I’m a Cancerian. I always tried to use that as an excuse whenever I ended up reacting ‘too emotionally’ to something. But I don’t feel like I can hide behind that anymore.
When I started dating my boyfriend of two years, I rarely ever cried. Only when I was PMS-ing or watching an amazingly heartbreaking movie. But then things started to get serious. I was no longer just the ‘party girl’ but one with goals and aspirations and responsibilities… And all that can take a toll, can’t it?
Anyway, the fights were bound to start, I knew that. No couple can really make it if they don’t fight occasionally. But there was just one problem… As soon as we would reach close enough to finding a solution, I would just start bawling my eyes out. Sure, it started with a tear here or there, but then a minute later – tada, the full waterworks!
‘Wait, we’re not even having that serious a fight. You were just yelling at me. Why are you crying now?’ He would be confused. And he panics easily when he’s confused. And he definitely doesn’t know how to handle crying girls.
‘I don’t knowww!’ I would be confused too. I had the upper hand. Why was I crying? He was going to apologize in a minute and we were going to be fine soon.
Eventually, though, the confusion gave way to frustration. We couldn’t move on from things because of this. And he would sometimes think that I was crying intentionally, just to make him feel worse. Which just made me feel worse and cry harder. It was terrible and totally embarrassing.
One day, we were fighting about a trip we were planning. It was silly, but the ticket prices had been increasing with every day and we had a budget to stick to. I didn’t want to compromise on our stay and he just wasn’t ready to decide yet.
I reached home at 8:30 p.m. that evening. I had just changed into my pajamas when the doorbell rang.
He entered my room behind my mom, who’d let him in. He was carrying a bag of takeout from my favourite Thai place. My mom took it from him to put into bowls.
‘I figured you couldn’t cry when you were eating green curry. Why can’t you be like other girls and like ice cream or chocolate? So much more accessible.’
He sat down on my bed, took out my laptop from my handbag and opened the hotel booking website.
‘Don’t worry, I got you prawn dim sum too.’
I did almost cry then. Almost. I decided to kiss him instead.
We have most of our fights over food now. Or at least we try to. And we’ve made a tremendous amount of progress!
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