I remember our first date in detail. I remember waking up in the morning and carefully selecting my wardrobe to represent my best casual, blue jeans and T-shirt self, without looking like I had actually picked out my clothes specifically.
I remember having to visit a friend at the hospital who had just given birth, and I had it planned out so I could visit her and still make my date. I remember how my careful orchestration nearly fell to pieces all because I missed one bus. I remember thinking, “Damn, I found a girl that wants to go see ‘X-Men’ with me!”
The details are less important than how detailed it was. That’s the nice thing about dating. It’s practice. You get to prepare. Even if I was wearing scrubby jeans and an old T-shirt, it was scrubby jeans and an old T-shirt I picked out specifically for that date. The pre-marriage dating game, as stressful as it can seem, has its advantages. I could plan, prepare and execute. I could present myself the way I wanted, present my apartment the way I wanted it, and so could she.
Marriage is a whole different ball game. Suddenly our undergarments sit in the same laundry hamper. My DVDs of “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly” and “High Fidelity” share the same shelf as “Pride and Prejudice” and “Anne of Green Gables.” I suddenly have a circuit of male friends that I call up so I can actually watch any movies with a hint of violence or suspense. And it’s the same for her I’m sure. She has to see me climb into pajamas and a ratty sweater as soon as I get home and listen to music that she would never even consider on her own.
Our relationship went from romantic to a sort of crossbreed between roommates and co-workers. Our conversations focus on bills, bad habits, dishes and dirty laundry. It gets kind of repetitive, truth be told. We had a breakthrough negotiation just this week, determining who would do what chores on what day.
Let me shatter a fantasy for you right here and now. We don’t dream about the house we will one day buy, we haggle. Our conversations sound more like two countries working out a peace treaty than two star-crossed lovers dreaming about what color and just how pickety the fence will be. She likes the country, I like the city. I want sidewalks, she wants pastures.
It’s not all bad, and there are fantasy moments, but where is the romance, and where is the dating? Shouldn’t marriage, if anything, be a guaranteed Friday night date every week?
Between school, internships and the daily grind of bills, chores and eating, who has time for it? Our idea of a wild night involves mixing peas into our Pasta Roni while watching “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” reruns. And if we’re feeling really crazy, we might bust out the ice cream.
An advantage, and disadvantage, to marriage is that I don’t have to dress up anymore if I don’t want to. I don’t have to dress up and be the perfect date, but that means I lose the fun of the date.
The secret I have found is to look at the pattern for dating. It’s not the mystery, it’s not getting to know the person. It’s intention. It’s taking a period of time to pay attention to your partner. We dress up (or down) specifically for our partner. We clean up our apartment and pick out the right music. It’s all a game of intentionally setting an atmosphere for cohabitating time.
In marriage, if anything, it’s easier. I’ve found that forcing both of us to step away from our daily grind to sit down and enjoy something together does wonders. We go for walks. We have the occasional special dinner. We go out occasionally and that’s good too, but the real difference is the intention. We set aside time and label it mentally as intentional time together.
My wife and I have found that as we get busier, our relationship becomes more about business and getting things done than the romance and connection of when we dated. Dating when married is less about going out and painting the town red, and more about stripping away all of the business long enough to remember why we got together in the first place.
Aaron Burkhalter is a graduate student at the University.