Sauced Cause
Oops, put another Advice Goddess column up last week, and I forgot to blog it. This one's about a guy whose girlfriend gets trashed and sleeps in the same bed with her gay best friend. He says:
...I’ve told Renee that if she’s my girlfriend, she can’t get drunk and share a bed with other men, no matter whom. She says I’m putting her “in a box,” and dismisses my feelings (as usual). Am I wrong to believe that, even if there’s no sex, two adults sleeping in the same bed is intimacy Renee should save for me?
My answer:
Let’s not confuse Bukowski with Nora Roberts. Your blotto girlfriend and her equally shellacked buddy sleeping it off on the same bed isn’t “intimacy,” it’s flophouse sweat and dumpster breath times two.Don’t be too quick to take refuge in the sparkly Teflon of Eddie’s homo-hood. With two people blind-drunk in bed, who can be expected to remember (or care) who plays for which team? Cozy turns cuddly, bodies start rubbing together, and the next day your girlfriend’s muttering to herself, “How odd…I dreamt Eddie was in my bed saying, ‘My, my, Brad, what big man-boobs you have!’”
So, is it wrong for Renee to turn her bed into the skid-row Sheraton? Well, apparently, it isn’t wrong for Renee. Or, maybe it’s neither wrong nor right for Renee, and simply part of a drinking problem: Adult swim in a fish tank of gin turns into an adult slumber party -- not so much by choice, but because Eddie managed to grope his way to a mattress with a warm body on it instead of spending the night facedown, drooling into the living room rug.
Not unexpectedly, you find it troubling -- a dealbreaker, even -- that your girlfriend regularly spoons some hairy drunk who marks your side of the bed with his man smell. When you inform her of this, she acts like you’ve just issued an edict forbidding her to leave the house unless she’s wearing one of those pup tents with a peephole. But, are you putting her “in a box”? Of course you are -- the box where a guy’s girlfriend is free to see other men socially, except when she’s half-naked and lying in bed.
In a relationship, there are two people’s feelings to consider. In this one, there are hers and Eddie’s. Where does that leave you? Well, for starters, hitchhiking to get medical attention while they’re back at her place playing Barbie’s Dream House (with wet bar). Excuse me, but a woman you call your girlfriend packs you off to the emergency room solo and you come back for more? Notice anything missing here, such as even the slightest show of concern for you or the relationship? Clearly, your priorities are different. It seems you’re looking for love. For her, “Let’s get drunk and pass out together!” takes precedence. The only question you should be asking now is “Why am I still here?” It’s a big world out there, filled with single women. Perhaps there are better ways to spend your time than hoping your girlfriend and her man in chaps will pop out from under the covers with a more promising sort of excuse, such as, “Actually, we’re right in the middle of an AA meeting!”
The whole thing is here.
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