Sometime ago I shared with a good friend my view that most long lasting partnerships and/or marriages I've encountered have struck me as either shoe with matching sock or odd couple. This friend challenged my binary formula by asking me which I would pick to describe my own thirty seven year partnership.
Though the challenge hasn't prompted me to completely abandon my reductive view of the relationships of others, it did set in motion some serious reflecting about the way others perceive the dynamic of our partnership. I didn't check in with my wife before publishing this but my sense is we're more odd couple than shoe and sock. I further suspect others might also see us that way. But we're not an odd couple in classic Oscar and Felix fashion. For example, it's easy to discard the slovenly vs. fastidious split of Neil Simon's creation. Neither my wife nor I is either slovenly or fastidious.
From where I sit, our odd couple-ness is more ... nuanced. As I imagined another couple observing us dispassionately, this snippet of conversation came to me:
Her: "What the hell did she get herself into?"
Him: "How the hell did he get so lucky?"
What do you hear when you imagine others discussing your partnership?
About Me
- Pat Barton
- My most recent single release - "My True North" - is now available on Bandcamp. Open my profile and click on "audio clip".
Chernobyl meets Fukushima.
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