Stages of Love
I was going to open this story with quotes from some of my favourite love songs, but you’ve probably got ones you prefer. Plus, don’t they sound so corny when you read them in print? Instead, here’s an anecdote: my pet name for my partner is douche, short for douchebag.
His affectionate nickname for me is also douche, also short for douchebag. I don’t even know how it started, but we use it much like you may call your beloved “sweetie”:
“Douche, can you grab some roasted peppers from the freezer?”
“Hey douche, how was your day?”
“Douche, can you open another bottle of Cristal?” (Okay, Prosecco.)
Even as “douche” approaches the more family-friendly “dude” in ubiquity, courtesy of the cultural ascendance of juvenile man-boy humour à la Judd Apatow, I guess the question is, But why would you call your spouse that instead of “honey”?
My answer would be: it suits us. It has for 18 years! I’ve been with my partner (we never married) for more than half my life now, since I was 16, and I can’t imagine life without him or our seven-year-old daughter (who has a more child-appropriate nickname, BTW).
I’m happy to announce that, although it escaped the reach of my parents, I’ve found true love. And for us, it doesn’t involve diamonds and long-stemmed roses and sweetie-this-or-honey-that. Hell, ever since our daughter was born (and until, we keep telling one another, she starts sleepaway summer camp), it doesn’t even involve a lot of, y’know, action. Nonetheless, we love one another deeply after nearly two decades, and every day this love sustains me, it sustains our family, and, atheist that I am, I thank some higher being for finding my douche.
What is love? I think if anything, it’s finding that special person who is as weird—or normal: different strokes, folks, different strokes—as you are and recognizes your unique kinship. But is there only one? A soulmate for life? That’s something everyone from poets to scholars has been trying to figure out for ages.
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Does the soulmate concept mesh with real life? In Canada, approximately 38 percent of marriages end in divorce by the 30th year (with a peak divorce rate kicking in at year three). That’s lower than the “half of all marriages end” statistic commonly bandied around, but still not great. Common-law relationships fall apart with even greater prevalence. Does the high population count in Splitsville mean 62 percent of Canadians marry or cohabitate with someone other than their soulmate/one true love? Or that maybe your grandma was right and there really are plenty of fish in the sea—or a series of them, as you evolve over time? Or maybe that as a culture, we are in danger of just not knowing what love is anymore?
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