— पांच हजार सात सौ उनसठ —
Yesterday was not the greatest day. Not for any of us.
It's easy to throw around blame. It's easy to blame Shobhit, and I should confess up front that I was the one who created a scenario where Gabriel could easily blame him, without acknowledging my responsibility in the matter. I wasn't entirely truthful with him.
We had been invited to Gabriel and Lea's in Federal Way to watch the Oscars. We were literally minutes from the house, after I had texted that we made better time than anticipated and expected, even after the detour to the Federal Way Costco gas station, to be there about 3:10. At 2:55, Gabriel responded:
Ok. Both tested?
Shit. I said:
I did but Shobhit didn't. I'll be getting back to that.
He replied:
We have some here
And this was where things fell apart. Shobhit straight up refused to take a covid test. I texted Gabriel that very thing, and then said:
I can't even with his shit. We're going home. I'm sorry.
I think Gabriel was stunned. I would say, understandably so. But, what I did not say in that text exchange was that Shobhit had already refused earlier in the morning to take a test, when I first asked him. I had taken out two tests, and at first I wasn't even going to ask Shobhit to do one, but something came to me that made me think we both still should, just as a courtesy if nothing else.
It would have taken him fifteen seconds. That's all that was asked of him. This is a point I remain stuck on, actually. He was still in bed, and I came up to him with a swab. He said, "No. It's dumb." I told him Gabriel hadn't even asked for it (at this point, this was true) but I knew they would appreciate it. Still he refused. He said he could just stay home and I could go without him then.
I want to be clear that this is still unblievably obstinant, stupid, petty behavior on Shobhit's part. He tried to argue that there would not be more tests sent out at this point and that we'd be wasting them, which is a useless argument given that I have been relying on my FSA card to pay for boxes of them anyway. Also: more sensible states like Washington may still send out a couple of free boxes in the fall, you never know. There's no good reason for Shobhit to refuse to do this, except that in his mind I just do what Gabriel wants without question and that bothers him.
So here's where my selfishness comes in. What I wanted was to find a way to enjoy the day with both Shobhit
and Gabriel. I should have just said, "Fine," and gone to the Oscar party by myself. I just hated the idea of leaving Shobhit home alone to watch the Oscars while I went to a party. Mind you, Shobhit still had the ability to make this possible, but he never had a real eagerness to go anyway. He kept asking if he was even really invited. That point is somewhat sticky, honestly. Gabriel made it clear Shobhit was welcome, but I think we all know that everyone likely would have enjoyed the party more if I had gone without him. I'm just stuck between these two opposing forces, both of whom have a history of unreasonable behavior toward each other, although I still think Shobhit was being the more unreasonable yesterday.
I actually thought: well, maybe my taking the test would be good enough. We all knew it would be negative. I would bet millions Shobhit's would have been negative, but even without the confirmation, what are the odds that he had covid and I didn't? Shobhit's stuck on the fact that Gabriel is the only person who asks this of people five years past the start of the pandemic, and Shobhit thinks the fact that both he and I are vaccinated to the hilt should be good enough. Neither of us have ever missed any of the boosters, which makes us among a small percentage of the population (
23.2% have gotten the latest one).
Of course there are many ways to go back and forth on this argument. When Shobhit and I
did get covid, we were fully vaccinated then as well. And just because the world stopped testing as a matter of course doesn't necessarily mean they should have. Still, when it comes to this, even I tend to adjust my behaviors based on the general idea of odds rather than absolutes, and I think Gabriel is the other way around. As is his right. He has immunocompromised people in his life. Shobhit's response was: fine, then just go without me.
Which I did not want to do. And I should have. God knows the next time a scenario like this comes up, that's what I will do. I was thinking about how many people had been at Lea's birthday party in September and how unlikely it seemed that all of them had confirmed they tested before coming. Maybe they did, I don't know. It seems pretty clear now that I should have asked.
But when Gabriel asked if we had both tested, just minutes from his house—admittedly fairly early—I knew we were in a bad place. It was really me who put us there. Shobhit was the one who put me between a rock and a hard place, but this was a differnt, more specific spot, and I was the one who put us there. Shobhit was more incensed that we had gotten this close only for him to realize he should have just stayed at home. And I was beyond enraged, in that moment. For just a few short minutes, I told him he could just drop me off then, and I would figure out some way to get home on my own. I changed my mind when I realized there would be no way to do that without making Gabriel feel obligated to drive me home or to the transit center or whatever. It was better just for Shobhit and me to turn around and go home than to place such an unfair burden on Gabriel at that point. I was the idiot who thought I could get away with bringing Shobhit having tested myself but not him. I even said to Gabriel in one of my texts:
I should have gotten clarity from you earlier than this anyway, that's my fault. Shobhit is in no way blameless here, but I feel it's important to note than neither am I.
In the car on the way home, I said it may be time to start talking about separatation: "I can't take this anymore." I should never bring this up while angry, it is always a mistake. Shobhit says I only ever do this when there's something having to do with Gabriel, and this is not entirely true, but also largely it is. Mostly it's because Shobhit refuses to give Gabriel any grace or respect. Shobhit resents how much I accommodate Gabriel, in ways he doesn't really reciprocate. I'm on the fence as to how fair that characterization is, mostly because as a general rule I am fine with it. As with all things in life, I just take the path of least resistance (something Gabriel has actually criticized in the past). It doesn't hurt me to test before visiting, so fine, I do it. It's not a big deal.
Shobhit and I had only a few pointedly sharp exchanges on the way home, but the ride back was mostly silent. I wasn't about to let any of this prevent me from watching the Oscars once we were home, so we did, even though I felt sick to my stomach much of the time. For a couple of hours I really thought I would be sleeping in the guest room. I thought about how difficult it might be to find an apartment on Capitol Hill. Once the Oscars ended, Shobhit and I finally had a civil conversation, which kind of talked me off the ledge. We're not quite out of the woods when it comes to thinking about this, but I'm further from the ledge. I still slept in our bed last night.
Shobhit has no patience. He holds grudges for an insane amount of time. He insists things are fact when he has no evidence. He's a tightly wound driver who just wants to get around everyone no matter where we go. These things all drive me crazy. Now he keeps saying he's not willing to get another cat unless he stops traveling and I can just travel without him, because he's convinced Shanti and Guru died of loneliness (again: plainly wrong; the cats got old and they died), which is straight up emotional blackmail. The longer we are together, the less happy I am. There is no doubt in my mind that Shobhit takes our marriage for granted. The civil conversation we had last night does not erase any of this.
Maybe this is my mistake, but I still try to approach with empathy, at least when I am not blinded by rage. I actually have somewhat of an analog of his obstinate refusal to take a covid test, but reversed: when he was congested with a cold, he wanted to use my Covixyl as a nasal spray. I refused, because that's ridiculous. Covixyl is not a decongestant, it's a protective spray that helps prevent infections (including covid). Shobhit went apoplectic at my refusal do let him use it, and I could have avoided all of it just by humoring him. But, I did not. Now, I won't say that Shobhit was
right that insisting he take a covid test is pointless, but I understand the obstinacy given his (dubious, at best) point of view on the matter.
— पांच हजार सात सौ उनसठ —
— पांच हजार सात सौ उनसठ —
Incidentally, Shobhit clearly liked just sitting at home and watching the Oscars with me. I think it's really what he wanted anyway. Which makes it all the more rich when he tries to say I always get what I want, which is transparently bullshit. I want to say I was incredibly sad much of the time, and that is accurate, but I also enjoyed the telecast and was easily able to laugh at the funny stuff.
Once Shobhit and I talked again, it got to a point where I had no choice but to admit I should have just gone without him. Why he can't understand how that puts me in an awkward position, I'm not sure—and the fact that he evidently doesn't care is one of our pervasive problems. I knew from the start that he wouldn't be thrilled at the prospect of going to Gabriel's for a party, and it made me anxious even to ask him if he'd be willing—which I even mentioned when I brought it up: it's stupid that it has to make me anxious even to bring it up. I still stand by that.
I have half a mind to just go ahead and get a cat when we get back from D.C. in June. Shobhit can go ahead and stop traveling, thereby driving us even further apart. Maybe we'll just drift away more organically over time. It's not what I want. But, I also don't want to keep going on being denied things that bring me joy. Shobhit is hardly even capable of feeling joy. A great thing actually happened in his life recently and he couldn't even celebrate it.
Either way, I need to find some way to step away from this spiral that happens to me when I'm enraged with him. It's never logical or realistic, but at least once every couple of years, I find myself calculating the logistics of a separation. I honestly don't think Shobhit has ever done this. He knows as well as I do that if we ever do split up, I'll be the one making the first move. I have never done it seriously, so he has no reason to take me seriously.
This is the eternal question: where do you draw the line, then, to decide when detonating nuclear damage to both of our lives is
not a disproportionate response? If either of us didn't love the other anymore, this could be a different conversation, a question with a different context. Love alone is not enough and never has been, but it
is a powerful thing. It can transcend a lot, including what is necessarily the healthiest choice. But how do we know when that happens? I don't think Shobhit or I are objective enough to gauge such a thing. God knows none of my friends are, least of all Gabriel, when it comes to Shobhit and me. I have a network of support (even if I have too many friends who don't particularly like each other), and in the end I'd be fine—but would it be worth it? Destroying my marriage, my life, causing what would likely be the single greatest and most enduring stressor I have ever experienced as an adult? I ask these questions for my own sake as much as for Shobhit's; they are equal considerations to me.
I want what works out the best in the aggregate. Maybe it's a sort of internal "ranked choice voting," like the Academy Award for Best Picture. It may not be the perfect choice, but the consensus choice, among all the conflicting ideas in my head.
I don't know whether we'll ever do this, but I think Shobhit and I would benefit from a marriage counselor. This would provide us with a more objective perspective that we could not get from a single friend, who is just by definition prone to take your side. Shobhit told me very early on that he felt that if we ever got to the point of needing one, then things are probably over anyway. I don't really buy that, although the idea of finding a therapist who is a good fit stresses me out. I have long considered just getting a therapist of my own, and there probably is no better time than now to perhaps start there.
God, I wish I had just gone to the party without him. I was just so disappointed that Shobhit would let a simple ask for taking a test somehow be a deal breaker. I still think it's bonkers and stupid, even though I also think the actual risk was almost nonexistent. It's just a layer of mitigation, something I understand and something Shobhit clearly doesn't. I can't bring up a comparison as to whether Shobhit would be this obstinate with anyone else, because he's also correct that no one else makes this ask anymore: "Three years ago, I understood," he said. To be fair, if Laney hosted a party and asked that everyone in attendance test, Shobhit probably wouldn't do that either. But, Laney doesn't host parties. Her space is too small, and there's a lot more than covid going around, for which there are no readily accessible tests.
We're all just taking calculated risks, doing what is comfortable to us. Shobhit gets all the vaccines, but doesn't mask anywhere anymore, not even on planes or buses. He worries about his mother constantly, but not about this: he actually gave her a cold when he was with her in January. Laney and I both still mask on planes or transit. She told me several sniffling and caughing people and loud babies were within a few chairs or aisles of her and Jessica on the flight back from Florida, and even Jessica, who had not planned to on the flight home (Laney had insisted she would not even go if Jessica were unwilling on the flight there), put her mask on in response. But even Laney and I have evolved on masking in movie theaters, really only ever doing it if it's crowded. Granted it rarely is, because we choose slow showtimes deliberately, in screenings that rarely have more than three or four other people. We do the same with indoor Happy Hours. Although even he has evolved slightly, Gabriel remains the strictest among people I know, and I understand his perspective on it. He certainly wasn't hosting parties, until, like, last year—and they remain rare. They're never a huge amount of people. Yesterday was even fewer since Shobhit and I didn't go in the end. It's still a calculated risk, albeit mitigated by the request to test.
And incidentally, my motivation for masking on transit or planes isn't even informed by covid anymore. What covid taught us was that
masks work, and I am eager to lessen the risk of
any infection, not just covid. I barely even think about covid with much specificity anymore, unless it's time for a new booster shot, which I have never and will never miss. With only occasional exceptions, I test only when I'll be visiting Gabriel. And again: I'm perfectly fine with doing it. I wish Shobhit were too, but this, I fear, will put the final nail in the coffin between the two of them. I'm at a point where I would be perfectly happy with the two of them never being in the same room again.
— पांच हजार सात सौ उनसठ —
Well, anyway! No Social Review points for
anyone yesterday, which is a bummer. I started the day excited by the prospect of the first
legit Oscar Party since before the pandemic, likely a nice photo album out of it. Instead I took all of
eight photos yesterday, half of those just of the TV screen. I managed to pad this year's album by combining with the seven shots I took the day we went to the SAG Awards viewing at Central Cinema on February 23.
Shobhit did join Laney and me on Saturday for our walk downtown, though. But he peeled off near the freeway before Laney and I went further downtown to Pacific Place, where we saw
My Dead Friend Zoe. We both rather liked it. One of the
Associate Producers happens to be Lea's brother. Apparently Lea sent my review to him and "he thought it was wonderful." Whew! I took longer than usual to write that one, actually.
There's nothing to report on Friday, by the way. Shobhit did not meet me at work to walk home together, and we just watched
Bad Sisters after having our dinner. We also burned through the second season of
Shrinking, which was fantastic, over the weekend. There are now two series to catch up on on Apple TV:
Disclaimer and
Silo.
— पांच हजार सात सौ उनसठ —
[posted 12:30pm]
