Comparisons are rarely kind.

Sitting in A’s house, enjoying the company, the music, the hard spritzer. Excited to be among people and have real conversations. Sublime comes on and I cringe and look at B to see if he notices. He doesn’t appear to be on fire so I guess he hasn’t realized. 

Not even twenty minutes later, he says 

“I like your playlist, A” and I’ve been slightly annoyed by it ever since. Not because he likes her music. No, I’m annoyed because it’s all music I have and listen to and I NEVER make him listen to Sublime but I’ll never get that compliment. 

I smile but my tone feels bitter when I say “huh, you must’ve missed Sublime in there then?”

He agrees he didn’t notice. I’m miffed but am not sure why exactly. Maybe because I try to pick the best songs that I hope he doesn’t hate? Maybe because I put so much thought into it and it’ll never be recognized? He doesn’t even know how I obsess over music and not being annoying to him since I’m here all the time. How I turned off Crime Junkie for months because he put in headphones and I read that as “he hates it”. 

But none of my effort will be noticed because he literally doesn’t even know how much I think about it all. How many things I do go unnoticed and unappreciated? Why am I stifling me for nothing? 

I swear I hit country music hard after that party. I was practically daring him to hate my music and/or me singing along with it. 

I’ll get over it. Eventually. Probably. 

It just makes me think of every other dumb thing I got mad about. Like how I wanted him to get a fb and he finally did and was so excited to tell me but I zoned in on the idea that my girlfriends/neighbors had convinced him. He didn’t listen to me but he listened to them. Something like that. It seems dumb now but I remember being mad and him being confused as to why. 

Or every time I freaked out about never being married if I stayed with him. At one point he seemed sad when I quickly interjected a no, we’re not getting married after a friend asked; I was trying to avoid the inevitable fight. Usually after drinks so I could speak without assuming he’d immediately leave me. It surprised me, that look of almost hurt on his face when I said no so fast. But I also added that we were committed and what would a piece of paper mean? Would it change that? 

But the next time I got all butthurt over it, he seemed annoyed again so I assumed he didn’t want to marry me. 

And now thank the gods everywhere that we didn’t. Cancer would’ve bankrupted me. And maybe that’s a shitty way to look at it. Monetarily. But it’s how I’ve always done. Even when my sappy girly heart wanted nothing more than a day dedicated to me and everything my heart desired as the bride. That was unrealistic. Even as my mean brain tells me I’m just not marriage material. Even as I know D’s dad said he was going to propose. I probably would’ve said yes. We never would have worked even with that paper. But for a minute someone said they “were going to propose” to me and that hit a little hard. I mean the reason why most of my relationships end is because I thought they didn’t want to hang out with me. There was more underlying our break up. It wasn’t just that but I definitely felt neglected. Most of that was probably just our age. Differences in fighting styles. 

Who wants to be marriage material anyways? It’s a lot harder to be extricated from being married on paper. 

Much like the dumb shit I do in my life but only see for the dumbness later, it’ll probably continue to happen. My annoyance will just move onto other mundane things. And maybe that’s just life. Maybe it was just a bad day or time for that particular topic. I suppose the main underlying theme is that I’m not sure how much importance I hold in his world or anyone else’s world really. Am I merely a convenience? I am convenient. I may not be awesomely great but I’m very convenient. 

I’m about to start a long weekend and I’m already wondering how many times I’ll laugh at something only to realize he’s not paying attention at all. Multiple times I’m sure. That probably goes both ways too because then I get passive aggressive and lost in my own iPod game or a story or the damned book of face. 

If only I were perfect. 😂