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| Hope
by paul1917 at 3/25/2008 5:43:18 AM
As I was watching the Killer Flamingoes for the millionth time the other night a feeling of lonely bitterness fuelled by a quart sized rum-and-coke went into a continuous feed-back loop in my head. I felt as pummeled by my own negative emotions as I was by the intensely loud music pummeling my ear drums. I admit that I had invited myself to a pity party inside my mind and therefore my desperate attempt at cheering myself up that night was futile before it even started.
I had seen the band many times before but never at this particular sports bar in Canton. As the band wound down their last set I noticed a couple playing a game of pool a short distance away. My friend had introduced them to me a month before so I knew them, but not very well. They were an English couple who had been together through at least 20 years and two fully grown children. I had noticed that they looked unusually happy with each other the first time I met them and it had struck my as odd because I had seen only one other example of a truly happy married couple in my entire life. I wondered how they managed it and I was therefore very interested to be able to observe them in action. I will never forget the elaborate and very affectionate series of events that unfolded like a well practiced dance in front of me.
The husband obviously knew what he was doing with a pool cue, I can't say as much for his wife though. I immediately got the feeling that he could easily have won at any time and this was confirmed as the game went on. He was clearly and very patiently and deliberately missing shots so that she could keep pace with him. All the time he was making comments to her like "good try" and "you almost made it". I wondered if she knew what he was doing? She was acting like she was continuously on the cusp of winning the game with a brilliant series of shots that she could never quite pull off.
I couldn't help myself any more and told her that her husband must really love her. She said "I know he does, he was a snooker champion in England so pool is very easy for him. He is playing me left-handed". "Do you play together like this a lot?" I asked. "Of course we do". She said it so matter-of-factly that she sounded surprised.
I have deliberately lost games with women I have dated in the past and I always had the feeling that they resented it more and more the harder I tried. Not so with this English couple. The more I watched them that night the more I saw how perfectly in tune with each other they were. He was totally willing and happy to play terribly because he just wanted to play pool with his wife. She meanwhile was able to accept the "help" with total grace and without feeling at all condescended to. I wondered how many other accommodations like this there were in their relationship.
I have often seen friends and family in marriages where neither spouse even tried to be polite to each other let alone going to such lengths as this. Even when I have seen couples getting along well I could tell that it was contrived and that there were tensions and negative emotions right under the surface. I guess it really does take two to tango; a relationship just won't work unless both people want it to work and are willing to try hard for it.
These English folks looked so happy and complete with each other that my foul mood melted away and my furrowed brow unknotted. Just seeing them together filled me with hope that someday I might be in a relationship even a fraction as happy as theirs.
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