The REAL Adjustment Bureau



Remember that movie The Adjustment Bureau?  Where mysterious men in suits ensure your life runs according to ‘The Plan’ and do all sorts of things to make sure certain events do or do not take place?  Yeah, that one with Matt Damon.

Now, I understand that Matt Damon’s character went through a pretty rough time, but I think the movie title is a little misleading.  The REAL Adjustment Bureau is a committed relationship.

Let me explain.

After going through the exciting, butterflies-inducing, endless phone call/Whatsapping, tear-their-clothes-off-as-soon-as-you-see-them phase, which is wonderful in and of itself but is relatively short-lived, human beings tend to relax.  Settle.  Get comfortable.  And I don’t mean it in a bad way.

If he feels comfortable enough to fart when you are in bed together, or she is happy to leave the bathroom door open as she pees, more power to you both.

But I must warn you that you are entering The Zone.  You are ripe and ready for The Real Adjustment Bureau.

And before you know it, you are firmly ensconced in that place of compromise where you might wake up one day and barely recognize yourself.

Why?

Because you’ve adjusted to your relationship.  You’ve made a (not always) conscious and (not always) willing decision to change certain aspects of yourself to appease and please the one you love.  

Or just to keep the peace.

Here are some of the first things to go once you’re in the RAB.

1.       Your favourite side of the bed- this is usually circumstantial.  Maybe when you were single, you tended to adopt the starfish pose while sleeping.  Maybe you preferred to be closer to the wall.  But now that you’ve got another person in the bed with you, things change.  And not only because of arguments over who has to sleep in the wet spot.

2.       TV Channels- before she walked into your life, you would spend many a happy afternoon on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, one hand holding a beer and the other safely nestled in your boxers for intermittent scratching.  You’d watch Top Gear, football, and possibly even porn.  Now, putting your crusty feet on the coffee table is a crime punishable by no sex for a month, and Jeremy Clarkson playing around with cars is rudely interrupted by the telenovela channel which was auto-tuned since yesterday.

3.       Your allegiance to Manchester United- now this is a tough one. But if your other half is an Arsenal fan, you have to accept one of three things- it’s time to change team allegiance, you will never watch footie together, or you are condemned to a relationship of arguments and recriminations each time one of your teams is playing.

4.       Argument Style- ah, this old gem.  Are you one of those people who, once you get the bit between your teeth, finds it impossible to let go?  You will happily argue and debate until the cows come home.  You might even suffer from a mild case of Last Word Syndrome.  As a former sufferer, I feel your pain.  But after a while, you learn that sometimes in a relationship, you need to learn when to just STFU.  Simmer internally.  Go somewhere isolated and scream until all your frustration is spent.  Then go home, and put a smile on it.  And let your other half believe that they were right all along.

5.       Sufferance- the last bastion of defense is your willingness to suffer fools, and crap music.  Before you and your beloved met, you couldn’t stand to be in the same room with anyone who constantly talked politics, or had no sense of music history, let alone taste.  Now, you endure long-ass family lunches when her Uncle drones on and on about when he was in ‘The Bush’ fighting for the country’s liberation.  Or when his little sister gets into the car and immediately starts playing that Bobby Shmurda nonsense, you simply grit your teeth, smile, and start humming something from Handel’s Messiah just to tune her out and not smack her.

None of this was meant to depress you, by the way.  I’m just pointing out some realities.  That said, of course relationships are all about compromise.  Just make sure you’re making changes for the right reasons, before you end up a big ball of resentment.

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