After years of green lighting and red lighting each other’s relationships, SisterKaty and I finally discussed our meddling methodology out loud yesterday. We’ve been operating under this system for over 10 years now, and we had never talked about it before. Yesterday we were sitting on the back porch with her best friend, talking about her latest relationship and its (pending? not entirely sure if it’s all the way over yet…) end. The friend didn’t understand why I was taking such ownership in the relationship’s demise until we explained the system.
SisterKaty and I have a special bond that extends beyond a typical sister-type relationship. Each of us holds The Nix Cards in the others relationships. Katy loathed every single boy that I ever dated until I started dating Zack. The moment she decided that she didn’t like X boyfriend (usually nothing personal against the boy, she just hated Sarah+the boy), she would declare her hatred of him to me, which inferred that she never wanted to hear anything about our relationship again. She didn’t want to know about any of the love gushing, nor any of the brokenheartedness. There have been at least a half a dozen times that she just walked up to me and said, “NO MORE.” I guess for a normal sister, that might not be such a big deal. But Katy has been my one of my best friends for more years than I can remember. So not only was boyX not loved by all members of my family (strike 1), I wasn’t able to discuss my relationship with my best friend (strike 2), and after I considered whatever caused strikes 1 & 2, I usually saw that she had a valid point (strike 3). Sometimes that progression took a few months, but it never failed. I married the only guy that Katy approved of; this is not entirely coincidental.
Inversely, I have the Nix Card for Katy’s relationships. Because Katy is light years more stubborn than I am, I can’t tell her in the same way as she told me. When she’s in a relationship that I don’t really dig (which has been all but one, apparently the Nix Card doesn’t work in reverse…yet) I deal with it. I watch her go through all the stages. There’s a Hanging Out Stage, the Sushi Stage, The Talking About Him All The Time On Accident Stage, the Integrating His Clothing Into Her Wardrobe Stage, and the Moderate Exclusivity Stage. (Katy’s stages, as you may have noticed, are totally bonkers and way different than the normal stages of meet, express interest, date, and boyfriend/girlfriend. That’s cause she’s a.) weird, and b.) totally commitment phobic.) Somewhere around the Constantly Mentioning His Name Stage, I say something like, “Hey, I noticed that you’re dating a new boy.” That’s when I get to meet him, and slowly but surely get to know him. Because Katy doesn’t date for looks, or based upon any guide in particular that I can decipher, every guy she dates is wildly different than the last. She can be interested in anyone, ranging from full-on artists with drawing skills that make up for his overt emotions and inability to function with the general public, to sports loving DUDE dudes–guys that have never picked up a pen to draw in their lives, but can totally drag her around the state showing her the coolest places to bike, where the best local BBQ is, and how to properly spit out sunflower seeds with a machine-gun sound effect. When she starts mentioning a new boy, I never ever know what’s going to show up on my doorstep. All I know is that it’s going to be interesting.
I guess that’s why I go along for the ride. I hang out with him, get to know him, and I gather evidence as to whether or not he’s a douche bag. Even though I know that I hold the Nix Card, there are things that I don’t know about the card, like much power it really has. Can the power be lost? Does it have a limited number of Nixes? Would it work if I Nixed at the start of the relationship instead of waiting for a flaw to present itself? I just don’t know these things. For that reason, I play my cards very close to the chest. I usually try to let the relationship play it’s natural course, unless I can see that it is a disaster waiting to happen. When she dates guys that are really into France and berets, I let those go. I know that she gets bored easily, and she’s never been into finger sandwiches. When she dates guys that call her every 20 minutes and she spends half the phone call saying things that sound like apologies, make-shift lies, or unnecessary explanations, and/or when that guy starts FREAKING ME OUT, I lay down the card. (For that particular boy, our whole family actually made picket lines and circled her work until she called him and broke it off. We’re real subtle that way.) But with the average guy that isn’t up to snuff, but not for any overt and scared-for-her-safety sort of a reason, I (painstakingly) to wait for her to start to get bored. Eventually, he’ll do something wrong–call to many times, send her too many text messages, infringe on her time/space in some way. When she tells me about it, that’s when I have to sneak in the Nix card. I’ll say something like, “Yeah, Dude is all up in your business way too much. And also, you should totally break up with him.” BOOM. Card played. Historically, when the roles were reversed, I usually ended it that night in a big crying mess with many hours spent on the phone whilst simultaneously scraping my boils with clay pots. Katy just says something like, “Yeah. I should.” Sometimes it takes 2 weeks or a month, but she eventually breaks it off. And we all celebrate.
…. Right until we realize that there’s a line of dudes at our front door who caught wind that KATY IS SINGLE, and do you want some SUSHI?
