A few weeks ago, I went out to lunch with one of my best friends from high school- we'll call her Ellie. Ellie, now 21, has not been single since she was 12.  Since middle school, she has  been madly in love, wholeheartedly committed to, and downright crazy for about ten different "serious" boyfriends. To make matters even more complicated, Ellie was engaged to one of my best friends from childhood for about a year until he realized that he was drowning in a big heap of quicksand and needed an out. After  a year in therapy and several bottles of Zanex later, she called me one day while I was away at school in NYC. "Jacob, I met someone, I'm sooo happy... this is it, he's everything I've always wanted." I truly would have been excited for her had I not heard that exact same expression come out of her mouth repeatedly over the past decade for every boyfriend she's had.

When I returned to New Mexico from New York, I did what any self-respecting person would do... I avoided meeting her new guy until I absolutely had to. She was "engaged" again, and was going full force into building a homelife with her fiance Dave. When I finally did meet him, Ellie asked what I thought, and if I approved. About two years prior, I had actually had her fiance as a server at an Albuquerque restaurant, and it was one of the worst dining experiences of my life. First of all, I was getting sick, and secondly, Dave was quite possibly the worst server I had ever had. Not that he was rude or unattentive... it was actually quite the opposite. My friends and I were greeted with a "Hidey Hippidy Howdy Doody Folks! What can I Diddly Do you for?" He continued to speak like this for the entirety of our meal (btw, this man is 29...). I also had the unfortunate experience of having to listen to his atonal voice scream showtunes all afternoon until I experienced my first migraine. In true Jacob fashion, I told the story to Ellie, but in an amusing and semi-endearing way. I admitted that he had a really bad concept of pitch when she told me about a karaoke experience they had together. A week later, I found out that I was banned from the wedding party for my rude comments...

When Ellie finally showed up for lunch, she told me that she and Dave were having problems. First of all, she revealed that his ex had filed charges against him for aggravated assault, and that she was just finding this out. Ellie deducted that it had to have just been that the other woman was crazy, because Dave is such a sweet person... Secondly, they had only had sex about three times in the past four months. She further went on to "explain" that Dave was just now learning that having sex with someone you care about equals making love... and is scared of it. She also told me that they (and this is after seven months of knowing eachother) had gotten a mortgage together, and were combining their accounts. Now don't get me wrong,  I'm all for shared assets when both parties have worked progressively at building careers and lives together, but this was all so fast. I provided my opinion, in that she really needed to A. find out exactly what happened with said ex, and be wary of the situation, and B. having sex problems that early in a relationship IS a problem. First of all, most people would probably still be dating their partner and secondly, isn't a lack of sex something that happens later in marriage? Easily fixed by Viagra or Cialis? I further provided that while I think it's great that he's discovering his sexuality as a twenty-nine-year-old man, he needs to get over this fast or much more pressing problems would arise. 

While Ellie and Dave claim to be working on their differences while planning a June wedding, I'm working on trying to be far and away that month... maybe I'll LOVE her second husband.