05 February 2012
Perils of coupledom for the great ungroomed
18 August 2006
Comment: Te Waha Nui Online
Couples in long-term relationships often vow never to let themselves go. But as Jacqueline Smith has discovered, the personal decline that we are trying so hard to avoid, often crawls up on you unexpectedly.
I fear I have reached a point in my life I promised myself I’d never reach.
Every teenage girl looks at her mother and vows she will NEVER turn out the same. Some say they will never pick up their children from school wearing their ‘I survived the Shotover Jet’ T-shirt back-to-front. Some say they will never shop at Supre when they are 50.
I always said I would never stop shaving my legs and start wearing underpants with holes in them.
Long-term relationships can distort your perceptions and your memory.
Yesterday, while grocery shopping with my long-term boyfriend he asked me something no hip 20-year-old should ever be asked by her lover. Did I want him to buy me a razor? Reality hit me hard.
Was I really that ungroomed? All of a sudden I became aware of my crow’s feet sprouting, my frown lines deepening, and with one look at the chocolate bar I was holding I felt another cellulite cell burst out the side of my hip.
And then my thoughts travelled down to my underpants. If the elastic had pulled away from the cotton did that count as a hole? I conceded it did. I was prematurely changing into my mother.
Everyone always said our family was like peas in a pod. I always thought mum was the slightly shrivelled pea near the stalk but I realised I am close behind.
Like fat Britney whose zit pics are splattered across the tabloids, I have nestled myself far too deeply in my comfort zone. The idea of femininity, grooming and society’s expectations now seem menial concerns. He loves me just the way I am, right?
I have fallen for the clichéd long-term-relationship-equals-letting-yourself-go. I used to shave, exfoliate, moisturise, tan, manicure, pedicure, blow-wave, exercise, stretch, hydrate, diet and even wear sexy (but oh-so uncomfortable) lingerie.
How else would I have attracted anyone in the first place?
I remember yearning for a boyfriend. I remember having a softly-lit vision of cuddling up to a boy on the couch to watch a movie and picnicking on an isolated beach.
Well, the couch and movie part has been made a reality but the character has morphed. In my vision, I was hot. My poor boyfriend.
As he stood there holding the two-for-one razor-heads-with-aloe-vera-gel as casually as if it were a bottle of blue-top milk, I became acutely aware of what I had become. For want of a better word, I felt ugly; pasty, spotty, wobbly and spikey.
Needless to say I dropped that chocolate bar, snatched the razor (and the exfoliating shower gel) and vowed that I would stop biology before it made me the putrid pea that’s thrown out with the potato peel.
Who was I to accuse mum of being saggy and unshaven? She has been married for 25 years. I am already feeling the repercussions of two years.
Later that night as we sat on the couch and watched TV, I asked my poor boyfriend why boys stayed with girls when they started to turn ugly. His reply? “I guess you don’t really care aye, like you get it on tap, you don’t have to make an effort any more.”
On tap? Well I’m not sure about that but I’m with him on the effort part. It’s certainly less expensive to have a long-term girlfriend: no dinners, no movies, no surprise bouquets of flowers.
And come to think of it, he stopped going to the gym a year ago. Poor me.
So as I settle on the couch with my Mr Right (or at least Mr All-Right) I see why we all turn into our mothers is because the old adage “mum’s know best” is true.
It’s like she always said: Domestic bliss is an oxymoron.
