Keeping the heat alive

A recent statistic said that couples fight on average 300 times a year. Now, in a 365 day year that seems like quite a few fights - if you discount days like birthdays, anniversaries, familial celebrations, dates and the happy month that is Christmas time (known to Jews as December) that leaves you about a month of bliss in your time together. When I read this statistic originally I thought thank god I was - sorry, we were - some of the lucky ones. I think exactly an hour later we were bickering about something profoundly stupid apparently I have a moody habit of pushing his buttons. Apparently he is unaware he does the same to me. However, this was only one of 300, right? We surely don't have another 299 planned for the year...right?

It's a lot easier to get into fights than you think. Especially with women, we have an enormous ability to start something as a joke and then realise that we are actually pissed off about it, something that men will never understand or mimic, I hope. Usually I can be dissuaded with a sharp "wheesht, you're doing it again" but tonight we had a stormer. 

Stormer's do tend to be quite serious between us, we both have a temper and I have a knack of saying rash things in the heat of the moment and manipulating the conversation. His response tends to be sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting "TWISTY TWISTY TWISTY" which tends to make me more pissed off than I was - it's not good when they figure out our techniques.

However, tonight (in retrospect) was rather comical as tonight we are staying at his parents'. The fight might have escalated in heat but the pointed words thrown at each other were done in cliched whispers and the storming about done on tiptoes. To any onlooker it must have been hilarious, we would have been better off communicating in sign language.

Obviously, as the protagonist in these situations I decided to storm out of the house into the dark and the wet (wearing all of his clothes for fear of mine being ruined) and needless to say he followed me. While we were leaving I checked he had the keys and he made sure I was warm enough - recounting this I'm not too sure why on earth we were fighting.

Anyway I made it to the playpark and my shoes getting soaked were obviously his fault, and the fact that it was raining was clearly another reason to get angrier at him. He proceeded to kick some monkey bars as I stormed off yet again. And waited for him when I got lost.

Needless to say it was all resolved with tears, kisses and a desperate need to get back in the warmth on my part. Couples fight. That's what we do. It's a way of passing the time and letting off some of that illicit sexual tension. It's almost therapeutic. In fact, I think it's rather intelligent of us to have found a way round forking out for a £100ph counsellor which would probably result in "of course you weren't listening you were staring down her top!"

One word to the wise though - when fighting try and refrain from throwing the engagement ring away. It will result in a lot of abuse from your man. They're sensitive about these things (to them it's more than a very expensive, gorgeous piece of jewelry). And you'll want it back in five minutes, anyway.

The Discovery Channel

One of the biggest problems posed in a girl's life is: where is the line when you must put comfort before fashion? (Although I prefer the word 'style', a much less scary term.)
I'm late packing for a few days away with the man up north in the highlands...you know..up North. He has a cottage in a very sweet location, almost bambi-esque, it's just a shame about the lack of central heating/warm water/local coop/sane people. The plus side is that the cottage next to us is the residence of a drug dealer - just in case it all gets a bit too much.
Back to the problem of packing: the first time I went with him I took a dress in the hope it would be sunny and there would be a nice cafe or something to wear it to. I wore it despite the weather, convinced it was my right to look fabulous even if I was in the Scottish equivalent of the outback but, unfortunately, many Marilyn Monroe faux pas followed and the townspeople practically tried to burn me at the stake. Well, you get the drift. 
The next time I went up I didn't take the dress again (fool me once etc etc) but I was insistent that my 'shoe for every occasion' habit would not be beaten by the wild and took a lovely pair of suede brogues. Having to dry them out in front of the fire almost caused the end of my relationship, it was not funny.
So this time around as I'm packing I'm having to sacrifice all my beautiful, wonderful dresses/skirts/shoes and leather gloves in order to wrap up in trackies, hoodies, old tees, walking boots, fluffy hats etc. Things I wouldn't normally wear outwith my house unless on another continent. The only word I associate with 'waterproof' is mascara - and if I have to wear it I consider my first port of call a taxi!
But, finally, comfort has finally overtaken my style, although I'm still taking my eyeliner.
I'm sure the man will be happy that I have embraced country life and will want me to be enthused by the delights of hillwalking and puddle-jumping and insect-admiring. And for him, I will. For him, I will have a wonderful time. For him, I'm sure I will be overtaken by the beauty of a wet and windy day. For him, I'll encourage near death experiences by walking through the woods in the dark.


In fact, for him, to prove I'm so into my nature nowadays, and so wonderfully comfortable, I won't shave my legs. 

Sex and the City on the brain.

I've been watching too much Sex and the City over the past few weeks and now whenever I think to blog my thoughts have a Carrie Bradshaw-esque moaning sincerity about them. This time, though, I'm going to roll with it.
Carrie and her three best friends are constantly in search of "the one", although for Samantha her quest seems to be centred around sexual positions. Charlotte is bored of dating and has the biggest nesting instinct known to mankind - eventually she does gets married but falls out of love when the man "can't get it up". Understandable in my opinion. She seemed to fall out of love at a rate of noughts and so I thought:
How do people fall out of love? 
I was almost in love once before I met my boy. Coming from a background where I'd been conditioned not to believe in love or trust men it's no surprise that I never fell all the way in my first serious relationship, but I was close. Still, breaking up with him was one of the hardest things I ever had to do and my feelings for him didn't truly leave me until months down the line, and even now I care for him deeply although we hardly speak. It's easier to look back on our time together in retrospect with the knowledge that I didn't let 'true' love pass me by, but I really believed we loved each other at the time. And I know many people that have made the same mistake.
The whole falling in love thing is easy with the right person. But falling out of love nowadays seems just as easy in a culture that encourages speed-dating, power-dating and just dating dating dating. When we have so many options in front of us how do we know who to choose? And how do we stick at it long enough to truly know what love is without getting bored within the first month? Sure, it could be the completely wrong person but other times we are just throwing the word "love" around the way women do "diet" after christmas. And in a time when sex on the first date is the norm how do we separate infatuation from love, and how do we know love when it actually bites us on the ass?
I don't know if it's possible to fall out of love, but I trust that it will not be a regular occurence if it ever happens to me; and I know it will be one of the hardest experiences of my life.
Maybe it's impossible to fall out of love, and we just have no idea what love is? Maybe the wrong definition of the word has led us to mistrust it altogether. Maybe we've forgotten how to do it properly.


So this festive period try and have a little faith in the coming year. And watch Love Actually.