The Coriolis Effect

My wife doesn’t laugh at my jokes anymore, and I’m not sure if that’s because they’re no longer funny or if they never were. Either way, she used to laugh at my jokes. She still laughs at Horace’s.

I stopped laughing at my husband’s jokes yesterday. We were out for dinner, and he said something I assumed was meant to be funny, but I just kept eating. He asked if anything was wrong, and I told him nothing was wrong. He still seemed to think something was wrong but didn’t say anything. It was one of the quietest nights we’ve had in a long time. I wish it worked with company.

If you’re still so bitter about it, I guess I’ll just have to live with it, as will you.

Being bored is of your own doing. It just means that you haven’t been able to think of something you would like to do. Try this next time you’re bored: Think of all the possible things you could do. It doesn’t have to be a lot of things. It’s hard to imagine not being able to think of three things you could do, especially if one of them is doing nothing. Then think of the one thing among them you would dislike doing least. Then do that.

My father thought aphorisms and acronyms were the curse of the world. He thought only lazy people liked them. He created an aphorism about such people, which he thought was funny, and even made up an acronym for them, which he thought was funny, too.

I guess the worst thing you can hear from someone you care about is that you’re boring. How do you respond to that without confirming it? I thought my father was boring, but he thought he was clever. I wish just once, when he had said something he thought clever, I had found some way to let him know it was boring. Pedantic. Tiresome. Enervating. Unoriginal. I never thought of a way to tell him that, even though most of what he said was all of those things.

I have a hard time admitting I have a husband. There it is. I have to admit that I have a husband. It’s a wonder people still have husbands anymore. I read or saw on TV somewhere that a lot of people don’t. Have husbands, or wives, for that matter. I think there are still men who like to have wives, but that may be because of the circles I move in. Even before I became ashamed of my husband, I don’t recall many men mentioning their wives without at least a hint of derision.

I think there’s more to a good joke than its delivery. I mean, it has to be a good joke without a doubt, and told right; even a good joke can be ruined if not. What really annoys me is someone who tries to oversell a joke because they think they’re clever. They tell a joke that, if you read it on paper, wouldn’t be funny. But they go ahead and tell it as if it’s the greatest joke anyone’s ever heard. Sometimes, even before they tell the joke, they’ll say they have a great one to tell you. At other times, they’ll ask if you’ve ever heard the one about, as if it’s a big secret they’re deigning to share with you. And most of the time, after their overdrawn delivery, people laugh. I’ve never understood it. Horace’s jokes are like that. They’re not funny, but people laugh.

I’m not sure whether I’m tired of marriage or of him. I guess the marriage part doesn’t really matter. I mean, what is marriage other than a public declaration? It doesn’t change anything. It’s not like they’re your intended. By the time most people are married, they’re already there. Some people might surprise you from time to time, but after a while, you pretty much know who you’re dealing with by the time you marry them. Or just decide to stay with them. Or think that being with them is better than being alone. Even if they surprise you every once in a while, it’s just them, right? They’re the type that like to surprise you every once in a while. It’s just a pattern like everything else people do. Each one of us has only so many tricks up our sleeve. It’s not like anyone’s really improvising here. And if you think you are, you’re not. You’re just running the gamut from quirky to audacious, and even that gets boring after a while.

I’ve tried to talk to her about it. About the relationship, marriage, whatever. I wonder what people who aren’t necessarily committed to a relationship say when there’s a problem between them. Maybe it’s ad hoc complaints or dead silence. Maybe they just don’t want to be that person, you know, the one who belabors problems. I don’t know. I’ve always thought relationships had a life of their own. At least that’s what I read once. If you need to talk about the relationship, it’s usually because it needs resuscitation. Just the prospect of talking to her about our relationship makes me feel that I might need resuscitation.

I don’t like anyone who doesn’t like my jokes. I feel sorry for people who don’t get my jokes, but I don’t necessarily dislike them; they can’t help it. I absolutely despise anyone who only pretends to get my jokes. They smile and try to come off as co-conspirators or, even worse, as one’s superior. There is something strangely unique, however, about the smugness of the ignoramus, even delicious.

I don’t know what attracts me to certain men. Besides curing loneliness, which most anyone can do, men can’t do much for me that I can’t do for myself. Maybe it’s a social thing, but one that seems to be aging poorly. Not just men, of course. But in my case, men. I think I’m attracted to a certain level of self-assurance and appearance. I could never understand a good-looking man who lacks confidence. It’s like finding a great shoe that doesn’t come in the right size. Anyway, a confident, good-looking man is hard to beat, like a great-looking shoe that really fits.

There’s something about a long-term relationship that goes bad—a marriage, let’s say—that reminds me of spoiled milk. You go to the refrigerator every day or so, use the milk, and it’s fine. Then one day, you take the milk out of the refrigerator, and it either smells terrible or tastes bad. And there are the times you take it right out of the refrigerator, add it to your coffee, and it particulates. You can forget how bad a relationship is, but never for long.

There are some things you tell no one. Ever. Then there are things you can tell a few people. Some things you can tell just about anyone. My trouble is telling the one person who needs to hear it, something I’m afraid to share with anyone. You don’t say anything, though, because speaking it makes it real, true or false, like Schrödinger’s cat. You want to tell them something you suspect, and if it’s true, it’s horrible. Untested, however, its possibility makes you doubt your own sanity. Testing it by taking someone into your confidence might ruin their confidence in you. So you wait, as if waiting will bring some hope that either confirms your worst fears or restores your sanity, or both. I have chosen to wait. I made that choice some time ago, and I make it every day. If counting, we’re approaching the five-year mark.

I have friends who complain that their spouses don’t listen to them. My problem is that mine listens too much. I know that sounds weird, but that’s the only way I can think of it. If I said he listens too well, you might think he was over-attentive. It’s not just that. He seems to hear things I didn’t intend to say, didn’t say, or didn’t know I wanted to say. I’ve heard people in relationships merrily talk about completing each other’s sentences (as if that’s a good thing). Sometimes he seems to be trying to complete my thoughts. Or wants to. That’s what I think it is. He listens to everything I say hungrily, devouring my words, my intentions, even things he thinks I don’t know. And I’m not sure he means well. Sometimes talking with him is like being in an interrogatory. That’s one of the reasons I don’t like talking to him. There are things I do want to say to him, to tell him, to be honest with him about. But what good would it do? I could tell him I was fucking his best friend, and he would have twenty questions, a dozen or more comments, or thirty or more “observations,” as he likes to call them, delivered five minutes, five days, five weeks, or five years after the conversation has taken place. But it’s the same with anything I say—mundane things, moderately important things, not-fucking-your-best-friend things—and it’s always the same. The only thing worse than having something to say to him is when he has something to say to me. Of course, it’s always about something I said to him five minutes, five days, five weeks, or five years ago. The only thing I can say for myself is thank God I’m not fucking his best friend.

Sara thinks I’m funny. At least, she thinks some of the things I say are funny. There are times I try to be funny, and she usually laughs, but it’s the old laughing-with-you-or-at-you syndrome: Sometimes she laughs at things I say that I don’t intend to be funny. There are times she laughs, and I know she’s not laughing at me, not even at what I say. She just laughs and finds some excuse to touch me, not that she needs one. When we met, we were both in line waiting to order coffee. I made some innocuous remark about a bank run. She was in front of me, and I thought I heard her laugh. I made no connection between her laughter and anything I said. I thought maybe she was on her phone or was just a person who liked to laugh. But she wasn’t on her phone and is a person who likes to laugh. Imagine that.

What goes through the minds of those who have children to name? Growing up with them, one would think we would know. I have been led to believe I was named after a poet or a favorite uncle. I choose the poet. The uncle was one we rarely saw, though my suspicion is that he lent my father a significant amount of money sometime before my birth. That being the case or not, I often have been told I have a wry sense of humor, which usually means it doesn’t make you laugh. Some people laugh. She laughs. I like it best when she laughs sober. I’ve heard it said that any relationship is as good as it is at its worst, like an otherwise wonderful car that won’t start when it rains. This relationship, if I can describe it as such, is probably as good as it is when we’re sober, which is rare enough, and that’s likely a good thing.

I think honesty is oversold, as is forgiveness. If we all became honest, most of life’s delicacies would disappear. As for forgiveness, who benefits except the forgiven? I know what they say: If you truly forgive, you unburden yourself. Some idiot must have come up with that. My therapist says it protects me from my own anger. It really pisses me off when he says things like that.

I feel comfortable with him. Most men radiate hostility at some level. They’re either too nice or not nice enough; it’s as if they need to wield a shield, one way or another. It’s very evident when you see how some men treat women versus how they treat each other. He’s different, though. I’ve known him long enough to know he treats everyone the same: neither exceptionally nice nor completely indifferent, certainly not unkindly. Just the same. Maybe he was brought up that way. Not that it matters; it’s not like I’ll be meeting his parents.

I’m not sure why only men are supposed to have midlife crises. I guess menopause is supposed to pass for that in women. And who says men don’t have menopause? Every other ad on TV seems to be about testosterone enhancement. And who says adolescents don’t go through some kind of existential crisis? Hell, when I was a girl, I went through them every day. Sometimes I wish he would have a good old stereotypical midlife crisis—buy a new car he can barely fit into, get a girlfriend, a mistress, whatever they’re calling them today. Horace once called me his paramour. It was a very serious moment, and he was being very serious about it. I tried not to laugh, but I find so many of the things he says funny. Sometimes it’s just the way he says them. But you could tell he was grasping for the right word, and I was very interested in his grasping: What exactly is the right word for the person you’re schlepping on a semi-regular basis? But paramour? He looked a little hurt when he saw I was trying not to laugh. I told him it was okay, that he could be my paramour, too. By that time, it was too late; I think he wanted to call me something else.

There are two words that really bother me: contentment and acceptance. I know they’re supposed to be the gold standard for being and behavior. But what do they really mean? Contentment seems to be little more than the confession that one is not unhappy. And why is acceptance considered such a virtue? It appears to be little more than glorifying the suppression of intolerance. What if, in a relationship, even in a marriage, one party said they accept the other and are content with the situation? Hardly a ringing endorsement. I suppose we can be grateful that so many people in unsatisfactory relationships are lowering the curve. At least that’s how it seems to me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt truly happy and accepted in a loving relationship. I’ve been in love, of course, but that’s different. Still, the relationship I’m in now is the one in which I’ve been the least unhappy and felt the least unaccepted. And, with my history, that’s saying something.

Why do I sometimes feel like I’m going to confession on the way to my therapist’s? Not that that’s what I usually think about. Usually, I think about what I’m going to say there, which is rarely what we end up talking about. When I first started seeing this guy, it felt like his whole thing was making you feel bad enough by the end of a session that you’d come back the next week so he could make you feel better. Counter-intuitive, I know, but that’s how it struck me. I wonder if seeing one of those gurus is like that: They make you feel so miserable about the way you think that you’ll return in the hope they can fix it. I think probably not. They’re probably so patient, tolerant, and accepting of anything you say that you want to bask in their presence, take whatever they give you to find Nirvana or whatever it is you’re looking for. I’m pulling into the garage of my therapist’s building now, hoping more for guru than priest today, but mostly that I’ll feel better when it’s done.

He seems annoyingly content this evening, even self-satisfied. And while we don’t talk much about his work anymore, I doubt anything there could make him feel this good. I do hate it when I focus on him, though. Like our group always says, “Keep the focus on yourself.” Usually, it’s not that hard: He’s not the type who attracts that much attention. But when he’s in some inexplicable good mood, Christ, the humming. Sometimes I think he does that just to annoy me, pretending to be happy like some idiot who doesn’t have a care in the world. Humming and whistling. I can’t stand either. If someone started singing at the top of their voice while walking down the sidewalk or playing a trombone in the middle of a train station, everyone would think they were crazy. But start humming away for no reason or whistling while strolling down the street, and everyone thinks it’s great, that you’ve got the world by the balls. So I ask him to please stop the humming; it’s distracting. He looks at me like I’m from Mars and tells me he wasn’t even aware he was doing it. It will be quiet for a while, then I’ll hear the humming again in the hallway. I go out there to find him humming over a magazine from the mail, like some jackass chatting at the library. So I wait a while, then, as casually as I can, walk right up behind him and start singing at the top of my lungs, singing and singing all the way up the stairs, then slamming the bedroom door behind me hard enough to make sure he gets the message.

So I told her today, and then I told Sara I told her today. I said I’d met someone, without elaborating, not that there was much to elaborate. She took it fairly well, but only because I don’t think she believed me, shrugging it off as she usually does when she thinks I’m just trying to get to her. But Sara, my God, she starts by asking me exactly what I said to her, so I told her. Then she went quiet for a while and, as if she were talking to a child, asked if I really told my wife I had met someone, and that she was that someone. I told her I had, and she told me what a stupid motherfucker I was, very unusual language for her. She calmed down quite a bit after that and told me that she liked me, really liked me, and enjoyed my company, but that was it. Then she started explaining things to me as if I were a stranger, saying we saw each other at the coffee shop on a pretty random basis, exchanged a few laughs, and that was it. I asked her about our long conversations, the times we would sit over there, and, for dramatic effect, pointed to the table where we frequently sat. She seemed genuinely touched by that and even moved her hand toward my arm before withdrawing it. She took a breath and told me she thought of me more as a nice uncle and had liked talking to me, casually. She added the word “casually” as if I needed the reminder. When I tried to tell a joke about the uncle thing, saying at least she could have thought of me as an older brother, she laughed out loud and definitely at me. She muttered something that had to do with incest and told me to be sure to mention that to my wife, then walked away without looking back.

She thinks her husband has met someone. I tell her so what, but she seems to think it’s some kind of a big deal. I look at her, assuming she gets the point—it’s me she’s talking to, after all—but her whole thing is that she doesn’t believe it, and I get that part. He’s not exactly the type. Her entire concern, however, is that there is a chance it might be true, as unlikely as it seems. I suggest that if she didn’t think about it, it would seem even less likely. Just ignore it. If it happens to be true, she’s no worse off unless he brings her home like some teenager introducing his girlfriend to his mother. Now, that he might do. But I don’t say that last part. Eventually, she seems convinced to see things my way. And just when I think the talking part of our engagement is over, she whispers in my ear that she knows it’s unlikely, but still, it could be true. Then she pulls away and starts laughing, talking about how she can’t even imagine being with him herself, much less him being with someone else. By this time, I can’t think of anything to say without repeating myself or saying something I’d regret, so I tell her it may be best for me to leave. To my surprise, she agrees, and I leave. Not the outcome I expected, nor the one I think I wanted.

I remember some guy I knew—I think he was trying to impress me with his depth—who told me we are all alone in the end. God, I can’t believe I didn’t laugh when he said that. Anyway, most of the time I do very well alone, or on my own, whatever. I guess they’re not exactly the same. Someone—not the same guy—tried to tell me the difference between loneliness and lonesomeness, probably some asshole in a bar. Yes, I do go to bars sometimes. He tells me being lonely is a deficit position or something like that, where you need to be with someone in the worst way, which is usually how it happens. I think I laughed at that, not at him. Identifying, I suppose. He said that being lonesome, on the other hand, is when you’re more comfortable with yourself and like doing stuff on your own, but you think it might be interesting to find someone to do stuff with. I told him I thought that was a specious distinction—yes, I can be pretentious, too—and that it wasn’t even original. I was just being mean then; I’d never heard the notion before. That whole conversation was some time ago, when I was young and stupid. Now I’m a little bit older and maybe a little less stupid, but there are times I go back and think about that—not who said it, but what was said—when I’m sitting at home, or at a bookstore, in the library, at the coffee shop, feeling lonely. Period. And there are so few people I meet in the course of a day, of a week, of a year, of a decade, that I can imagine being able to relieve it. Most people I meet eventually only make it worse. I’ve found it useful to cut those losses early. I just did that, and I am relieved. It was an impossible situation with very limited rewards, like talking to one of my father’s less creepy friends. So I ended it, but now the loneliness is back.

You know what it’s like when you return from vacation? Coming home from work every day is a lot like that. Not that work’s a vacation, but you know exactly what you’re facing most days. Nuances upon arriving home, however, can sometimes trip you up. Today, I’m afraid the nuance will be mine. For better or worse, I have decided to tell her I’m not seeing anyone anymore. Humiliating in so many ways. Just report, don’t elaborate, don’t equivocate. This will be either the shortest or the longest conversation of our marriage. I doubt it will be the least painful.

I just looked at him. It felt like one of his jokes, but I guess he expected me to cry. I didn’t cry when he told me about her, so why should I cry when he says he’s no longer seeing her? I’m not sure I believe any of it, but to be honest, it does make him a little more interesting.

Something’s going on with her today, and I hate it when people have something going on. I like predictability in people. At work, at home, hell, even in the bedroom. Any unpredictability is a deal-breaker. There’s enough unpredictability in the world to make any more unnecessary. I suppose there can be too much predictability, though: the bored and boring, those who have no lives, as they say. I think they’re the people who like carnival rides and gambling. Could never see the use. Thankfully, her husband is both predictable and, of course, boring. He’s always home late on Tuesdays. I think it’s his AA meeting or something remedial like that. Anyway, Tuesdays are when she and I get together, talk a little, drink a little—or a lot—though I usually let her do most of the drinking. We fuck, then I get the hell out of there. No great love story, not even great company. But it is predictable, and, like I said, I like that.

There’s something going on with her, and I don’t know what to make of it. From time to time, she treats me with a bit of deference, and, unexplained, I’m not sure I like it. In most relationships, this would be considered minimal and unexceptional. Not in this one. I had a friend once who never called me; I always called him. At one point in our relationship, whenever I called, he began flatly asking me what was up instead of greeting me or asking how I was, as if I needed a reason to call. So I decided to stop calling and see if I ever heard from him. Thus, once a friend. The whole process bothered me so much that I brought it up with my therapist, who told me this once-friend simply couldn’t defer to others. I don’t know what to do with this new level of deference in our marriage. It’s not that I think I deserve it as her husband. I think I deserve it as a human being.

I’ve never made more of it than it is: a poor balm for loneliness, a part-time drinking partner, a boring conversation punctuated by bad sex. It just gets old. Rather, it has gotten old. It’s gotten so bad that I have to be pretty drunk to think his jokes are funny, and that’s pretty drunk. We usually start laughing because we can’t stand up, and by then it’s all over. My husband never drank with me. That was one thing I kind of liked about him. Not at first, though. It meant I had to drink less to make some kind of impression other than that of drunken slovenliness. I’m pretty good at that, though. Ask Horace. But my husband didn’t drink and, as I said, I kind of liked that about him. At least I knew I had a designated driver most of the time. I’m what you would call a heavy drinker, not an alcoholic. There’s a difference. Look it up. But there were a few incidents when we were first together. He married me anyway. I guess more accurately, we became balm for each other’s loneliness. In any event, our marriage became a long-term dating relationship of two people who happened to live together. We were both on the older side, not too old to have kids. But the subject never came up, and I certainly wasn’t going to bring it up. Anyway, things got off the rails after a while, and then I met Horace. Through my husband, of all things. Met him some time ago, but only started fucking him after he and my husband had already stopped talking to each other. That definitely wasn’t about me—it all happened well before me. We met Horace—that is, I met Horace—during one of my husband’s and my dates, just dinner. Horace came over, all smiles and what, for him, passes for charm. I saw something in my husband that evening that I had never seen before: resentment poorly disguised as friendliness. I guess I had enough drinks to laugh at a few of Horace’s jokes, or maybe I was just being nice. I really don’t remember. In any event, afterward, Horace called, and I answered the phone, which he said he was glad of. We started getting together, first at his place after a few drinks, then at home on Tuesdays, after I told him Tuesdays were my husband’s late night. I’m not sure why that change happened. I just felt uncomfortable at his place, like you do in a hotel room that hasn’t been cleaned properly. Anyway, we started this routine, and it all seemed to work for a while, but lately it hasn’t. Horace and I haven’t really been getting along, and it’s not like we’re even in a relationship as such, much less married. It had all the inconveniences of a bad marriage with few of the benefits. I began calling off our Tuesday get-togethers from time to time, usually after an argument or two where he was more of an asshole than usual. Those Tuesdays by myself were a little anxiety-inducing at first. I mean, both my husband and I work, and we were used to being together at home most of the time, and then there were our dates. But even though being alone Tuesday evenings was uncomfortable at first, it gradually became interesting, like a laboratory experiment in spending time by myself. I didn’t drink at all those Tuesdays and, besides, like I said, I’m a heavy drinker, not an alcoholic. There’s a difference. Look it up.

I had a moment when I thought of our lives together as some sort of drama, like The End of the Affair without the bomb. I didn’t even have an affair. She may have. I’m not sure it matters now. She’s been very quiet lately, drinking less. I’ve always hoped things would get better for us. She’s still not laughing at my jokes, but I haven’t been telling many lately. We’re civil to each other, ask how we’re doing, and exchange the occasional touch of the hand or a brief kiss before bedtime. It’s a very strange relationship now, if it was ever normal or happy. I can’t say we’re exactly happy. If happiness is the absence of discontent, I suppose we are. I would like to talk to her about the relationship, but I can’t imagine where that would go. So I stay where I am, feeling the world turn around us, hoping the stars stay in their orbits and the cosmos continues to breathe.

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