I wonder how many relationships are ruined over a misunderstanding. One side thinks they are fighting about X, the other thinks they are fighting about Y, and so of course they can only talk past each other until they give up or part ways. As much as I hate the thought of relationships ending for any reason, the thought that a relationship could end because nobody happened upon the truth is unbearable.
The Russian lover and I had an argument this morning; it was birthed mostly out of stress, tiredness, and ugly weather. Also, the just-coming-off-my-period sex drought didn't help. In any relationship, there is a fucking to fighting ratio that must always be at equilibrium. If you aren't fucking, you're fighting. And vice versa. Of course, it's better to be fucking.
I usually try in vain to initiate sex in the middle of an argument, typically at the worst possible moment and in a manner that resembles not so much a demanding angry lust as a desperate repentant whoring. The Russian lover, having had his share of angry sex in his life, is never impressed, much less aroused, by my efforts. Mennonites are raised never to express either their anger or their sexuality, which would explain why my efforts to intertwine the expression of both are laughable.
In any event, after we had reasonably worked things out (no thanks to my sad, sad attempt to have us fuck it out), it came out that the Russian lover had interpreted my earlier, to him offensive, actions as something completely other than what they were. This distressed me to no end; not just because the attitude he perceived was so awful, but because it was completely untrue.
There are many, many advantages to dating a man who has been around the block, then around the block again, then decided to just go ahead and buy the block. He's got a full bag of tricks in the bedroom and a near limitless amount of patience with and understanding of the female condition. He has accumulated a giant matrix of women's behavior through his experience, and to understand the way a woman is acting he simply plugs the inputs into the matrix and voila, mystery solved.
Except when he gets it completely wrong. Except when he's dating a recovering Mennonite who was raised in the back woods, who didn't have a boyfriend until she was almost 20, whose behavior on some counts is still strangely random because she's at least five years developmentally behind her peers while trying to live like she's five years ahead. Then, sometimes, his evaluation of her actions is wildly off the mark and, depending on the balance of the fuck-to-fight ratio at the time, a heated argument ensues.
Even so...we try. I try to be less random, he tries not to read the worst into my randomness. Because the only thing worse than not understanding each other is not even trying to understand each other, and believing you always know everything the other one is about. I think love is the openness to let another continue to surprise you in good ways, even when they sometimes disappoint you.