Gee, You've Changed

by Wendee Mason

Looking back over eighteen years of dating, and thirty-some years of fantasizing, there is one concept I don't understand. Why do people change after you marry them? For example, I love to play tennis. When I met Joe, he liked to play tennis too. After our wedding day, tennis was "bad for his back." We haven't played in four years, eight months, and eighteen days. But wind sailing in thirty mile per hour winds, and jumping fifteen feet in the air doesn't seem to bother his back at all. In fact, "It's therapeutic," he claims.

Now Joe will tell you I did the same thing. I told him before we were married I'd be willing to learn how to wind sail, and I WAS willing to learn, but after falling into the lagoon two dozen times, my enthusiasm faded. I was finally able to drain ten thousand pounds of water off the sail, and stand it upright, and sail a couple hundred yards toward the center of the lagoon. Unfortunately, I hadn't learned to turn the board around to sail back to shore. Stranded, I became anxious, then humiliated, and was finally rescued by the harbor patrol. I've never sailed again. Joe thinks it's because we're married and I no longer have to impress him by going in the water. Joe's right.

Well, Joe and I divorced a while back. I play tennis, and he lives in the water.  Now that I'm single, I tell all my dates, right up front, I don't do water. Non-negotiable. This way I don't have to pretend I'm someone I'm not. And I don't have to scrape anymore elbows on a windsailing board to impress a date.