Partner Survey in shiny things

Oh, look, it’s a very random survey!

How long have you been with your partner?
We have been married since 1991, and lived together five years before we got married. SO…thirty two years. And that doesn’t even include the “dating” years, yikes-

Are you married, engaged, or neither?

Married.

How did you meet?

We met when I was a sophomore in college, although I’d actually seen Baker B long before that – he used to sit at a table at the very far end of the cafeteria, with books piled around him. He had blond hair down to his shoulders, wore a long brownish greenish plaid coat front the 40s, and carried one of those old doctor’s bags that I’d post a picture of, but OD is not cooperating with iPad Picture Posting. Just google Old Doctor Bags. I’d see him every time I went to the cafeteria, and think, OMG what a fascentating bizarre guy!! Of course I was extremely weird and shy and would never dream of approaching him and certainly would have scurried away if he’d ever even glanced towards me.

SO. Imgine my surprise- and total panic!! – when this other very weird guy who I was kind of dating (without actually going on a date – Paul was…odd too. And probably needs a whole separate entry ) said, at one of our common dinner-meetings in the cafeteria, “I have a friend I want you to meet!” And he vanished, and came back with …. Baker B. The long-haired, 1940’s coat wearing, doctor-bag carrying loony! Naturally I was totally speechless, but the mysterious Baker B turned out to be not at all intimidating and was really really funny.

What drew you to your partner when you met?

That he was really really funny. In a very surrealistic way. And of course cute and odd.

How long did you know each other before you started dating?
Quite a long time. First I was kind of sort of but not really going out with Paul, and then I moved on to totally and obviously going out with yet another guy who both Paul and Baker B were friends with…. and we got MARRIED. Baker B was actually in our wedding because he and my first husband- who I will just go ahead and call Mario as that is his real name- were friends. Mario and I got married, moved to Atlanta, moved back to Boone – which is where Baker B and I originally met, along with Paul and Mario and everybody ELSE because we all went to school there (HERE) – then Mario and I moved to DC. Right before we moved to DC, Baker B and I kind of realized we had… a THING. We didn’t DO anything about The Thing, but The Thing was there and The Thing hovered over me as I moved to DC and tried to settle into a life in DC where I was, like, a normal person with a normal marriage and a normal life.

Describe your first date
It was quite unromantic – we went to Western Steer and had the salad bar, and when Baker B paid for our salad bars, I remember thinking, “OMG, is this a… DATE??!!??”

That is leaving out the whole chunk where I realized while living in DC with Mario that I was utterly miserable and had made a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE mistake and I should never EVER have gotten married and what I wanted to do more than anything else on earth was go back to Boone. Alone. Mario was a very very nice person, but we had absolutely nothing in common. I think basically I just got married to him because I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. Get married, settle down, etc etc. Oddly I never wanted children, and as I found out AFTER we separated, Mario wanted children very much – the fact that we did not even begin to discuss this before we got married pretty much says it all.

And yeah, Baker B was in Boone, but Baker B was a fickle flighty thing and would probably not even be in Boone when I returned, and that was OK, because I WAS NOT LEAVING MARIO FOR BAKER B. And I was definitely romanticizing Baker B and I really HAD to get over THAT… etc etc etc.

I have a very vivid memory of Mario once calling Baker B to tell him we were coming down to visit, and then handing over the phone to me to have a chat with Baker B… and while I was sitting in the floor chatting with Baker B, my cat, Chezzie, bit the holy flying FUCK out of my ankle. Which seemed like a very strange thing for her to do. I’ll just note that she adored Baker B while only tolerating Mario, so maybe she was sending me some sort of strange message. Like, WAKE THE FUCK UP, HUMAN!!

Long and short, I left Mario, moved back to Boone, Baker B was still there, and we spent an entire summer drinking too much wine together every night to get up the nerve to accept that what we were doing was the right thing.

And then we went to Western Steer and had a date!

What do you love about your partner?

He is one of the rare people who really does see things like I do, and he also is really really funny. And he’s always there for me, and loves the cats and wants the same things I do.

What do you dislike about your partner?

He doesn’t believe in cleaning the house until it’s become an emergency because someone is actually coming over and will see it. On the plus side, when he DOES believe it’s time for a house-cleaning, he will totally pitch in – he doesn’t think it’s MY job; he just doesn’t see the point in it until you’re forced. He can’t fix anything without it becoming a massively dramatic, sweary, traumatic event. On the other hand, neither can I. I grew up with a VERY handy fix-it-guy father and brother so that’s always been hard. Ummmm….. he has serious problems with a lot of noises. Chewing, clinking of dishes, crunching — he’s VERY difficult to eat out with. A few years ago I discovered that it’s an actual condition– misophonia . Which helps in knowing he’s not just annoyingly neurotic, and makes me a lot more sympathetic to it. At this point in our lives, it’s perfectly normal (“is that person chomping on potato chips not annoying EVERYONE?!?”) and he’s also gotten MUCH better at dealing with it over the years. He used to get really angry and pretty much behave like a toddler— now he is able to just quietly exit the situation. And I’m a lot more tolerate and understanding about when he isn’t able to exit it. Oddly his sister had it too, although I had no idea for years because if something bothered her, she would just leave the room. Of course, she was 19 years older than him, so at this point he’s at the age when he’ll just leave the room too if possible

What is your favorite date with them?
We are the most not-romantic people on earth, so the best “dates” are the ones where we go to a local bar and have a beer or two while making up weird games, like the “television shows you used to watch that the other person does not remember” game. Or something like that- it had such weird rules we kept forgetting them in the middle of the game. And of course when nobody chomps on food or slurps soup or clanks their silverware on their plate.

Do you have pet names for each other?
Not really – we do tend to refer to each other occasional as Edna and Baker B, hilariously enough, since we both use those as screen names.

If you’re married, what was your honeymoon like?
It was VERY low key, and actually extended over a couple of weekends. When we got married we did not have any money and we also had jobs that didn’t offer a lot of vacation time, so we went to Gatlinburg TN for two weekends. I think they were adjacent weekends, but I may be misremembering that. It was a lot of fun – Gatlinburg is kind of like Myrtle Beach in the mountains, just a long strip of massively touristy stuff. Oddly enough, I’m not sure we’ve been back since, although I’d love to visit again. It’s a pretty long way from most placces we’ve lived.

Have you ever broken up or gotten close to breaking up?
Only for a very short time back when we were dating.

Have you been to IKEA together?
We’ve never even been to IKEA separately!! The closest IKEA is about two hours from here, and although I do want to go, I still haven’t managed a trip. I think it’s safe to say we will not be going together, though.

Have you traveled overseas together?
We have, one time, to England, in 2013, It was fantastic, and quite a shock as Baker B is NOT a good traveler. He loves the idea of traveling, but not the messy, unpredictable reality of it. The first time Kim and I went to England, in 2010, he ended up not going. That was sad as I knew he’d love it, but also kind of a relief as I did not want him ruining my first trip to England because he’s a neurotic terrible traveler. Then he DID go with us in 2013, and shocked me to the core by being a fantastic traveler – he was calm, happy, resilient – he stayed for a week by himself in Wiltshire while Kim and I were in London. And survived, and overcame a number of … not disasters, but definite difficulties. When we went again last May and he couldn’t go, for the valid fear of his 96 year old mother having an emergency while he was gone for two weeks, I was very disappointed

Do you ever travel without each other?

I travel without him occasionally – see above. To England twice, and Kim and I have gone to Charleston SC a couple of times without him. I’ve been by myself to Charleston a couple of times, although not in quite awhile. I’ve been several places with my cousins in recent years too, as we have been trying to do some “girl” trips occasionally. He’s not been many places without me- Chapel Hill a few times on work trips – but I love to travel and he’s not as good at it

Are you attached at the hip or do you like alone time?
We are definitely not attached at the hip. We both like plenty of alone time. That works out well.

Does one of you do more cooking and cleaning than the other?
I do the vast majority of the cleaning, because I have a much lower filth tolerance. Kind of oddly, we each do our own cooking for the most part. He eats brown rice with pasta sauce, cheese, olives, soy sauce, and curry powder like EVERY NIGHT. I like to vary my meals so I fix my own food. If I do cook something that involves leftovers he will eat it, though. Even if I’m planning to take it to work the next day.

Are you similar or complete opposites?
We are very very similar. Two Geminis- need I say more??

Do you argue a lot?
Not anymore. When we were first dating, and first living together, we would have AWUFL fights. That lasted DAAAAYS. It was terrible. We fought about all kinds of things but it generally boiled down to insecurities and our very different attitudes towards money. (He was a tightwad; I was a spendthrift.) Over the years our feelings towards finances have moved to a more healthy medium (he will now spend money; I will now NOT spend every penny I have) and we are not the insecure little things that we were in our 20s, so we rarely have serious fights these days. I wouldn’t say NEVER, but it’s rare.

What do you argue about?
I honestly can’t even think of the last serious argument we’ve had. It was probably over the state of the house- ie, repairs he said he would do ages ago but has not. And neither have I.

Do you apologize easily to each other when you argue?
Well, I don’t know if easily is the right word, but we do always apologize. And a whole lot sooner than we used to.

Do you share your feelings with each other?
I can’t imagine NOT sharing your feelings with your partner. What would be the point of having one if you couldn’t share feelings?

Do you see yourself with your partner forever?
As long as we’re both above ground, yes. Which hopefully will be quite some time.

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Last updated March 13, 2018