Uh-oh! Your best friend is gushing about her boyfriend doing the bare minimum again and now you have to find a way to let her down gently. You’re no relationship therapist, but even you can tell he’s up to bare-minimal good yet again!
“No, no,” your friend, Danielle, began. “You don’t understand. He paid for my Taco Bell and didn’t ask me to Venmo him. Crazy right?”
Yeah, that is crazy…But, not in the way Danielle thinks. You just hope he handled their recent anniversary a little better than their recent meal.
“He texted me ‘Happy Anniversary!’” Daniel swooned. “He didn’t even forget it!”
Again! Danielle! That’s the bare minimum! Wake up!
At least he got her a gift, right?
Wrong!
“No, I think remembering was the gift,” Danielle explained. “And he sure did deliver!”
Deliver what? An empty box?
Well, perhaps they’re not a very gifty couple. No shame in that! Maybe they planned a nice trip to celebrate their solid relationship.
“Well, Steven has been unemployed for three years now…all three that we have been dating, at least,” Danielle began, “So we couldn’t do anything fancy. But he did the best he could! He invited me over to his parents’ house where we all sat crammed on a couch and watched reruns of Home Improvement. You know how I love Tim Allen!”
Danielle has never said she loves Tim Allen.
Perhaps, if we have a little faith, we can at least imagine that Steven used the free gift of words to make the day a little more special than an average Saturday. I mean it is easy just to say what you feel and even easier to write it on a cute card!
“He did give me a card!” Danielle said. “The inside said, ‘Hope to have many more years, kiddo. From, Steven.’ It is sooooo sweet that he wants to date me for even longer than he already has.”
What a vague message for him to give his girlfriend of three years…you wonder if they have talked about ever getting engaged, and so you ask if that came up.
“Well, I brought it up one time,” Danielle answered. “He told me he was a ‘free spirit who couldn’t be tethered’ and that I needed to ‘lower my princess-level high expectations’ if we were going to make this work, so I did! Silly me, always wanting too much, even though I already have a man who goes above and beyond!”
Well, you might as well just call all of us Oedipus because we all want to gouge out our eyes now.
