Dash

Luckily, my relationship deteriorated to a point where I was confident that, no matter how little I was allowed to expect, I wasn’t getting half it. I broke up with her.

Upon this turn of fortune, I almost immediately found myself in another relationship. I really do mean “found myself” - neither of us expected it to happen - we were just having fun and we suddenly realized that things were working better than we ever could have imagined. This confounded us both because we simply didn’t think it was possible to be so congruous with another person this easily. But that’s when I finally had a good answer to my question.

What am I allowed to expect? A lot.

Dash the curry

Dash the curry

Dash the curry

I used to say that that compatibility was overrated and adaptability was key to a lasting relationship, but I also felt lucky to be where I was and I didn’t realize that things could be better. My last girlfriend and I were not naturally compatible at all, but we made it work for a very long time because, despite our many differences, we romanticized the stubbornness of sticking together through all the rough spots. I thought that time and familiarity would erode our mismatched edges until we rested against each other like stones in a wall. What we experienced instead was a perpetual grind between two diamond-hard wills until we both were dust.