My other-half, Dave, is one of those extremely irritating anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better-types. Before we met I thought I was a rather accomplished individual with my writing, my singing, some sports and academia. However, his accomplishments soon came to light and not only were they many and extremely admirable, they were better than mine. No longer was my Grade 8 distinction singing as admirable in comparison to his teaching himself guitar to a Grade 8 level. No longer did my plastic gold medals for my club-level tennis-playing gleam when next to his genuine gold medals won for his nation. It almost split us up - apparently I have a competitive nature. I remember talking to a very old friend of mine who went to school with Dave and his knowledge boiled down to, "You're dating Dave?! That guy is Superman!"
As it turns out, he was. I remember being almost gleeful when I discovered his dyslexia and that I could read and write much better than he could. However, his dyslexia also gave him a natural affinity for art, mechanics, graphics, computers.... Talk about a double-edged sword.
Now that we're plodding along in almost-wedded bliss two and a half years on I thought I had pretty much gotten over the one-sided competition between us and accepted my multi-talented Superman for the blessing he was.
But, a mere four days ago, disaster struck.
I was made aware of an ice rink in Aberdeen and was absolutely desperate to have a 'funny, romantic' date on the ice. I was getting very excited about it, filled with images of the two of us falling over each other, throwing our heads back in laughter, clutching onto each other in a desperate attempt to stay upright whilst looking deeply into each other's eyes...in a nutshell, embodying the couple that everyone loves to hate. But my euphoria was stopped short when my flatmate asked us both if we could actually skate and Dave...well, Dave said, "Yes."
I took it as a personal insult, "You can what?!"
Any shred of rationality I once possessed fled in fear of my rage, which quickly turned to contempt:
"Well that just makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Of course you can skate! Because there's nothing you can't do! And of course I can't skate because I'm so bloody useless in comparison to you!"
Thankfully, due to the dyslexia, he found it funny, reminded me of a time when he had helped coach ice-hockey players (cue higher-pitched rant), and told me he was just happy he could catch me if I fell.
The next day we did indeed go for our romantic date. It started in good humour, I had decided to be proud of his arrogantly enormous skillset, but, after receiving our skates, he humphed and said, "Eurgh, I prefer hockey skates" quite literally seconds I had asked for "the easiest and widest skates available" and gotten the same kind as him. Well, the irrationality started to flare but I managed to keep my rant purely mental and try and put it behind us. He was oblivious, as most men are.
When we got on the ice I clutched onto the rail and tentatively stepped down whilst looking in fear at the oncoming traffic. He followed me clutch-less, skated in front of me, and turned backwards to smile at me. I rolled my eyes to the point they almost left their sockets. We proceeded to start skating, me taking it slowly and carefully, him by my side watching and performing little tricks. As you can imagine, my anger began to increase. After ten minutes of awkward silence on my part and showing off on his I turned to him and said, "You promised you'd fall over! You're just showing off! I'm clearly holding you back so bugger off and go have some high speed pirouette fun!"
Yes, the poor boy had agreed the night before to fall over to make me feel better but hadn't thought I was being serious. I hadn't thought he wouldn't think I was serious. Ironically enough, about 30 seconds later he did proceed to deck it, however, I think it was a slightly dramatised fall. Which I love him dearly, for. He actually proceeded to deck it four times, and it turns out that I can skate pretty well. He even tried to say I was a natural and much better than him after such little time on the ice. The pandering worked, I asked him to show off for me and he did a little lap of the rink to which I turned to those near by with a smug smile on my face and said, "That's my fiancee."
After about 40 minutes on the ice he asked if I wanted to keep going or leave and I said, "You're going to laugh, but I really want to leave before I fall, just so I can say I didn't fall, even though I'm having a good time." He did laugh but he took me home anyway, and I got to tell people I didn't fall over.
You may think it a false victory, but he still looked at me with very proud eyes.
I guess love really is blind.
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