Grey. Grey. Grey.

It’s a rainy Thursday and as I sit here with a steaming hot chocolate, complete with mini marshmallows (yes I’m still five), it seems the perfect opportunity to reflect on the other immature aspects of my life. Yep, you all guessed right. I’m ranting about grey relationships yet again. Cut me some slack. Today the sky’s grey, the rain’s grey, my sheets are grey (they used to be white, I need to wash them, I realize that’s gross). Grey is inevitably on my mind. So using my Milanese ex-fantasy man Grin as an example, I’m going to go over some of the common symptoms that stem from dysfunctional big city relationships, all of which I suffered through with him, some of which still plague me now:

1. The Silent Treatment: Remember that game you used to play at age eight when after losing a fight with your brother or sister (usually over some glossy toy or gross piece of play dough) you’d give them the ‘silent treatment’ until your bruised ego felt like it had ‘punished’ them for an adequate amount of time? While we’re no longer playing with Barbie’s (hopefully), we still treat our grey relationship partners in the same irrationally emotional way we did our siblings. By not calling them, not texting them, not emailing them you’re both protecting yourself from being hurt when they potentially don’t respond and winning in the infantile ‘silent treatment game’ sense of victory. This transitions beautifully into our next symptom.

2. Playing to Win: Often when I post about grey / faux relationships, I’m surprised to receive reader comments encouraging me to confess my true feelings for my partner, talk it out with him, take it to the next level – all reasonable suggestions if one’s goal was to live happily ever after or fall in love. I feel in all my writing about this topic, I’ve evidently failed to properly illustrate on what a high level of immaturity the grey dynamic operates. Stability, normalcy and happiness aren’t the goals here. People in grey relationships are too afraid to fall in love. They’re terrified of living happily ever after. Happily ever after, despite its charming connotations, is frighteningly final, and grey relationship participants tend to be commitment phobic. The implicit goal may be to get closer to another human being, but the explicit goal is to win. The dysfunctional relationship rule book clearly states that whichever entity appears to care less about the relationship is considered the winner. Let’s look at an example:

After five days of giving one another the silent treatment, Grin texts me for an aperitivo. Grin initiated contact (+10 points for me) with a detailed plan for getting together as opposed to a vague ‘how are you’ (an additional +15 points for me). He’s putting himself on the line.

I happen to be busy that night (+12 points for me – I’m seemingly not prioritizing him), but phone to thank him for the invite (phoning means reaching out / caring so minus 15 points for me, + 12 points for him.)

The ultimate goal is to keep both our scores equal. If one person seems to care more than the other, things get unbalanced and someone tends to freak out and disappear. The grey relationship is destroyed. Ideally, both your scores rise at a matching rate (I mean if your scores didn’t rise you’d never see one another at all.)

So while this game may seem cruel, it’s actually a process of you both nurturing for your faux relationship so it can continue to exist at a level of intimacy you’re both comfortable with. And while the whole score keeping thing may seem confusing, it’s actually not at all. Most 21st century Manhatteners are capable of making virtually all of these calculations subconsciously. Often I don’t even think we know we’re doing it, but in a grey relationship, someone’s always keeping score. There is self-imposed control. I mean, if you just let things just play out naturally you might find yourself actually being intimate with someone (God forbid!), which in the dating game of most major metropolises is a no-no.

3. Pacing Intimacy: Pacing intimacy has a lot to do with knowing how to properly keep score. It also requires obeying certain boundaries, some of which I explored in Please Don’t Be Nice. Even though you may be crazy about this person, you have to keep in mind that you’re not each other’s significant other. The grey relationship is about fun, excitement, adrenaline, and intensely high doses of middle school cattiness. It’s not about companionship. Your partner cannot become to ‘real’ to you. I mean if you start shoe shopping together you’re just a hop, skip and a jump away from him farting in your face and you no longer shaving your legs. Or as a friend of mine put it:

“If you spend more than fourteen consecutive hours together, you’re fucked.”

Fucked in what sense? You may thoroughly enjoy each other's company, but going out to dinner or brunch several days a week is just crossing a line. You might actually start to feel like boyfriend and girlfriend (again, God forbid).

4. Hide and Seek: And because there are so many questions you’d like to ask your grey relationship partner, but know you can’t (doing so would obliterate the cloudy grayness in which you both feel comfortable), you try to attain knowledge about them indirectly from other sources. Like:

My friend (casually): Hey, you know I ran in Grin the other night at Pacha.

Me (suddenly sweating bullets): Wait. When? Where? At what time exactly? Who was he with? A girl? Several girls? What was he wearing? Dressed down or dressed up? Did he ask about me? Was he wearing jeans or dress pants? What was your exact conversation word by word? Tell me Godammit!!!!

Since I’d often be paranoid Grin was out partying when he claimed to be at home, I’d go out when I’d normally stay in and go to as many Milanese clubs and bars as physically possible with our common friends, scouring each location to make sure he wasn’t there. He never would be and I’d come home, exhausted but victorious. Mature, right?



And at the end of the day, I think one of the reasons dysfunctional relationships are so common is that they allow us to recapture the joys of childhood immaturity. These adrenaline-based affairs may be absurd, but they help us feel like kids again. The relationship games we play are rarely stressful, they’re somehow as relaxing and familiar as a game of tag, a battle of hide-and-seek.

So far, that’s the only explanation I’ve come up with about why we keep coming back for more.

Please Don’t Be Nice

So you have a relationship that’s all about fun and all about sex. You don’t share problems. You don’t share morning coffee. And you especially don’t share distressing life information. Weighty words like ‘girlfriend,’ ‘boyfriend,’ and ‘commitment’ don’t exist in the stratosphere of this non-relationship. It’s that fake grey relationship that I’m perpetually harping on about, primarily because I’ve so many times been a willing victim of it. The only requirement in this self-indulgent love affair is to revel in each other while partying like rock stars. It’s childlike. It’s sexy. It’s simple. And by not adhering to the rules of a real relationship, you still have tons of free ‘single’ time to be an ambitious workaholic, get your laundry done, and watch tons of bad TV while giving yourself at home facial treatments. Life is near perfect.

And then something terrible happens.

A teeny tiny section of your sternum (yes, I truly believe this particular sentiment originates in the sternum) begins to wonder: ‘What if?’

What if this person (who I don’t even really know), who I always have so much fun with (mainly because there’s a lot of alcohol involved) is actually boyfriend (What? Who said that?) material? What if this grey relationship was just a romantic detour and our lifelines are actually leisurely converging? The slow but steady blossoming of something wonderful. Wonderful in the sense that we massage each other’s feet while commiserating on our taxing work-party schedule, not so much wonderful in the sense of kids and a white picket fence (come on, I’m delusional not insane).

All the questions and comments above exist in a realm I like to call ‘Wow That Girl’s Totally Deluded’ or charmingly abbreviated, WTGTD. I can be aware of my mind creeping over into WTGTD territory, yet somehow still slip into this not-so-even-appealing fantasy until I feel like a woman possessed by the object of my affection. What spurs this dreadful sickness nastier than a full-on flue? What upset the ‘no strings attached’ equilibrium my grey relationship existed in so healthily before?

In my case, it happened over early morning / late night (think 4:30 am) breakfast with me, Mr. Grey, and two friends. Why we were even having breakfast together was inappropriate to the nature of our dysfunctional relationship in the first place. Thank God we had other people with us so we couldn’t be mistaken for an actual couple. I guess we let the intimacy of the situation slide since the sun wasn’t up and we still both had house music echo ringing through our ears. Club? Restaurant? What’s the difference.

The four of us were laughing and drinking. My emotions were intact and everything was going swimmingly until my pizza arrived, which had been mistakenly covered with anchovies. I hate anchovies. And I didn’t order them. But I guess waitresses who work at five in the morning think an error on an order here and there won’t come back to haunt them since the majority of patrons in the restaurant are too drunk to form sentences. Yet before I could politely bitch about the mix-up, our uniformed server had spun on her heel to attend to some gorilla-like men by the bar. Believe it or not, this wasn’t the problem. The problem is what happened next.

In a quick moment, Mr. Grey somehow understood my anchovy predicament, even though I hadn’t the time to fully voice my complaint to our waitress. He slid the pizza toward him, and painstakingly embarked on the mission of removing each anchovy from its bed of cheese. All this without a word. And when he finished, he sprinkled some Parmesan on the pie to kill the anchovy flavor. He proceeded to methodically cut the first few slices for me as if I were an incapable little girl. He then returned the pizza to me with a smile.

Now don’t get me wrong, time did not stand still and romantic music didn’t suddenly swell. During this surprisingly affectionate moment, conversation continued between us and our friends as usual. But as I started eating, I knew something had changed. It’s not just that Mr. Grey and I aren’t tender with one another; I don’t think he’s tender in general. I’d never seen him do something so simple and yet so caring with anyone. Ever. And it got to me. It got under my skin just like that whole pizza got into my stomach. And from then on I knew I was screwed.

Why did he have to be nice, and by consequence, three-dimensional and attractive? When our relationship functioned so splendidly on uncomplicated bouts of random fun? The whole thing got me thinking about him in sappy WTGTD language. And I really wish that acronym had vowels so I could effectively chant it to myself on a day-to-day basis as a reminder not to act like a total douche. Because it’s in those moments that you realize you’re not in a super part-time relationship that leaves you oodles of “you time.” You’re in a truly real grey relationship: despite how much your psyche may protest, emotions are involved.

For the ladies and gents who can keep this stuff super straight all the time, my hat’s off to you. But I have a hunch that for most of us, it’s never than simple. At the end of the day, if you’re lucky, you can console yourself with the fact that your partner’s probably just as confused as you are.

My Dating Ego

Let’s all take a moment, close our eyes, and imagine a solar system in which our dating life and our ego were not intrinsically intertwined. What a simpler universe that would be. I’m guessing that in such a world, people actually say what’s on their mind and store bought CDs are actually easy to open. While I’ve strived to create such a world of emotional sanity for myself, it ain’t happening. Why? Because the older and theoretically wiser I get, the more I realize my ego is the evil brute force behind ninety nine percent of the bad decisions in my life – especially romantic ones.

Let’s use as an example the utterly pathetic love story that inspired me to write ‘The Grey Relationship." In me and my partner’s agonizingly subtle grey relationship break-up, he put the sexual breaks on the relationship before I did. Had I considered doing the same thing weeks, if not months earlier? Yes. Did I know this relationship was unhealthy and going nowhere? Yes. Was I hoping it would end soon anyway? Absolutely. Yet naturally I was filled with pure outrage when he decided we should maneuver toward the land of ‘just friends’ before me. Instead of being happy I put yet another worthless relationship behind me without a difficult and uncomfortable confrontation, I just feel rejected. My pesky ego then begins thumping through every fiber of my body screaming: ‘work to get this guy back.’ Suddenly, Mr. Wrong is Mr. Hard to Get. And every girl loves a challenge. An inner dialogue ensues that goes something like this:

Me: Why would I want this dysfunctional grey relationship to continue? The sex wasn’t even good enough to make it worthwhile.
My Ego: I bet the sex is good with the new Norwegian super model he dumped you for.
Me: He knew we mutually wanted to end things. It was a tacit understanding. He just took the initiative.
My Ego: ‘Tacit understanding.’ The drugs you’re deluding yourself with must be really powerful. Wake up! He doesn’t want you anymore.
Me: That’s fine. I knew this wouldn’t work out from the get-go. And I’m sure my hips have nothing to do with it.
My Ego: But how you smell might.
Me: He’s fine with the way I smell. At least…he was…
My Ego: Explain all the wasted hours envisioning what beautiful children you’d have together?
Me: We WOULD have beautiful children, so what?
My Ego: Honey, you’re future husband just DUMPED you like your months of faux intimacy didn’t even matter.
Me: (finally in nervous breakdown mode) GAAAAA! Do you think if I wear my red cocktail dress and slut heels tonight he’ll take me back?
My Ego: It’s worth a shot.

Hence my pride prevents me from acting rationally and letting a relationship come to its natural end. I think our female ego is one of the biggest obstacles to a clean break-up, right next to loneliness. And sure sexual rejection hurts, but when it’s in both of your best interests, you’d think a mature, intelligent human being would get over that and move on. Instead, I end up performing the emotional equivalent of running into a wall repeatedly until I slither, beat-up, into the fetal position in the corner, feeling rejected now not once, but ten times. I think this horrific image transitions into my next frightening, existential question: How much of why we date someone in the first place has to do with them, and how much has to do with our overly ambitious pride?

I’ll be first in line to admit that often, subconsciously, I’m attracted to someone for all the wrong reasons – chiefly being that they make ME look good instead of that they are good FOR me. Men that I feel make me look good are usually handsome types that can pull off wearing white linen pants or headbands. Neither of those qualifications mean they’re
a) literate
b) tolerable or
c) a good match for me
Therefore my initial attraction to the opposite sex is fundamentally distorted from the beginning thanks to my exhibitionist side forcing me to care so much about what the outside world thinks. When it comes to micromanaging and especially ending dysfunctional relationships, my evil ego whispers in my ear that I shouldn’t be letting that ‘catch’ get away. In reality, my ‘catch’ is an essentially unemployed partying playboy with no personality, no sensitivity, and no future that doesn’t involve jumping up and down on club banquette couches.

How to tame the ego? That’s another topic for another day. I’ll get back to you when I have some answers.