statistically speaking i could absolutely not fix him
The thing about dating a man who is allergic to cats is that eventually he starts competing with the cat.
Katarina takes one look at him and immediately climbs onto his lap.
Five minutes later his eyes are red.
Ten minutes later he’s sneezing.
Twenty minutes later he’s explaining medieval lighthouse maintenance while wheezing through one nostril.
The cat is purring.
I am making dinner.
Dinner is:
one Babybel
half an egg
black tortilla chips
cucumber slices with seasoning dumped directly on top
two stale macarons
one Ferrero Rocher
A meal assembled entirely from things discovered while looking for something else.
Across the room he is telling me that ravens can allegedly recognize individual human faces.
I don’t know if that’s true.
I do know he forgot his wallet at home three separate times this month.
Last week he texted me:
“good news.”
I asked what happened.
He said:
“i found a map of abandoned railways.”
That wasn’t good news.
That wasn’t even news.
That’s just a thing he found.
The cat has now moved from his lap to his shoulder.
He sneezes again.
The cat remains completely unbothered.
Sometimes I think about all the traits I wanted in a partner: Reliable, Stable, Emotionally mature, a Good communicator. Not a man actively losing arguments to a house cat.
Instead I got this man.
A man who once spent one-hundred and forty dollars on a nineteenth-century book about canal systems.
A man whose allergies are losing a war on two fronts.
A man who can identify six different kinds of moss but cannot remember where he parked.
Statistically speaking I could absolutely not fix him.
More importantly, I am beginning to suspect he is being outperformed by the cat, who, meanwhile, has contributed nothing except emotional support and occasional violence.
Which, frankly, puts her ahead.