I asked my B if anything was the matter while we were at dinner tonight. 

He took me to Ryans, and I had a wonderful time with their salad bar and the yummy chicken soup they had tonight.  I love that place because I can eat a zillion veggies, cooked all different ways…and I don’t miss the starches or grease or anything.  I had steamed corn on the cob, steamed broccoli with garlic, green beans (I think they were sautéed), and grilled zucchini.  

Anyway, B was quiet… he’s usually quiet, but he seemed unusually so tonight, and all I could think of was how we were sitting there together, eating out, and not saying a word.  I’ve often watched older couples together… out to eat and all they do is eat… they barely look at each other and they don’t smile or even look like they’re enjoying themselves… I always feel so sad seeing that, so, when it’s happening to B and I… I just can’t stand it.

He said everything was fine… he had a little bit of a headache, but then he said “aside from the debacle of this house I’ve tried to buy… everything’s fine.”  Debacle?  Debacle?  I teased him about that one… I asked if he’d been reading the dictionary lately, and that got a smile out of him.  He raised one eyebrow over his piercing and now sparkling blue eyes and said “Edie, I know a lot more vocabulary than you think I do.”  That cracked me up and I had to keep teasing him… I said I’d never know it… how could I if he never used his vocabulary?  He said he didn’t need to, then in an affected southern back-woods red-neck way said “most git whut I’m sayin’”.  At least we were talking… I felt better.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how very different we are.  He was telling me a story about the parents of a friend of his, and how they’ve stayed married, but don’t do anything together.  They live separate lives in the same house… sleep in separate rooms and have mostly separate friends.  He said he thought the man was very unhappy… it just “seems that way” to him.  I asked him if he thought we were doomed to the same kind of future together.

That shook him up I think because he looked a little scared and he asked me why I would say something like that.  That we were different because we love each other.  I said those other people probably loved each other that way too at one time… what made him think we were any different?  We have extremely different tastes, likes and dislikes… we do everything differently… think differently.  The only thing we really have in common is that we love each other.  He said that he was happy, and that it was enough for him… then he asked me if it were enough for me.

I had a hard time answering that one.  I had to be honest and say I really don’t know… that I can’t imagine being more lonely than I am now, and that I didn’t want to end up just being glorified room mates.  He said he didn’t know I was lonely… I was shocked!  I’ve told him countless times, and I said that… I said I’d told him many times before… that I have no one to do things with, and that I’m not the type of person who likes spending extended periods of time alone.   B wanted to know if I was lonely because he “won’t go to an art museum” with me. 

It’s really so much more than that.  I explained that having someone to go to things like that with is important to me.  There are times he wants to go to specific concerts with me… one’s that he likes, or to places of interest to him… but anything I like… culture, classical music, ballet, any of the arts really, he shows no interest in… doesn’t even make an attempt to share that kind of stuff with me.  I mentioned the aquarium and he jumped on that one… he said he’d love to go to the aquarium with me… that it might be a “one time only” thing, but he’d like to go…and he said it as if that makes everything all better.  (He just walked by and said “you’re flogging your butt off, ain’t ya?”… he calls this “flogging”, rather than “blogging”, just to mess with me… it’s cute, really.

I hope he takes a little bit of our conversation to heart, really I do.  I want it to work between us, but there has to be more effort on his part to share in some of the things that interest me.  I do make the effort to share his likes.  I watch sports with him on television… I’ve gotten to know some of his favorite players by sight so that I can comment on their actions during games…so he can feel like I’m participating… I get excited with him when his teams are doing well, and I try to console him when they’re not.  I’ve even peeked in on the action of a race on occasion, when he was working and couldn’t watch it, and I’ve called him with updates on how his “Dale Jr” is doing…I sure wish that guy would win one for a change!

I don’t expect him to attend every little thing I want to attend…goodness… that would be too good to be true!  I doubt anyone… male that is… exists that would like ALL the things I like, I’m realistic about that… but some things would be nice.  Once in a while to have someone who would go to a book store with me and not rush me out… or who would like to go to a classical concert… and would actually enjoy the music… I can’t even play classical on my computer while I’m on it without hearing some derogatory comment from him. 

I’ve learned to like country music because it’s his favorite… I’d NEVER listened to it prior to knowing B… and he knows that.  Actually I catch him chuckling to himself once in a while when I’m singing to a country song… I can see it in his eyes and in his self congratulatory smile… he thinks he’s converted me.

Well, I really don’t want to complain so much… there are so many other things that he does that are very sweet, and I can see the effort he puts into spending time with me when I know he’d be happier somewhere by himself… he likes being alone… probably because of habit… most of his life he’s been a loner.  Well, he says he likes being around me more than anyone else, ever, in his life, so that’s a good thing.

I want to just enjoy the times we have together, and not worry so much that it’s not enough… but I’m always so… I’m always wishing.  Wishing that he took more interest in things I find fascinating… things I feel take talent and hard work… even just the architecture of an old building, or the way a small town is laid out (seen as we’re passing through it)… even the beauty of a garden someone has taken the time to plant… flowers in a yard… a beautifully manicured yard… many times I point these things out and he looks at me like I just grew another head or something.  He says he likes that I’m observant like that, and that I appreciate everything, but that I’m silly.

I hope that with more encouragement from me he will find some enjoyment in a few of the things I do.  I point out paintings sometimes and comment on the lines, or the color choices… or even the brush strokes that are visible or the hidden things in the background a person has to look for.  He looks…sometimes I think I see interest, but it’s gone so quickly… I wonder if he thinks it’s not manly or something… if he thinks he shouldn’t be interested in things like that for some reason.  I’ve asked him, but it’s like pulling teeth sometimes when I’m trying to draw him out.

I suppose in matters of art and music I’ve been more exposed to it than a lot of other people.  Growing up in New York we had access to so much.  Even in Vegas there are places of interest… but Atlanta has it all too… so does Savannah… though if you don’t venture forth very often I guess a small town like this one doesn’t offer much in the way of culture.  It’s beginning to, now that it’s grown so much… and is continuing to grow.  More concerts and events are planned here now than when I first moved here 11 years ago… I’m definitely grateful for that.

Somehow I’ve got to learn to do things more on my own.  I don’t like it, but if I’m going to do the things I like… if I’m going to attend functions that don’t much interest B, whether he goes or not, and it looks like I am going to have to do that, then working on being able to enjoy it alone is a must.  I suppose I’ll develop friendships with people with similar interests, which is what a lot of people do, I know.  I just have always felt that a person’s mate… the person you plan to spend your life with, should be someone you can do anything with… someone who likes to do things with you just to BE with you, even if it’s not exactly their forte.

Well, time will tell.  Hopefully there will be some kind of compromise in our future, and we’ll find our common ground… that is, some other common ground besides liking to go out to eat together.