After breaking up with me, Will wanted to stay friends.  I wanted to stay in touch with him only to make sure he paid his half of the cell phone bill until the contract expired.  

He called at least every week.  I rarely answered when he called, but waited a good seven, eight hours.  Will was working on his thesis, and would by then have spent fifteen hours in a windowless room with a half-dozen other aspiring geologists.  He would be tired and demoralized.

Perfect.

I would call back when I was feeling particularly cavalier and frivolous—although usually the thought of Will sweating away over seismological whatsits of the Chesapeake Bay for hours was enough to put me in that mood.  

During one conversation, I announced why I was sorry he’d broken up with me.

“Oh, why’s that?”

“Because I don’t have someone to talk to every night, to repeat the clever things I’ve said during the day.”

Even over the phone, I could hear him deflate ever so slightly.  Apparently I called too early.  

When I started dating Mike, little recap was needed at the end of the day, because we would have been in near constant contact throughout the day.  He liked to call while driving, while working on jobs that did not require his full concentration.  Mike liked letting me know I was in his thoughts, and maybe make sure that he was in mine.  

If I didn’t like him, his behavior might have been creepy.

We had enough of a script that he could supply my response while sending me his: “Texting while driving!  Toll road!  Toll road!  100 mph!  All for me me me!  Eyes on the road?  No!”  

Throughout the natural breaks of the day, we would talk, just to say hi.  We might talk about lunch, whether he was close enough to meet me, or better yet, meet at home for lunch. 

And at the end of the day, we still had things to tell each other.

I read a piece a while ago by a married couple, Hanna Rosin and David Plotz, in which they conducted an experiment where they stayed within ten feet of each other for an entire day.  This span included the many awkward moments during which Plotz had to skulk outside the women’s restroom while she, at many, many months pregnant, ducked inside every hour or so.

Rosin noted how that evening, they had little to say. 

“Many a married couple runs through the what-did-you-do-today ritual at the end of the day. This is the marriage's last vestiges of the awkward first date. It often includes elements of theater, drama, self-consciousness, self-pity, and bragging. . .Today, we got to skip this strained ritual.”

I have always liked this ritual—and not just for the opportunity to showcase my wit to a captive audience.  This is one of rituals of daily living that cannot be skipped between couples.  You talk to your spouse.  The exchange of stories, however trivial, reinforces what is between the two. 

Because, as Herbert Stein wrote of couples, “they can talk to each other in ways that they cannot talk to anyone else. He can tell her of something good he has done, or something good that has happened to him, without fearing that she will think he is bragging. He can tell her of something bad that has happened without fearing that she will think he is complaining. He can tell her of the most trivial thing without fearing that she will think he is bothering her. . . The primary purpose of this conversation is not to convey any specific information. Its primary purpose is to say, ‘I am here and I know that you are here.’”

I do not relate my problems that they might be solved this moment, but because those are the stones what weigh on my mind right now.  My sister’s hours at work are getting cut.  I got jerked around by a client.  The car needs new tires.  And if something good has happened, I want to share it with him, that we might bask together in some tiny joy.  I have new photos of my niece.  I talked a bill down a hundred dollars.  A friend from long ago and far away called.

Knowing about these is part of my presence.  This is why I am happy, this is why I worry.  Much as we know each other, my mental presence—and his—are not intuitive.  Even if there isn’t a damned thing I can do to fix it, I want to know what.  And if it’s good, I want to share it. 

The ability to tell stories, the need to tell stories is part of how we make love.  They do not have to be exciting stories.  They do not have to be interesting.  Usually they are neither.  But they are pieces of the life that we are building together, and I want to know.