Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-05-15 - 11:36 a.m.

Land Mines

My boyfriend gave me a compliment the other day. At least, I think he did. He was looking at me, and I saw his lips move, but they didn't quite synch up with what I heard - kind of like those old Japanese spy movies that Woody Allen had fun with. His lips moved, and I heard, "I like your big floppy gut." I know it was something like that. Well, he probably said something like, "I like your soft belly," but there's whole emotional subtitle thing that happens.

And we looked at each other, and he KNEW, I think, that was it - he had wandered out into the mine field. He complimented me on something I don't like about myself, on the very CHARACTERISTICS I don't like about the thing I don't like, and there was no turning back. I could not drag his mangled body off the field to waiting helicopters, I could not even tell him what step to take next. All steps were fraught with peril, and there was nothing he could say at that point except "Hey, how about those Mets?"

There was no use his explaining defensively that he MEANT it, that he really really does like my big floppy squishy belly (oh, so it IS.). Nope. No use saying that isn't what he meant in the first place (oh, you DON'T like it?) or that it isn't THAT big (well, exactly how big IS it?). No way out.

And that's a weird thing, because you would think it would be nice to be complemented on a part of yourself that you're not fond of. Reassuring, somehow. But things like "I don't mind that you're a lousy housekeeper" just don't work somehow. Nope. KaBOOM. Limbs everywhere.

I know some stuff about me I don't like, and he knows it too. Some of it's pretty valid, and some of it isn't, and none of it has stopped him from loving me, and most of it doesn't stop me from loving me either.

But I'm hard on myself. That's the best place to be, isn't it? It's got that whole humble cachet to it, which you have to admire, but then, it also implies that you know how great you are, because you know you're hard on yourself. See? Humble AND great. It doesn't get any better. And of course, as long as you're subtle about it, friends will TELL you that you're hard on yourself, which is a wonderful shorer-upper: you're not half as bad as you really don't think you are.

It's a complex system to run, but it works.

But compliments like that upset the entire delicate balance. What, I AM a rotten housekeeper? What, I HAVE a humungous squishy floppy belly?

It's all in the relationship contract, the one in invisible ink. Remember - the one you signed in the heat of passion, when you were just about to...well, and a voice said, "here, use MY pen", and you never really looked, because you were distracted. And mostly it's got really good stuff in it, even though you have to put lemon juice on it to read it. But there are little surprises here and there, maybe forever. A little road map of the mine fields.

Like the one labeled, "Things we both know but are not going to mention, ever, in any way." You know, he's got some of his own stuff in there. (Which, I want you to notice, I am not mentioning here.) Things at least as big as my hideous humungous squishy floppy belly, I'm sure.

So there's stuff we're not going to notice, at least out loud. We're not going to debate its fairness. It's in the contract. If this stuff gets noticed, there will be explosions. There may be casualties, even when the poor man is just trying to give me a compliment. It keeps relationships interesting, doesn't it?

And it's not that squishy. It's NOT, I tell you.

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