I’m Dating Five People But None Of Them Know About It
Officially, I’m in five different relationships. The cool and simple term to use is polyamorous although there might be nothing cool nor simple about this situation.
Right now I’m finding out that the biggest problem I’m having, is not the discomfort I feel when my waist trainer is crying foul over the quantity of food I consume, forcing me to stop pleasuring my taste buds.
Neither is it realizing that although while in school, I might have been a cool kid; well balanced in the intersection of the venn diagram between the social crowd, the academic crowd, relationship mongers and of course the fashion crowd, I am still yet to find where I belong in the real world.
My biggest problem is coping with the emotional and psychological trauma of having five boyfriends who don’t know that we’re in a relationship. At least not yet.
There’s the Murphis Sharwama delivery guy who doesn’t seem to know that I trust him with my most precious baby; the extra spice, sausage filled chicken sharwama he delivers to my office. I mean that’s like the holy grail of all relationships and yet I trust him. What if my baby falls to an untimely death on a cold granite floor? One misstep of his bicycle tires and baby goes dead and cold, splattered for the world to see. I see him at least three times a week, we talk on phone, and I split my change with him and yet he refuses to say I love you.
Then there’s my cab man. He practically knows my entire wardrobe. He sees me every day, knows where I work and live, offers to wait for me when I’m not ready, without grumbling (girls, you know how rare that is). He has access to my two phone lines and picks up my call no matter how odd the hour is and yet he has never offered to sleep over.
Another person who shares a similar lackadaisical attitude towards our relationship is my tailor, Mr Fatai, who I always have to reintroduce myself to every time I call. He’s always busy, never ready to see me or give me what I want and his lips are always filled with the most puerile of excuses. And yet he has seen me in my underwear, he knows my bra size and the part of my torso where my waist is smallest. I don’t know what could be more intimate than that.
Speaking of intimacy, there’s this “we always open the door at the same time” guy that lives in the flat opposite mine. I see him every day and in my cheeriest voice, say a good morning to him. He mutters back his response every time. He is always in a haste, his hair barely combed and some days I itch to adjust his tie. Yet, despite our daily exchanges, and despite the fact that we share the same flight of stairs, every day, every morning and at the same time, he acts as though I don’t exist.
The bartender at the bar I frequently visit to have my moments of solitude shamelessly flirts with other women right in my presence. I am not sure he does it to make me jealous or because he doesn’t care about our connection. I might have given my number to several guys in front of him and flirted back at them when they did but that doesn’t give him the right to make light of our very perspicuous connection. Sometimes I want to shake him and cry, “We’ve bonded over Chapman! Doesn’t it mean anything to you? .”
The situation is extremely disheartening, it’s bizarre and far from conventional and it hurts that my own boyfriends don’t acknowledge our relationship.
Okay let me stop being crazy.
The plight that my generation seems to be facing is that no one is willing to define their relationship. We’re constantly seeking the next big thing, permanently convinced that the ass or wallet would be greener and bigger on the other side.
We are worried about committing ourselves to relationships because of the supposed heartbreaks and emotional hurt that come with one. This outbreak of relationship complacency has become so universal that our parents, loved ones have finally accepted us as gypsies of the romantic world.
For me, there seems to be so many perquisites to the surface type relationship I am practicing (food, efficient driving, good clothes, strong drinks, etc.) that I am content with not rocking the boat.
Some things are better left undefined.
This article was first published on stylevitae.com and was inspired by another on Manrepeller.com
