Hearts and flowers and hammering in the night

Feb. 9, 2006

Dear Julie,

Many people will be getting flowers and candy Tuesday. Some will be getting engaged. A few will be getting married.

That gauzy feeling is nice, but after a while the person you're living with becomes a lot more real. Real can be even better than smitten though very different from your fantasies about love. Those fantasies are the ego running wild, finding in the other person an idealized version of perfection that makes you feel good about yourself.

A more mature approach to love is based on the desire to be close to someone. But the differences between you and the other person can make closeness scary. The fear is that the other person presents a threat to your own beliefs about who you are. Most of us need to get to know ourselves much better before we can begin to know someone else. That's what I think.

DC thinks people who have just fallen in love and are thinking about taking the next step should use a screening process.

She actually did employ a process before deciding to marry me. She asked about my credit card debt, she had her level-headed sister, Danel, interview me to make sure I wasn't a lunatic in disguise. A day before our marriage one of DC's best friends, a dentist, examined my teeth. Neigh.

I was more romantic. I just asked if she could imagine herself married to me. She didn't say yes, but she didn't say no.

Looking back, there are a few more questions I wish I'd asked. Such as:

* How do you feel about knickknacks? DC loves them, I don't. If you don't like knickknacks and your spouse fills your house with them, you have to pretend they're just not there.

* Would you rather save money or enjoy life? DC cuts the ends off toothpaste tubes to squeeze out the last speck. I plan exotic vacations.

* Can you walk by a stray dog without stopping? The answer: Meet Hank, Lucy and Alvie.

Here are more general suggestions:

* Look for signs that your intended may have inherited certain behaviors from his or her parents. DC's mother is a lovely woman who keeps a supremely orderly home. That housekeeping gene skipped over DC. She got her father's gene requiring that she do 10 things at once. For them multitasking is just normal life.

DC wishes she believed in reincarnation because she doesn't think she's going to get everything done she wants to do in this lifetime.

* Be alert for peculiarities. DC and her father share some. At one holiday meal my father-in-law in complete seriousness asked someone to pass "that green substance." That would be broccoli to the rest of us. DC understood exactly what he meant.

* Find out if your beloved is addicted to such unusual behaviors as renovation. Swinging a hammer feels much more unnatural to me than swinging a golf club. DC watches home makeover programs on TV in the middle of the night. Sometimes I awaken from my dream to the sound of hammering, my nightmare. Usually it's on TV.

We're yin and yang, this and that.

After meeting DC the first time my mother said to me, "She's perfect." Aren't we all.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.