When I was about to get married, two of my married cousins told me that you might think you know and love someone a lot, and you probably do, but no matter how long you've been together, it's only after you actually start living with someone that you discover many annoying aspects about them that could otherwise go easily unnoticed. Which is amazing advice, to be honest. It's more of a statement than advice so the advice element of it would be to live with someone for at least a year before you decide to get married. I would totally encourage that.
But coming back to the time when I heard this for the first time, my immediate response was: Pffffft! What do they know about this? My relationship with my beloved Shane is different from all the other relationships in the world! We're unique, we're special, we're gonna prove everyone wrong. There's not a thing about him that I don't know or find annoying because we spend every waking hour with each other over Skype which is exactly like living with someone in real life.
There it comes - my uncontrollable urge to travel back in time, shake my former self awake and shout, "GROW UP, YOU LITTLE IDEALISTIC PIECE OF SHIT!"
Over the past two years, many such annoying habits have risen to the surface and during one particularly ugly fight, Shane even said, "You hate me so much! You hate everything about me! I'm certain now that had we lived together while we were dating, you would have totally broken up with me and walked out that door without a second glance in my direction. I know you". There you go!
Oh and hello, mum and dad! I know we've been quite successful in shielding you guys from most of our arguments, disagreements and the nasty, nasty fights, so much so that you guys probably think that we don't fight at all. But since you never put in much of an effort in shielding me from all your nasty fights, I'm just gonna leave this here as a little present for you. That time when I got mad at Shane for not looking at me while I was talking to him and tried to shut his stupid laptop from one side as he resisted from the other? Yeah, that one where we eventually forgot what I was saying and instead started fighting about what state his laptop should be in? That was not the only time we had trouble in paradise. How 'bout dah?
Oh, and did I say that "over the past two years, many such annoying habits have risen to the surface"? Because I meant to add "and they continue to do so with every passing day". For example, when Shane reads this post, he's going to cringe when he gets to the end of the previous paragraph because he absolutely hates it when I say that. Every once in a while, when we disagree about something, I like to say "Cash me outside, how 'bout dah?" and I swear his left eye starts twitching. He thinks I'm a horrible person for imitating that fourteen-year-old girl who has no idea that her mom and Dr Phil are just using her for money. She has a music video, Shane. How 'bout dah?
But over time, we've realised that more than most things, our habits surrounding the way we eat is what gets on both our nerves. For example, I like moderation. When I buy a snack, I save some of it for later and relish it while I consume it in my own time. Shane, on the other hand, buys two snacks - one for me and one for him - finishes his snack, has half of mine saying he's hungry and then goes snooping around for half of that half which I may have saved up for later, and finishes half of that saying he's hungry. Basically, he's a dick.
I'm constantly and endlessly annoyed by how he encroaches into my snacks and even manipulates me with his puppy eyes to share some of my stuff with him. AND I DON'T LIKE SHARING!
The worst part, however, is that he never shares any of his snacks with me either because I don't ask for them. To me, what's his is his and what's mine is mine. But to him, what's his is his and more than half of what's mine is also his. Again, he's a total dick about this.
The only "snack" in this house that I don't have to share with him is sugar. I call sugar a snack because my mother and I have always secretly enjoyed opening a jar of sugar, taking a heaped teaspoon of it and devouring it. How 'bout dah? No seriously, I want to know if other normal people like me out there do the same thing because if you see Shane's reaction while this is happening, you'd think that I just put a wretched snail in my mouth and chewed it with my mouth open.
He once told me that of all the disgusting things he can imagine me doing, this is on the top of his list. Sometimes, while we're cooking together, I just open up our sugar jar and have some sugar like a normal person but he flips out and screams that he did not have to see that. He knows that I do it and is trying to make his peace with the knowledge but he really doesn't like to see it. And I really don't fully understand why that is.
So the other day, when he called out from the kitchen, I tried to cover up my tracks when he said, "You know when you eat sugar and then put the spoon back in the drawer? Please don't do that, it's disgusting".
And I was all, "watchu talkin' bout?"
And he was all, "I obviously know you did it so why not just own up and accept it?"
And then I was all, "Fine. I accept it. But I never let the spoon touch my mouth while I do it so it seems like a huge waste of water and soap to rinse it. Moreover, we're the only two people living in this house so if you can't deal with a little bit of my saliva, then you should just stop kissing me forever, how 'bout dah?"
Needless to say, I didn't win that one for more than one reason.