LABELS

Writing Stats:Sunday, July 20, 2003@08:29 p.m.

So we’ve talked about how to deal with loss in a relationship, and we’ve talked about the strange little things people do that we just can’t overlook and have to obsess about. I think before I give you a sample of Dating Stories past with a little trip to the vault next week (I’ve been writing these for years, they’re just now being published) that I should talk to you a little bit about labels.

I know what you’re thinking. I know I’ve been promising you Kara and Jed’s Olympic Sexathalon story but I just haven’t been able to put pen to paper with it just yet. Labels is a subject we can keep coming back to so it’s best if I introduce it early.

Labels. We put them on everything. From the freezer burned meats in the freezer in cheap Ziplock knock off bags, to the strip of tape you put on the video tape you feed into your VCR. They’re an important part of every day life for every American. If we went a day without labels we’d probably shoot ourselves. We’d have to wait awhile for that frosted over bag in the freezer to thaw before we could tell the difference between my mom’s chili and a bag of frozen strawberries in syrup. Those expensive shoes we wear? If we didn’t have that fucking checkmark to tell us they’re Nike’s, some of us just might shelve them. They’re on our clothes, making us walking advertisements, they’re on our clothes telling us how to wash them. Labels are our lives. Everything must have one, and everything we label has to fit into some kind of a category.

Labels in relationships? Oh you’d better believe it. From the birth of the relationship to it’s ultimate demise, it’s labeled something, and sometimes we change them several times a day. By the end of some relationships there’s so many labels attached that by the time the next person comes around they’re still pulling them off like bandages, like the person underneath is some kind of mummy. Having trouble following me? Lets take a look at Kara and Jed!

As I’ve mentioned the past two (2) [count them] weeks, Jed has come out of a very long relationship. Kara is one year out of a very long relationship. Both Kara and Jed have the potential of becoming very good friends with their exes. Kara has had a year of a head start over Jed, since Zeke ended things over a year ago. The two of them call each other for advice and occasional dinners, and from what I’ve heard, are actually getting along better now than they did when they were dating. Jed is one of those people I mentioned in the previous paragraph however. Not only is he still unraveling from the previous girlfriend, but Kara has her label gun ready and waiting for when he does.

Jeds relationship with Allison, also known as “The EX” [Cue Soap Opera shock music] was as follows: They dated for six years, five of which happened long distance. After about a year of the long distance thing, Allison stopped calling him, and he had to make all the moves all the time. He’d make plans to come down and visit, she’d tell him not to come. It seemed as if the two were drifting apart. After the third year began, they were just about to call it quits when she got sick, and he stayed by her side through it all. Year four and things were back to normal. Year five and things settled into the not calling anymore thing, and finally, year six rolled around and they changed seasons faster and more often than Michigan. For those of you with your scoreboards out, here are the labels in ascending order: FRIEND (before year one), DATING, DATING OUT OF BOUNDS, VERY CONFUSED ABOUT STATUS OF RELATIONSHIP, GOOD BOYFRIEND, BOYFRIEND TO THE ICE QUEEN, FEELS LIKE WE’RE MARRIED. 7 Labels got slapped on him in the course of one (1) relationship, and this is only the nutshell version. Should I ever find out the entire story from HIS mouth instead of Kara’s, I’m willing to guess the number of labels jumps from 7 to somewhere around 352,000, ending somewhere around “SHOOT ME BEFORE I CLIMB THE BELL TOWER”. This number gets higher you see because it incorporates the labels given TO Jed by the ex, his friends, etc. Even I’ve given him a label by calling him Jed instead of by his real name.

Then we get to Kara. Kara wore just as many labels as Jed, although the highlights from Zeke’s perspective would probably be “BITCH I’M SLEEPING WITH WHO WON’T LET ME DRINK”, and “GIRL WHOSE FRIENDS I DON’T LIKE”. Unlike Jed however, Kara’s had a year to peel off some of these labels without scarring over. Jed was so anxious to get them off when he broke up with Allison to go out with Kara, that he ripped them off with several layers of skin.

Seven weeks is a long time to date each other when you’re seeing each other on a DAILY basis. Add sex and dating exclusively into the mix and you’ve moved beyond casual dating into the realm of boyfriend and girlfriend…or so Kara thought.

They had the talk…the talk that every young budding couple has at some point, (the same talk that I, since I’m not used to dating, made the mistake of skipping last summer and messing something great up) the one where you both stand ready with label guns ready to begin papering each other with stickers that say “PROPERTY OF…” and “HANDS OFF” and they moved out of casual dating into dating exclusively. Kara stood ready with her “BOYFRIEND” tag, and had cleared some space on her sweater for “GIRLFRIEND” when Jed dropped the N bomb on her.

No.

No is one of those words that by definition we hate. It only has two letters, no one really likes the letter N to begin with and it rhymes with many bad things such as Hoe, Doh, and Ruh Roh, all of which mean something bad.

From Kara’s perspective, she’s being jerked around. From Jed’s perspective, he’s being jerked around. Kara has had a year to peel the hard to remove labels off and heal from the scarring. Jed as we mentioned above, ripped them off so quickly he’s still bleeding. You can’t blame Jed for not wanting to wear a label, you can’t blame Kara for wanting to attach one. It’s a no win situation for either side, because no one’s going to walk away happy.

I guess the message I’m trying to attach to this longer than usual dating story is this: When you’re dating, you’re going to bring baggage into the picture. The other person will bring it too. If a relationship is meant to be, you’ve got a matched set of luggage, or at least a close fit. If a relationship is meant to be, but meant to take awhile than each other’s baggage will grow on you until it LOOKS like a matched set. If a relationship is NOT meant to be then one of you showed up with a duffel bag where everything was neatly folded for easy storage, and the other showed up with a garbage bag full of haphazardly thrown in loose articles.

Labels serve an important purpose in our lives, but we label too much, and place too important a meaning onto each and every thing we stick one on to. So many metaphors, so little time.