Love (Ick!)

Recently, a couple of my closest friends (you know who you are) have fallen in lurve (yeah - I did drop the L-bomb but it wasn’t a proper L-bomb so don’t freak out). This means that I am having to take a massive dollop of my own medicine when it comes to listening, as all good friends must, to smug tales of loved-uppyness.

I have therefore, out of the kindness of my heart, and in the true spirit of helping my dear darling friends, compiled a list of comparisons, between the way things are in the “Honeymoon Phase” and the way they become 10 years later in the “We-have-a-40yr-mortgage Phase”. This is purely to help you prepare for a happy and fulfilling future together, you understand, and not, in any way to deter you from continuing your beautiful, fledgling relationship so that I can go back to being Queen of Smug.

You know you are in the “Honeymoon Phase” when:

He stays over, and you act as though his sleeping naked is in no way awkward, even though you lay awake all night with his sweaty balls stuck to the back of your thighs, thinking “Oh my God, his balls are stuck to me! They must love me too!”

You share a bed together and he’s out like a light whilst you’re never able to get comfy but you mistake your over-tiredness for euphoria because THERE WAS A MAN IN YOUR BED!

You get up before he does so that you can artfully arrange your hair and make-up to get that adorable slept-in-but-still-beautiful look, then sneak back under the covers and pretend to wake up all cutely ruffled!

He makes you a lovely breakfast every morning that he stays at yours and serves it to you in bed, and pretends not to expect any sort of reward.

You watch him wash and shave and all the time you’re watching him, you’re staring with this overawed look on your face because you just can’t quite believe that THERE WAS A MAN IN YOUR BED and now HE IS SHAVING AT YOUR SINK! (By the way - that overawed look, it ain’t pretty, close your mouth dearie, we are not a fish!).

He stares into your eyes all the time you are doing your make-up and then fervently declares that you don’t need to wear any make-up because “your eyes are as beautiful as the stars”, or “your face is as beautiful as a fresh spring day” or some soppy shit like that. 

One or both of you keeps instagramming arty shots taken on your numerous dates, showing your hand clasped in his, or his shoes next to your shoes, or the meal you’ve just had, or the pretty way the light hits the pavement outside the bijoux restaurant you just left, together, on your perfect little date.

You have had a complete change of opinion apropos your stance on Public Displays of Affection. 

You wear uncomfortable knickers with lacy bits, and frills and “sheer panels” and ribbons - and he probably bought them for you, in which case they’re even more uncomfortable because you probably also lied about your size, right?

You shave past your knees, but you never let him catch you doing it because you too busy pretending that you’re blessed with natural hairlessness in all the most convenient places. You are imagining that this makes you more desirable but that slightly caveman look on his face? That’s not lust - that’s confusion, darling.

You keep your bedroom tidy, just in case you should accidentally-on-purpose stay out too late for him to catch the train home, and he has to “crash” at yours.

He thinks that he has successfully survived your period because he stayed over one night during your monthly and managed to not get shouted at, even though you were shaking with suppressed rage the entire time because he patronisingly stirred the pasta when you were just about to do it yourself!

He removes his socks and shoes before engaging in a quickie.

You laugh at all his jokes, even when they are not at all funny, and then tell all your friends the same jokes and get disappointed when they don’t laugh as much as you did.

When you introduce him to your friends, you try to make him perform all the funniest things he has ever said or done, despite already having tried to re-enact them yourself, so that your friends can further appreciate how funny he is.  

10 years later...

You wear long pyjamas and spend your nights blissfully unconscious of each others presence but you get really cross if you are woken up by the other person “breathing loudly” (I don’t snore!).

When one of you leaves the bed, the other immediately spreads themselves across the vacated space with no apparent regret at their partner having left.

You wake up like an Orc who’s just been stabbed by a sneaky Hobbit - it ain’t pretty and you don’t care because it will hopefully put him off ever trying to wake you up again. Oh but that time that you missed your alarm and were late for work? His fault.

He makes you breakfast in bed and then nicks your toast whilst waiting for you to finish eating so he can claim his reward.

He doesn't shave...

... neither do you.

Comfort becomes your number one consideration above all else when it comes to matters of intimacy. There comes a certain point when it becomes totally okay to leave your socks on.

This point comes around the time when you start wearing the BIG knickers. (Don't pity me. Most girls long for this day).

Oh, and you might still make an effort where make-up is concerned but rather than declare that you don't need it because you're "beautiful as you are" he tends to make huffy comments about how you're running late (again) whilst pointedly looking at his watch - then the next thing he'll say is that he doesn't see the point of "natural" make-up anyway, grumblegrumble, etc.

You don't Instagram so much as happy-slap each other, post the resultant pictures on Facebook, and tag the heck out of each other's double chins.

And a "perfect, little date" constitutes a Chinese takeaway on the living-room coffee table while watching back-to-back Breaking Bad.

Your bedroom is just one big floordrobe and laundry only happens when one or the other of you runs out of pants. So you buy more pants every time you pass Primarni - just to make sure that it's not you who will be driven to use the washing machine. Sometimes, it's not even lack of pants that force you to do laundry - embarrassingly often it comes down to a battle of wills.

In his opinion there is no longer such a thing as you being justifiably angry, because, having survived 10 years of your periods, he now puts all disgruntlement on your part down to hormones - which just makes you even angrier...

He keeps his socks on at all times because NOTHING is worth getting cold feet for.

It annoys you if your friends find him hi-larious because it just encourages him!

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HAPPY ARBITRARY-REASON-TO-BUY-OVERPRICED-CHOCOLATE DAY!