Relationships

I recently got food poisoning and, in the throes of despair, I began to wonder if I needed to go to the hospital. So I did the first thing that popped into my head: I called my mom, told her what was going on, and asked her to tell me what to do. She calmed me down, but once I recovered, the whole incident had me thinking – at 27, shouldn’t I be old enough to stop calling my mom every time I have a problem?

And I don’t even live at home, as plenty of my friends do. At our age, most of our parents were married with children, working at the same careers they have now. They were independent adults, who probably just called their parents to say hi, not to unleash a litany of life problems and ask for advice and/or money. Are we just feckless? Sometimes it sure feels that way.

On the other hand, our parents had it a lot easier in some ways. No one, for example, was asking them to do skilled work for free under the guise of an “internship.” Housing prices hadn’t yet skyrocketed. The societal pressure to get married and start a family meant it was easier to find a life partner who was willing to commit. Come to think of it, all my friends who live at home aren’t doing it for funsies, but because the current economy is terrible, jobs are few and far between, and, somehow, living at home has become the responsible adult decision, even if responsible adulthood looks very different than once it did.

Maybe our thirties will be like our parents’ twenties.

Leila Cohan-Miccio 

A friend called me the other day to let me know that she’s engaged…to her girlfriend of six months. The next day, another friend told me that she and the man she’s been dating since October are planning a move across the country together. My instinct is to worry about these relationships, but am I being unfair? How soon is too soon?

I strongly suspected my now-husband was the man I wanted to spend my life with early on in our relationship, but I was gun-shy. I quietly freaked out when he suggested moving in a year after we started dating, and I almost had a panic attack on our second anniversary, when he kept rubbing my ring finger. (I was, of course, nothing but delighted when he actually proposed a year later.) For me, waiting seemed like a prudent course of action. I knew I loved him, but I had trouble seeing the rush.

My fast-moving friends would likely call this overly cautious. “When you know,” they say, with eyes gleaming, “you just know.” Maybe so, but what’s the harm of a little time to make sure? The first few months of a relationship should be nothing but love and bliss, but often, that fades quickly within a year. To put it another way: I’ve never spent those first blissful weeks and months of dating someone new thinking we were going to break up and, nine times out of ten, we did. Waiting: there’s nothing wrong with it.

Leila Cohan-Miccio 

A friend called me up the other day to tell me about her new boyfriend, Y. She gushed on for several minutes about his eyes, his funny jokes, his cute dog. When I was finally able to get a word in edgewise, I squeaked out “Wait, you broke up with X?”

I have several friends like this, who swing from significant other to significant other like so many jungle branches. The process is always the same: one day, I’ll get a sobbing call from the friend about their most recent break up. He was a jerk, she wouldn’t shut up, he was still hung up on his ex, she couldn’t commit. It’s okay, though, because my friend is just going to focus on his or her self for a while. Maybe it’s finally time to take that art class! Do I want to go out next weekend? A week later, like clockwork, the friend calls back. They’re dating someone AMAZING, s/he’s so great, isn’t it crazy? Without fail, they utter the fateful sentence: “This is the last thing I ever expected!”

Really? Because it’s the first thing I expected. Because this cycle has been repeating itself over and over and over for as long as we’ve been friends. When I delicately point this out, the friend always responds the same way: “I know, I know, but I’m not like you. You’re so good at being alone.” Not only is that an insulting statement, but it’s not like being alone is a skill. You just put your head down and do it. It’s not hard.

I might not understand my serial monogamist friends, but for my own sake, I wish they’d calm down. It’s very embarrassing when I refer to one of their significant others by the last one’s name.

Leila Cohan-Miccio 

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and with it comes endless romantic pressure, whether you’re single or taken. The deeply unpleasant nature of being single on February 14 has been discussed ad nauseum elsewhere, but Valentine’s Day is also awful for couples.

Sure, the idea of a day celebrating love seems like it should be a cakewalk for couples, but Valentine’s brings with it a holy host of complications. For the newly dating, it’s a legit nightmare: do you celebrate it? How fancy do you get? Is it weird to order flowers for someone who isn’t even officially your boy/girlfriend? Should you just politely ignore the entire thing? We personally know several people who have planned strategic trips out of town just to avoid this conundrum.

Matters don’t get much better for those in long-term relationships. Giving a present seems forced and commercial – after all, Valentine’s Day is rarely significant to the couple itself. It’s just something the romantic industrial complex deems should be celebrated. Even if you can look past that, the fact remains that Valentine’s Day is just a pain in the ass: restaurants offer expensive prix fixe menus exclusively and you have to get a reservation months in advance.

Of course, Valentine’s Day isn’t all bad. The decorations are cute and it’s hard to hate any holiday that involves that much candy. Our suggestion for enjoying February 14: revert to childhood, when V-Day was still fun. Stuff yourself silly with candy and give your friends cheesy store bought cards. For once, romance is the less fun option.

Leila Cohan-Miccio