an interview with mimi, part 1: moving into the second quarter of the relationship
So Mimi, how’s it going? You first heard from this guy 20 June, first posted about him on 21 June, and met him on 26 June. And decided on 27 June that you didn’t want to date anyone else. All that within a week! You must have been pretty sure.
I guess I was.
You guess?
I acted according to intuition, as I often do. For instance, I bought this apartment without viewing any others. I walked in with my real estate agent, and within about 25 seconds I knew I wanted it. I made a bid the next day. And I’ve been happy with it ever since I moved in; it was the right decision. Of course there are a few little things I didn’t know about….but I still feel it was definitely right.
And the same thing with the guy?
Exactly: there are a few little things I didn’t know about, but it was the right decision.
What “few little things”?!? Do tell.
Let’s see: well, I didn’t know his divorce would take so long, but I guess he didn’t either.
Did he mislead you when he talked about it?
No, he didn’t. In fact, as I could tell immediately, meeting me would hasten the process. As indeed it has.
You could tell that at once?
Yes, I could.
Well, hats off to your powers of intuition. And what other “little things”?
I didn’t know it would take so long to meet his children. I still haven’t met them yet. But then, they live in another state…
And??
Hard to say, I think, because we’re still so much “in progress”. If you’d asked me a week ago, I would have said that some of the “little things” were our different eating habits and our different taste in movies.
Oh?
Yes. As you know, I live on yogurt, granola, spinach, fruit, and ricecakes, but I don’t lose weight on that diet. It keeps me more or less the same weight. He eats steak several times a week, eggs, bagels with Zabar’s cream cheese, butter cookies, cheese, and so on. It ever so slightly grossed me out. But he got upset and said I was (implicitly and explicitly) criticizing his eating habits. So I stopped.
And the movies?
He rented and showed me one of his favorite films, The Gods Must Be Crazy, and I thought it was dreadful: racist, naive, boring, simplistic, not-funny. I didn’t go on and on about that, but when he asked me what I thought, I told him; and then when he disagreed, I wasn’t persuaded.
But in the last week all that has changed? Now you’re eating steak and enjoying racist films?
Right.
Okay then….
Well, first of all, I should say, Performer doesn’t think it’s racist. But he also acknowledged that he didn’t like it as much as he did the last time he saw it.
Maybe that’s because you were sitting there next to him writhing in agony.
Could be…
So what made the big change?
Well, he mentioned in an email message two days ago that something good had happened professionally and he was “no longer in a funk.” I hadn’t realized he was “in a funk.” I thought I was just getting to know him better, and this was a period of mild and temporary disillusion, that would be endured as we continued to be together. But when I saw him Saturday, he was different. First of all, he mentioned that he’d lost so much weight that he was buying a new belt. And I had stopped commenting on and reacting to his eating anyway. I didn’t wince when he had 8 cookies after a big meal. And anyway, I think he was down to 5 or 6. Then we saw a Woody Allen film together, Match Point, that he had also praised. I like Woody Allen, but this film made me very uncomfortable. And he said when it was over, that he didn’t like it as much as he did the first time he saw it.
Again, perhaps because you were squirming and squealing and objecting to it?
No. Well, maybe. I don’t know. But anyway, we agreed that the best part of the whole film was five minutes with the detectives near the end. And I told him that the gods must have wanted us to be together, because the film we saw on our first date (The Lives of Others) was one we both thought was terrific. Our disagreements — and I think they’re not really major — came later.
Are there any other “little things” you didn’t “know about,” as with the apartment?
Not really. And on the good side, we have a nice rhythm going: we see each other Weds - Sunday, dinner on Weds, sleepovers on Saturday, and sleepovers sometimes, depending on our schedules, Thurs, Fri, or Sunday. Within the basic pattern, we’re flexible, unless one of us has a gig or a conference over the weekend. I like living alone about half the week, because that’s when I get things done, but I also like knowing I’m going to see him soon. And we still talk on the phone every night we don’t see each other, and we email during the day.
Sounds like an awful lot of communication to me.
It is a lot. But I like that, and he does.
Mimi, much as I’d like to hear more, I can’t. I’ve got a life. Gotta go lead it. And anyway, you never tell me anything about sex.
You never asked.
Save that for Part 2.
