Tricky Weeks

Veronica and Dale are two vaguely liberal gainfully employed people at the end of their twenties just getting to know one another, digging past the typical plumage and pretense of their first few date-like events. Their outings have constituted a few meals, some romantic comedy-style grocery shopping, and two incidences of wandering the local art bistro neighborhood. Mostly they can be found in Veronica's apartment fornicating, reheating leftovers and talking about how similar their childhoods were in a very general way as they share a grope and watch Bravo and TLC reality shows online late at night. They have at this point, however, just about humped the bias out each other. Bias tends to fall out in one solid piece, ushering in starkly contrasting lucidity. Now is the time where couples feel compelled to start admitting their past indiscretions. In most relationships, there will be a long car ride or late night buzzed conversation where you give an honest description of failed romances and maybe a window into phases you've for the most part grown out of and you both adjust your expectations accordingly. For some reason they are both independently postponing this phase, or trying to forgo it altogether (1). Incomplete stories are allowed to float; reoccurring names are spoken with hesitance, and when there would normally be a confession or an elaborately festooned follow-up question, they blow right past it. Perhaps they just want to avoid unnecessary conflict and pretense, since they have been through this before and they know these confessions are often given with a defensive tone, and follow-up questions seem to be a demand for the graphic details. No matter how neutral you try to sound, a very unsexy insecurity shines through and projects telltale shapes onto the walls.

Several months go by as they continue consciously omitting shameful secrets from stories, explaining their reasoning to themselves in convoluted lines of logic until it basically turns into a religion (2) as they crab walk towards commitment and practical considerations. They try to synthesize a coherent picture of their future together out of what happens between them in the present. The result is an enjoyable stagnation as they distract themselves from conversation with more movies, shopping, and sex. They seem to be working together to build something, but the only result is an admirably efficient use of Netflicks, knowledge of the undistinguished local restaurant scene, and a highly developed group of muscles from favoring certain positions. It was beginning to seem that these things were the entire purpose of the relationship.

"Life is sweet right now, that's all there is to say." Dale was out with two close friends as he rises one of those big 32 oz glasses of Belgian-style ale to his face with his slightly unfavored hand since his other one was slick with buffalo wing goop and bits of napkin. Dale and his friends Brett and Merkins are the type of people who develop designated drinking hands. Veronica is secretly dubious of Dale's friends because to her they seem likely to encourage his old bad habits. Not that she knows anything about those old habits, but old habits seem like they would be bad, especially when they took place around Brett and Merkins. Brett is one of those friends you keep around by virtue of their attendance record and maybe a few key meaningful conversations, whereas being friends with Merkins was almost like Stockholm Syndrome. He offends the easily offended, and annoys everybody else with his constantly evolving antics. His most recent obnoxious habit is his iPhone. It wasn't enough for Merkins to be fond of his iPhone; he needed everybody else to be fond of it, too. Every night they went out, he would have some sort of iPhone power trip. If they were in a new neighborhood at a strange bar, Merkins would look up the nearest beer and wings joint, preferably a chain often attached to malls, and present a clear plan on how to get there that nobody could argue with. On top of this, he was sure to announce every update he received and there was hardly a sports, entertainment, or news-related app that was absent from his phone. Tonight, they are content at Buffalo Wild Wings talking about how great relations are with the opposite sex.


"Dale and I just have this amazing unspoken respect that we share. This might be the first truly mature relationship I've had." Veronica sips her warm sake and self consciously cuts her sip short. "Not 'had' in the sense that it's over or has hit its peak or anything, but, you know... I'm in it! Know what I mean?" They couldn't be further from knowing what she means, but weeknights aren't for confrontation. Veronica sometimes mixes up her friends names. They support all the easily supportable things she does, and every now and then try to express a dessicated version of doubt that requires no follow-up because they don't want to seem like they are only capable of providing indistinct encouragement. Dale secretly resents Veronica's friends for knowing all that they most likely know about her past. Whenever they are all out together, there are moments when her friends share a smirk over an unexplained in-joke. He assumes that it may be that he is behaving in a way that is appropriate or ironic in the context of all her ex-lovers. Veronica's friends don't get along with Dale's friends, since Merkins banged one of them and even though they don't hang out with that girl anymore they have still categorized Dale's friends as not acceptable. Hence why they are in separate bars less than two miles apart.

Dale is talking to Brett about how Teavana is always a safe yet seemingly creative place to buy Christmas gifts for girls, while Merkins acts as a news ticker for sports that he knows Dale and Brett don't follow, amusing himself by trying to be ahead of the dozens of TVs on the walls. Then without changing his tone says, "Dude! I just got an update from Wikileaks!" Brett is in the middle of a sentence, but Dale gives Merkins a slice of attention. "Holy shit! It is about Veronica!" Now Dale & Brett are both waiting for the punchline. Merkins keeps reading his device, then he shows it to Dale and sure enough, it is a transcription of three voicemails that Veronica left about 4 years ago. Five minutes later the back-story emerges in the form of leaked text messages and Facebook chats. It seems that Veronica cheated on a guy she had been dating exclusively for two years, lied to him long after this fact was painfully obvious, and then bragged about it without shame to her friends before having a truly pathetic breakdown when she noticed a pattern. She blatantly sabotaged in the crudest ways every secure relationship from college until as recently as two years ago, according to subsequently leaked data. It was almost always with this guy named Josh who reportedly wasn't even that great in bed but was at least physically reliable and always acted emotionally unstable, seemingly for the purpose of justifying the fact that he continuously works at the same bar despite having "all these crazy ideas". From a combination of leaked private live journal entries and emails found in the "unsent drafts" folders of her ex-boyfriends, they all allowed it to happen because they were either too trusting and naive to figure it out, or they knew and just felt bad for her. Either way, both parties reportedly let the relationship fade once infidelity was clearly on the table. Once the updates stopped pouring in, Dale remembered that he has to deal with this knowledge soon, since he has plans to stay at Veronica's place tonight.

Dale knows he ought to confront her in an organized manner, or in a completely spontaneous manner... both of those are impossible to do tonight, so he is driving around the neighborhood thinking. During this time, Veronica is at home waiting, going through her usual cycle of websites. Mail. Facebook. Clips from The Soup. The New York Times cover stories. She is about to call Dale as she browses Wikileaks' most recent cables. A few war diaries from soldiers. The musings of Dutch ambassadors about non-integrated Muslim immigrant population. President Calderon not very optimistic... Screen shots of Dale's old myspace page?! She looks at her phone, then starts browsing all related cables, covering dates between 2003 and early 2007. It appears that he was trolling the internet for hook-ups! There are dozens of screen shots of his profile, each one completely different. He would change his favorite movies, bands, interested, and even his pictures to make himself seem compatible with whatever girl he was trying to sleep with. There were also leaks of the messages he would send these girls and the profiles of his targets... he was a creep! Dale knocks on her front door, and for a second she thought to pretend to be asleep. She didn't want to deal with this knowledge, especially so suddenly! Unable to come up with an alternative, she lets him in. Their arms and legs are crossed as though trying to deflect not only each others stares but that of the rest of the world. They both charge in and collide with "I have a..." and "Can we please..." and " You first..." and "Go ahead..."... eventually Veronica goes first by pulling Dale over to her computer to show him the cables about him. He doesn't deny the content, and his reaction isn't the shameful pile of stuttered excuses she expected but instead one of unexpected relief, which causes Veronica to almost overflow with righteous rage until he shows her the cables about her past. She still accelerates towards explaining that her past isn't as despicable as his, but all she gets out is a very forceful "Well..." before she reconsiders. Dale is trying very hard to speak; it looks like he is about to vomit but she cuts him off and says, "We should go get a drink and talk." Of course all the bars are closed, but they'll drive through three counties trying to find an open one, spending 45 minutes sitting in each convenience store parking lot along the way, telling the most pitiful tales of debauchery and self delusion. They can barely drag themselves out of the car when they return from their big circle at 5:30 AM, but they know they'll have the best sex they've ever had once they close the front door. As they fall asleep intertwined with one another, they don't notice the clammy regions developing where their bare skin is making contact, for their minds are far away planning a bountiful future together.






(1) One possible reason could be they don't want to supply each other ammunition for future arguments and judgments. Plus it isn't really the most pleasant conversation. Not to mention that going through an itemized list of all prior experimental ventures could deflate the sense that what they have is unique and make the relationship seem mechanical, more like a bodily function.

(2) The convolutedness of the logic and more so the mantra-like mental repetition indicate that they are actually just afraid of either scaring the one another away or learning something that would make it impossible to continue the relationship.