into the apartment twenty minutes later.
Not to the reception I'd had in mind.
It was obvious from the start that Anna was in a very bad mood. It was the kind of mood that won't be placated, not by kind words, affection, loving gestures - Anna wouldn't have blinked an eyelid if I'd turned back somersaults for her.
The kind of mood that takes a perverse pride in not being placated. A mood that sits waiting, like some hungry, patient predator, for the hapless boyfriend to say something which can be misconstrued, misinterpreted. Then it pounces.
So obviously I fucked up somehow. I think it was that I wasn't paying her enough attention. Funny, but I've never considered watching a DVD to be the time to thrash out with your loved one the minutae of your relationship.
First thing I know, Anna storms off and set herself up on the couch in the living room.
In my infinite wisdom, I decide it's probably a good idea to give her some time to cool off. Besides, a teenager just got carried off by a winged monster.
About half way through, my gnawing conscience gets the better of me, and I get off my ass and try to coax my girlfriend back to bed. I probably don't really go the distance. She's still pissed, and lying next to each other watching a monster that surfaces every 23 years to prey on teenagers, though it would work for me, wouldn't be of much benefit to my girlfriend.
The movie ends. I find Anna asleep on the couch. In that moment, I'm struck by how sweet, how childlike, she looks, curled up under a blanket with her book laid beside her.
Love surges through me.
Effortlessly I scoop her up and carry her to bed. Gently I lay her down, turn off all the lights and turn in.
I'm manfully wrestling the teenage eating monster to the ground when from somewhere far, far away, I hear a voice.
"Why are you ignoring me".
I ignore the voice because I have the monster in a magnificent headlock. Hesitating now will cost me dearly.
"Are you listening to me?"
Grinning hideously, the monster slinks off. I resurface.
Eloquent as ever, I mutter, "Hmmmm?"
"Fine!" yells Anna.
She turns onto her side, calculating perhaps that her turned back will madden me so much that I'll spend a harrowing night, tossing and turning, tortured by my consciousness.
But my beloved has forgotten: I am a man! Men are thick when it comes to these things! Everybody knows! Ask anyone!
Immediately I fall into a deep, restful sleep.
If last night was a storm, then this morning is a force 10 gale. Soon as I wake up I can tell by her posture that Anna is awake and angry. She is radiating resentment. Poisonous rays beam from her furious back, boring into my poor, sleepy head.
The thing is, most of the time I'm actually quite a sweet boyfriend. I take a deep breath, shuffle over to her side of the bed, give her shoulder a big, scratchy kiss and envelop her in a gigantic hug.
She buys this not at all.
It's hard to make the first move and get brushed off. Tough. But fuck it, I'm almost thirty, I must have learned something about woman by now, right?
Patience.
Bear in mind that it's Saturday morning, barely eight o'clock, and while she's obliged to spend the morning writing an exam (and I sympathise - I endure the same hell myself), the only thing I have scheduled is a cup of tea and "Home Truths" on Radio Four. But hell with it, I jump up and start towards the kitchen, on my way to making us a pot of tea and some toast.
"Where are you going?"
"To make us a pot of tea and some toast."
My girlfriend looks at me like I'm Jack the Ripper.
"Go back to bed" she says haughtily.
Anna once more grossly miscalculating; I go back to bed.
She must have been really stewing in the shower, because a few minutes later, when she's dressed and ready to go, she stands over the bed, arms folded, glaring down at me.
The battle commences in earnest: Anna launches into a lengthy, well considered tirade against me, citing numerous references, past and present, including that one time, that one single time, and we were all drunk, when I flirted slightly with her best friend.
Anna concludes, "You just don't care, do you?"
I think: she's under a lot of stress.
I think: she's just about to write an exam.
I take a deep breath.
"We can talk about it later, if you like?" I manage. Not United Nations standard, but not too bad, either. Steady. Steady.
Anna throws her head back contemptuously and reaches for the door. "You just don't give a shit!"
I was so close to making it.
Boom.
I explode.
"Fuuuuuccckkkk offffff!" I bellow, leaping out of bed in a single bound.
(It's hard to be properly angry when you're wearing a t-shirt and nothing else, but I don't let that slow me down.)
I rant. I stamp. I lay down the law. My girlfriend tries, vainly, to respond, but in the face of my righteous fury, now gloriously, magnificently released (and all the more catastrophic for being pent- up) she shrinks back.
I throw open the front door.
I order her out.
She was being a total bitch.
She had it coming.
She provoked me.
I sit down.
I make the bed.
I just threw my girlfriend out of our apartment an hour before she's about to write an exam.
I'm a total asshole.
User Reviews
Submitted by Anjie (user info) at 2004-04-27 13:12:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
"Finally, tho' we must sound like we're on the verge of breaking up, nothing could be further from the truth - we love each other heart & soul and hell, lovers fight."
******
I totally understand. My BF and I have been together for almost 8yrs and lived together for almost 7. We don't have too many major fights but when we do it sounds like WWIII. We have many broken fans and quite a few broken doors.... never violence toward eachother. My BF is a musician and I rarely see him during the week I make assumtion about some of the time that we are going to spend together and he'll make other plans I'll get mad and it'll turn into something that it didn't need to, if only we had just talked.
Submitted by Totally_useless (user info) at 2004-04-27 09:29:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Ain't love grand?
I liked the "big scratchy kiss on the shoulder".
Sounds like a routine day with my fiancee...
Submitted by thinning_temples (user info) at 2004-04-27 05:25:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Hi Anjie,
I actually suggested to Anna that she write a "counter-post", giving her side of the argument. Girls vs Boys type of thing.
What was bothering her ... it boiled down to miscommunication - doesn't it always? Plus when you studying night & day for exams, crankiness comes with the terretory.
Post script: Friday was nothing to the catastrophe that was Saturday night. On Sunday morning our kitchen floor was littered with the remains of two crystal wine glasses, a tea pot and Anna's mobile phone. Yeee ha.
Finally, tho' we must sound like we're on the verge of breaking up, nothing could be further from the truth - we love each other heart & soul and hell, lovers fight.
Submitted by Anjie (user info) at 2004-04-26 12:45:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Sounds like my weekend... did you ever find out what 'exactly' was bothering her?
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2004-04-26 12:37:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
She'll get over it.
Submitted by Dufflady (user info) at 2004-04-26 10:58:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Maybe I'm nuts but it kept my attention and I can picture your Anna. She's me.
But although I relate to her, you did the right thing.
Submitted by Fulcrum (user info) at 2004-04-26 10:54:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Way to tell that bitch who's boss.
Submitted by youarsoghey (user info) at 2004-04-26 10:38:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by BonesForBucks (user info) at 2004-04-26 09:07:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
You did the right thing. People need to not be wimps or play games in relationships. She was doing bad to you, and you wouldn't take that shit. You tried to be nice, she tuned you out. Good for you.
Submitted by Zoidberg (user info) at 2004-04-26 05:30:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Anyone else notice a lot of titles that have the word "or" in it
Jerking Off with Monkeys or How Mom Got Pregnant
Fucking My Sister or What a Family Reunion
ehhh +1 because I didnt read this and I dont want to 0 something I didnt read
Submitted by Magicaddict (user info) at 2004-04-26 04:46:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Yes, you're a total asshole, but she wasn't exactly being helpful and together you can sort it out. Make sure you do.
Submitted by mikethescottish (user info) at 2004-04-26 03:49:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Well written, but, as has been said, kind of anti-climatic. Still, nice effort.
Submitted by chipolatte (user info) at 2004-04-26 03:29:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
That wasn't very nice.
Submitted by JBOMB (user info) at 2004-04-26 03:19:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
No Comment
Submitted by Herpes (user info) at 2004-04-26 03:19:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Kinda anti-climactic. Reality is a lot less exciting though. I may have even given a +2, but you were watching Jeepers Creepers.
Next time... Überize.
Submitted by Muddy Mudskipper at 2004-04-26 03:17:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I'll give you a +1 for the effort. Although, wtf are you talking about? You never got to the point on to exactly why she was mad, and when you threw her out I was expecting more. Also a bit of a rambling clusterfuck.
Submitted by shitfuck (user info) at 2004-04-26 03:15:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
awesome