What is it about men and apologizing? Or rather, lack of apologizing?
This weekend provided the opportunity for an emotional, tearful fight. I was very upset, something that doesn't happen often. It was all the Boy's fault, no way around it. No ifs ands or buts. Just plain hard facts. His fault. Not mine.
So after my tearful pleadings for understanding, he turned on his computer and gave me the silent treatment. This is what he does when he knows he's wrong and knows he should apologize, but can't bring himself to do it. It's a defense mechanism. Men do these things.
I got so mad that I ran into the bedroom and slammed the door, thereby closing myself in because my doors are too big for their frames thanks to all that humidity over the years. My desperate attempts to open the door again later sort of took away from my previously dramatic exit.
I therefore felt rather cool when my pleading for understanding became a pleading for release from my one-room dungeon. He had the doorknob on his side. That just didn't seem fair. I kept ramming my body up against the door, but it wouldn't budge. I tried from every angle. I tried with ass, I tried with shoulder, I tried with palm. No force of mine would budge that fat door.
I could see through the keyhole that he was still just sitting in front of that fucking computer, acting as if it wasn't four am and I wasn't starting to get hysterical on the other side of the door.
Eventually, he sauntered over and opened the damn thing. I tumbled out on the other side and said an exhausted "Thank you." We didn't speak for the rest of the night - which wasn't very long because by the time the whole door episode ended it was time for bed.
The next morning we both had to get up and be out the door rather quickly. Good thing it wasn't stuck anymore.
We still said nothing. As I was leaving, I said, "Bye" coldly while he was brushing his teeth. He didn't respond. I got angry and my eyes got big. How dare he?
He saw me in the mirror and said, "Why are you looking at me like that, Sweetie?"
"I said 'Bye.' You could at least say 'Bye' back to me."
"Oh, sorry, I didn't hear you. Goodbye. Have a great day." His voice was sickly sweet.
I walked out without wishing him a good one, too.
"Hey. Wait. Why are you mad?" he called after me while hopping out of the bathroom in his boxers.
I unlocked the door. "I might have slept but I'm still pissed off. You are still an asshole."
He was on the brink, I could see it. An apology was forming in his mind. It was gonna erupt. He knew this was all pointless. That he had been wrong, so horribly wrong, and had to admit it. That he had to be a man, for once. And that I was going to go on like this until he was one.
"Oh. Ok. Well...ok."
Hm. That was no apology.
He had a morning train to go away for the day. I went to class before he left to catch his train; later I went out with a friend before he came back. He got home around midnight and the house was disturbingly dark. And there was no note, either. "Let the bastard worry." I did it intentionally, of course. He called me at one am wondering where I was. I said I wasn't going to be home too late. I got in at five (with an hour time change). He was still up.
I think I was making it pretty clear that I was angry and I wasn't going to let it go. Yes, it's childish to act that way, but sometimes its the only means us ladies have to getting our well-deserved apology.
Still, no nice frilly words were going to come out of his mouth that day. So I went to sleep, and he did shortly thereafter. We still said nothing. The tension was mounting.
Sunday morning we got up and I was still a bitch. By then I was getting pretty good at it. He again turned on the computer in his easy-to-read avoidance strategy. I cleaned, did some homework, read some, and then announced I was going to a movie.
He said, "Wait for me. We'll go together."
"It's in 15 minutes."
"But I won't be done with my computer stuff by then. Can you just wait for me?"
"Movies don't wait for people." And with that, I headed out the door in an overdramatic huff.
By the time I got back I think he had decided life was going to be a living hell if he didn't say something. I came in and told him about the movie - the most amount of words I had said to him since the whole stuck-behind-the-door incident almost 48 hours prior. He listened intently. Maybe it was just to soften me up a little, I don't know.
Then he said, "Would you still want to go to a movie with me tonight?"
Surprised, I said, "Well, sure. Maybe not right now, but in a couple hours."
"Ok. That'd be fun. Let's do that."
Strange, I thought, so I walked over to him thinking that he might actually be trying to taxi down that apology runway. Might we have liftoff? I couldn't help but let the right corner of my mouth turn up in a rather quirky smile as I moved in for closer inspection.
He put his arm around my waist and said, "We shouldn't be like this. It's better when you smile."
"Yeah. We shouldn't." (still mad)
Strange moment of silence. He was feeling the words rolling around in his mouth. I could see it. They were forming, slowly but surely, in their grotesque and unappetizing form that he was trying so desperatly to get his mouth around. Maybe he just wanted to spit them out and be done with it. I wanted him to savor them in all their bitterness, and then I wanted him to lick his plate clean.
"I wasn't good Friday."
Ok. Not the words I was looking for. But somehow they were even better in all their ridiculousness. It was like in the movies: that guy who just can't say "I'm sorry" ends up stammering and saying something even more painful and slightly embarrassing. "I wasn't good Friday" became not only his apology (the baby eyes helped), but an outright confession of his wrongdoing, albeit in a nervous and rather choppy form. It seemed as if it just sort of spilled out beyond his control. It wasn't an apology per se, but his heart was in the right place.
"No, you weren't. You really weren't. But I'm glad I don't have to make you suffer for it any longer."
Neither of us liked the movie, but we're both glad we went.
Perhaps I shouldn't laugh--I mean, I really probably shouldn't, because I've gone through these fights before, and A. has the same problem with apologies and I have the same need you do, just to finally hear them--but you made me laugh.
In fact, I would have been in that bedroom screaming bloody murder, or contemplating going out the window (not probably doing it, knowing the drop)--but just the image of you huffing into the bedroom in righteous indignation only to end up peeping through the keyhole begging to get out is painfully funny.
Then I imagine myself there, and it's less so, but still. You tried bumping it with your ASS!
I'm so juvenile sometimes.
You were supposed to say loving things after that post. That's what you were supposed to do. But hell, you're right. I did try bumping it with my ass. That is funny. If I told you I hurt myself in the ass-bumping process, would you feel sorry for me then?
I feel sorry for you now, sweetie. Ouch. A fight, and entrapment, and pain from the attempts to get out - the ass-bumping is funny, but not funny enough. I'm kind of shocked that he didn't help you get out sooner.