October 17, 2002
therappuccino with jimmies
Well, you can chalk up another in a long list of Things I Never Thought I'd Do: we went to couples therapy this morning. Now it's all well and good to adopt a gruff, anti-intellectual "natural man" position on these things and declare couples therapy to be a lot of touchy-feely yammering for people whose relationship is probably doomed anyway, and indeed, the whole thing seemed very 1975 to me until I actually did it. The whole point was to do a little prophylactic inventory on stuff that makes us frustrated with each other before we get married and have to pull over the car and scream at each other on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.
Keep in mind that Tessa and I get along fantastically. We get along so well that going to therapy seemed like plowing a flower pot with a John Deere tractor, but like my therapist said, being in an adult relationship right now is excruciatingly hard. Anything we can do, especially now while we're still young and silly, to further our chances of making it work - well, fuck, sign me up. It's like buying a warranty.
All four of us - me, Tessa, Tessa's therapist and mine – sat together in a room, and immediately it was obvious that Tessa had more experience at this sort of dynamic than me. My reasons for having a shrink stem largely from my battles with anxiety, not a generalized depression, and I still find it hard to be an organic communicator in that setting. We brought up a few of Our Greatest Fights and tried to analyze why they happened, and I thought back and realized that I probably could have averted half of those arguments just by not saying a few key sentences.
In general, it wasn't half as bad as my 1997 self would have thought (I mean, what the fuck did he know anyway) and I totally recommend it even if everything seems to be going fine between you and your better half. Really, all relationships boil down to this: once you find the right person, everything else is letting go of your vicious, wounded, irrational ego. Think of all the stupid things you've done in your relationships because of your goddamn ego. Give it up, for chrissake - how long do you think you get on this planet, anyway?
.jpg)
Speaking of ego-licious dairy dessert treats, I got to sneak into Michael & Zoe's tonight for the last Yogurt Mixin' before they closed. I know it's not called "Michael & Zoe's" anymore, now it's something like "Chassie, Peter, Chan, Mollie and Zoobiedoobies" but I can't bear to use the new name. Crappy nomenclature or not, they still have the best frozen dairy treats in NYC - try 'em out! They're on the corner of 2nd Ave. and 5th St. in the East Village – tell 'em Ian sent ya!
"Who?" they'll say.