Waiters upselling when it’s not called for: “How about an iced tea to go with that?”  What?
“Be sure to save room for dessert. The tiramisu is homemade.” That shit drives Phil crazy. Or, when the server pushes an appetizer you know they were told to push, grates him to no end. Herein lies one of our many differences. I’ve come to ignore the upsell. I never order the appetizer they’ve committed to memory, unless it was my plan before they arrived at the table. Small stuff like this never bothers me. Next. Oh, but Phil, the boy can rant.

Film inconsistencies, in any way shape or form, are worthy of complaint from Phil. I’m swimming in the story, so I don’t much care that the actor was holding a bowl a second before; now he’s not. Press on. But to Phil, his entire enjoyment of the film is lost. Okay, not entire, but he can’t leave it alone and pretend it never happened. He’s gotta make a point of it.

Do you think we’re hard-wired one way or another to care about this shite? Because I’ve never cared. It’s not that I’ve actively had to remind myself not to sweat the small stuff. I just don’t sweat (for real, even at the gym). It’s not in my nature. Or maybe I’m just so self-absorbed that these things wouldn’t ever come to mind, as my mind is always engrossed with other things. I’m an introvert. I’ve got a whole busy world going on in here, so I can’t be tasked with caring about the small stuff.

Now, here’s the tricky part: when Phil wants to talk about these things. If we were first dating, I might’ve feigned interest. Looked to see it as a positive, maybe. I doubt it, but maybe. I certainly took a lot more interest in his stories then. I would ask questions to show that I was engaged. I still ask questions, but I rarely care about the answer. I do it because I know it’s the right thing to do. Just as he, I’m sure, asks me questions about shit he doesn’t care about. Though, sometimes he doesn’t.

Sometimes, he pulls down the curtain and just says, “I have no interest in discussing this.” Which I kind of love! Because when he wants to talk about music—specifically some song that plays while we’re in the car, and he just has to tell me when he saw this band in person, for whom they opened, blah to the blah—I can play the same “get out of bored” card. “I have no interest in discussing this.” Oh, that delicious free slide into happy.

[Tweet “A man loves a woman for how she loves him.”]

It doesn’t foster love, though. So, I try to remind myself that there’s a woman out there who’d love to do nothing but listen to him reminisce and nitpick. Love him for these delicious quirks. I was once that woman. And what’s more, I know it in my bones; we all want to be loved for our smaller streets. It’s good to remember that a man loves a woman for how she loves him. If I take a loving interest, however forced it feels in the moment, it breeds feelings of love. Fake it ’til you make it. Act as if you care, and eventually you will. Maybe.