There Should be an "I" in Asshole

I was in line at the grocery store and while I was waiting to checkout, I looked to see if there was any good reading material. I was still near the back of the line and I couldn’t reach any of the good magazines with glossy covers like Vogue or Vanity Fair – so I had to settle for one of the crappy, newsprint ones- the ones that promise you can lose forty-two pounds and craft a new sweater by lunchtime. The only two in my grasp, without crowding the man in front of me, was some recycled women’s magazine and the Enquirer. Since I had no interest in reading about the alien that Elvis and Michael Jackson were befriending in Rio, I picked up the competitor.

I love reading relationship advice. I don’t take it. I’m divorced, so I’m not sure if there’s a correlation, but I love reading it. I love the assholes that write it and the assholes that suck it up. To me it all sounds painfully stupid- and I realize I could never write an advice column because I would be the guillotine beheading every ridiculous question- “Why doesn’t he call me back”? “Why does he talk about his ex-wife”?

“ Because he hates you” would be my go-to response. It would be the shortest advice column in history- and as usual I’d probably get fired.

But here, on page 12, was some interesting advice. It wasn’t sappy or diplomatic- it wasn’t fearless and bitchy. It was in the form of “scientific research” and it claimed that women, who often began text messages to their partner with the word “I”, proved to be happier in the relationship than women who did not frequently use the same pronoun. I quickly flipped to page 13, where I was sure the story would continue with, “ and their partners are miserable and bored”- but page 13 was just an ad for some yogurt that prides itself on keeping you in the bathroom daily with the runs.

You have to be an idiot not to realize that the person forced to listen to a woman talk relentlessly about her own self, is about as interested in the conversation as he is in his next root canal. The logic behind this “study” is supposed to be that people who say “me, me, me” have an easier time expressing to their partner what they really want and therefore are better understood.

Well no shit. The poor guy doesn’t have a choice- or chance to mention that his dog died, or he lost his job, or that his mom has a tumor- because it’s not his turn- and according to this article- never will be. If you talk incessantly about yourself in any relationship, you will absolutely be understood- as a selfish (and boring) ass.

But then again- what the hell do I know? I decided to put this advice to practical use and see if perhaps over the years, my cynicism has gotten in the way. I would just start every sentence with “I” and see how it went. Who knows? Maybe my relationship would soar to new heights. My boyfriend and I would sit around and he’d rub my feet and I’d talk about my day, my desires, my fears, my family, my thoughts all while he fanned my face and fed me grapes and we’d be in a state of Jenny-topia- where it was all about me and that was enough to keep us both happy.

After the second sentence, I threw in the towel. Here I was, sitting, with the person I love the most, and attempting to have the same conversation that I could have with a mirror. Still, it was hard not to think back to some of the people I know and how many times I have set the phone down, peed, got a glass of water, walked the dog and came back to the phone, muttered an artificial “Mmmhmm”, while they kept on talking. I went around the world, got a tan in Cleveland and cleaned my tub while they complained about bills, their hair and their boyfriend. I could have birthed a baby on the line and they never would have noticed.

My ex-husband was not a conversationalist. He spent most of the last years of our marriage in the garage as it was- and if I even attempted this magazine’s advice while we still were married, he would have moved straight to the lawn. Which, in retrospect, might have expedited the inevitable and not have been such a bad thing.

However, the next time I go to the grocery store and I’m stuck waiting in line- maybe I will read about the alien in Rio- I hear aliens have a completely different communication style- one that I probably will understand much better than this.