Repeaters
Cracks in the FoundationOne snowy Saturday last November I turned to my husband and said: “Hon, you know I love you, but we need to get out and meet some people. We stay home way too much. Facebook only gets you so far. Nothing beats good old fashioned human contact, don’t you agree?”
He kept reading the sports page, his face tightening slightly.
“Remember when we used to have parties all the time?”
“You mean when we had money?” he said.
“Let me make some plans.”
With a worried look, he turned the page.
That night, I was all over Meetup.com looking for couples groups that didn’t involve swapping fluids. I found a one that did a different “fun” thing together every month. I showed him the site. “Look,” I said, “each month it’s a different couple’s turn to decide what to do.”
I think he may have growled.
“Once a month! Come on, we can do this. We’ll meet all these people, chances are there’ll be some decent ones. And look, this month is paintball!”
He put his head in his hands.
“Come on, how bad can it be?”
It can be as bad as a trip to the emergency room with paint in your eye, as it turns out. Holding the patch over one eye on our way home from the hospital, he said, “I should have gone with my gut. It’s like the Blue Man group or that thing with the garbage can lids. I swore I would never, ever go.”
A week later, he peered at the screen with his good eye. “Indoor rock climbing? Why do I have to risk my life to meet some new friends?”
“Let’s just go and watch.”
Watch me fall from a height of ten feet or so onto a rubber mat, twisting my ankle. But I was still “having fun,” I convinced myself. He said no more suburban danger for him.
The next month was brunch at a local diner. “Can we go? A few eggs. Some ham. What can it hurt?”
He grumbled his assent. He loves brunch.
There was Bill and Jeannie, Joe and Michelle, Raphael and Alicia. All perfectly nice people.
“So did you like them?” I asked as we left the diner.
“They’re okay. At least this time we could just talk and not have to concentrate on staying alive.”
Months flew by. We went to the opera. The arboretum. Local theater. Mexican food. They friended us, linked in to us, tweeted at us.
But I was getting tired. Worn around the edges. I’d begun to notice I didn’t have much to say to Michelle, and all Alicia talked about was her kids, ditto with Jeannie.
One day we found ourselves at an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet that was to precede an afternoon of candlepin bowling. Nearby, our meetup buddies were loading up their plates. My husband whispered to me over the lo mein, “What are we doing here? We don’t even LIKE Chinese food. And you hate bowling, admit it.”
Claiming stomach cramps, we were out of there in five minutes. We were both quiet on the way home, where there was a message on the phone from Michelle:
“Hey guys, we hope you feel better soon! Listen, we have these friends, they’re in a rock and roll band, and honestly they’re really not that great but we’re trying to be supportive and you know, show up for them. They’re playing tonight in Boston. Ya gotta come! Give us a call!”
My hand went to pick up the phone.
“Just…don’t,” my husband said.
“I think we should go.”
“You can go if you want.”
“But they’re our friends!!”
“No, they’re not.”
“I thought you liked Joe.”
“He talks about cars all the time. Take away the alcohol and I’d rather be mowing the lawn.” He hates mowing the lawn.
“I still think we should go.”
“Why? Because the friends we don’t really like have friends who are in a crappy band but they need an audience so they can perpetuate the myth that they have talent?”
My jaw hung open but nothing came out. Eventually, I closed it.
I looked at our couch with new eyes. Eyes of love and newfound appreciation. At our kitties who had been missing our laps as we shot paint out of guns, sampled Korean food, walked on fire.
And at my husband, who drew me in close and whispered, “Netflix…Roku…takeout…jammies…popcorn…chardonnay – ”
“Okay okay,” I said, laughing, remembering what a good friend I’d had the good fortune of marrying.
