So, nostalgic for car fumes and in need of a piercing shop, I spent yesterday in my closest friendly metropolis, Antwerp. For those of you who don't know it, it's a very cool small city (about 500,000, I think) that has great cafes, shops, and shock! horror! young people who don't spend the weekends at DIY conventions. Anyhoo, grimy and sated with my dose of the urban jungle, I took the bus back home in the evening and witnessed one of the more disturbing evidences of dating delusion that I have ever seen. It's one of those states in coupledom that you only realise you inhabited once it's gone. This generally occurs at the moment you turn around realise that the person who recently pushed your 'make baby' button is not only a filthy, sweaty, snivelling grotmeister (no, it's not bohemian, it's gross), but that EVERYONE AROUND YOU KNEW, EXCEPT YOU. Immediately, the haze of love-chemicals clears and you're left with three unused bottles of men's deodorant you bought in the vague hope that he might one day get out of bed and use them...
Anyway, a couple of about my age were on the bus, facing me in one of the backwards-facing seats a few metres away. The first thing I noticed about them was their apparent 'role reversal'. While the girl was very affectionate, the guy just seemed totally besotted. Not in an icky, 'get a room' kind of way, but just cute - 'oh you're tired? I'll rub your neck. Listen to this song on my ipod with me. I love your skin. I'm going to kiss your hand,' etc etc. I'm all for gender equality, and perhaps I move in the wrong circles, but for me it was refreshing to see a man who just seemed so unashamedly in love with his partner. I have to admit, watching this little performance, I felt a small stab in my shrew-spot which once punctured, started off the usual list of self-recriminations: 'why am I single? Why, when I'm not single, do I turn men into crazy people? Why can I not point to any positive relationship with a member of the opposite sex who doesn't share my surname? Why? Why? Why???!!'
I'll tell you why, and why, if this is the price of connubial bliss, I'd rather have my cats choke on my Miss Havisham dress while they eat me at age 89:
So, girl (who we shall now dub, She Who Shall Be Launched Into Singledom In a Moment of Sublime Horror) is very tired, so proceeds to bunch up Caring Boyfriend's jumper and have a little doze on his lap. He continues to pet her a little, twiddles her hair, plays with her ear etc, oh, it's cute, cute, cute. However, within 2 minutes, my self-flagellation and viscerally-charged envy ends. For ever.
Once She Who Shall Be is safely asleep and blissfully unaware, Caring Boyfriend does the unthinkable.
He begins to pick his nose.
And eat it.
Not just once, ok. For15-20 minutes this guy works at mining a three-course meal from his nasal passages while his lovely girlfriend is lying right there on his lap, smile-on-face and dreaming about the beautiful wedding and perfect children which their glorious, magazine-happy future has in store.
AAARRGGHHH!
It was the train-wreck thing, I didn't want to look but I couldn't look away, which resulted in a very sore neck and some serious nausea. What was almost more amazing, however, was that, of that packed bus, I seemed to be the only one making half-gagging, half-giggling noises at this filth-fest. Why?! On return, I thought, 'perhaps it's a European thing?', and there was I, the ocker uncultured Aussie who didn't understand that a good meal of cranial matter is the essential prelude to any Belgian Saturday night. Thus, I told a Belgian friend the story. Her immediate response of, "this is disgusting!" made me feel SO vindicated. Finally, some validation: I fit in here! I'm one of you! I'm totally down with this country - pop the champagne! And then she said, "to pick, yes, is ok. But to eat? Urgh. Disgusting".
Um ...
Nothing. I've got nothing.
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