You can eat ridiculously unhealthy comfort food that is also extremely expensive.
Spending money on things that will drastically improve your life is actually worth it! Before I met my girlfriend I slept on the cheapest futon you could buy from Walmart and owned fewer possessions than a Tibetan monk. Now, I sleep on a real bed and own a coat rack (Did you know that you don’t just have to leave coats in a heap on the floor? Highest recommendation.). My spine still looks like a question mark from years of futon abuse, but I’m happy.
Living with someone is really, really great. Wait no, let me rephrase that – living with someone you love is really, really great. Okay, hold on – living with someone you love and feeling surprisingly comfortable when that person sees you pouring Doritos crumbs directly from the bag into your mouth at 9:30 in the morning on a Sunday is really, really great.
Birthdays are important. Half-birthdays are important. Hell, some people take note of whenever their birthday corresponds with the time (i.e., someone with no history of mental illness who was born on June 12th might say, “Hey, look everybody! It’s 6:12! You know, my birthday time!”). QUESTION NONE OF THIS.
Apparently, it’s important that your clothes fit. I came of age in the mid to late-90s where JNCOs ruled the landscape and it was temporarily illegal to wear clothes that actually touched your body. I spent the past 15 years trying to hold down the baggy jeans, oversized t-shirt corner in the hopes that when it finally came back into style, I’d be the cool guy who never gave up the dream. My girlfriend has helped me realized that it’s never coming back and that I’ve spent half of my life looking like a hobo who lost his stick and bindle.
Eating out of a bowl isn’t just for small children, the elderly, and sick people. It turns out that something served in a bowl can actually be a really great, filling dinner. Lots of cultures seem to eat the vast majority of their meals out of bowls. Very shocking.
Arguing sucks and too much of it is a bad thing, but it’s way, way better to be vocal and honest and deal with your feelings than bottle them up inside. Relationships without any arguments are like that really mild-mannered, friendly guy at your office that you think is totally normal until one day he rolls up his shirtsleeves and you spot his O.J. Simpson tattoo.
Vacations are fun! Again, this seems kind of obvious to most people, but I was the kid that asked his parents if he could bring the SEGA Genesis on the family vacation. It turns out that even if your favorite things to do are all indoor activities like eating, watching movies, and drinking in the bathtub, those things are somehow more fun on vacation! You might even accidentally get a tan.
Cooking is fun, too! Although when you cook for two, one plate invariably winds up looking better than the other. From there, it usually turns into one of those movie scenes where one character is trying to poison the other’s drink and they both keep switching the glasses around when the other isn’t looking.
It’s a cliché, but nothing is more important than finding someone with a great sense of humor. It keeps things exciting and, more than anything, it’s what makes spending a night together so fun and life-affirming and wonderful. Getting into a relationship with someone who isn’t funny is like signing up to binge watch network TV sitcoms for the rest of your life.
Of course, to have a thriving relationship, you need to have unquestioning trust in your girlfriend. They’re like mechanics in that sense. I have a great mechanic, Albanian guy named Jason. Really cool, very honest. Sometimes in a quiet moment, I’ll grab my girlfriend, pull her close, and whisper, “I love you, Jason.”
Some people just always look incredible. They’re photogenic, they look beautiful first thing in the morning, and they can get ready to go out in like 10 minutes because they don’t need to change anything. It would almost be annoying if you didn’t know about that one hilarious picture someone took of them immediately after running a half marathon.
Most gender stereotypes around relationships aren’t very accurate. For example, right now I’m writing this loving article and crying softly to myself while my girlfriend shotguns two beers at once.
