Sweet Nothings

Me, putting my makeup on while the Cyclist stands beside me looking through his phone for a picture:  "MY GOD!  Have you seen these dark circles under my eyes?!!"

Without looking up or missing a beat, the Cyclist replies "They are beautiful.  I look forward to seeing them every morning."

Good answer, aye?  This is just one of the joys of dating when you are older.  I guess I can say we are dating.  Whatever it is, we've been doing it for five very happy and hardly ever dramatic years.

Once, after we had both been diligently working on trying to get a piece of Saran wrap unstuck for 15 or 20 minutes, I said "I miss seeing more than just about anything, don't you?"  and he looked me straight in the eye and replied "Huh?" because another one  of those joys is that the men usually can't hear about half of what you say.  This can be a wonderful thing, considering that half of the things I say either don't really matter in the first place or are statements that could lead to deep conversations which men don't really enjoy to begin with.  Also, you can get them to agree to things that if they had heard you right to begin with, they would probably never have agreed to in the first place.  This only works as long as they are still pretending they can hear, though. 

Sadly, the Cyclist and I have now passed that point.  We now negotiate like professionals. 

For example:  The Cyclist asks what we are going to eat.  I give him two options (no more than two or it will take forever) like spaghetti or tenderloins.  If one of the choices involve getting out of the house and going to the store, the other choice is the obvious winner, since neither one of us likes getting out of the house, let alone going to the store. 

Should he pick the choice that involves going to the store, I will resist that choice.  He will offer to drive me to the store, picking me up and waiting at the curb, but will refuse to get out of the car to go into the store.  I will finally agree to go into the store.  This has become our habit.  Why he would agree to get out of the house long enough to get into the car and back out again, but refuse to go into the store is beyond my understanding.  I would never agree to that because it makes no sense to me.  To me, it would be easier to just do it myself.  This has become our routine and I just accept it.  I enjoy the curb service, and I have the strangest feeling that I may have agreed to something I "thought" he said.......