The pattern I'm used to with unfortunate circumstances is, one complains about it for a while, then one figures out ways to work around it, then one gets used to it. My wife does not do this. Three are some relatively minor things she appears to be bizarrely unable to accept. I don't understand why, and she doesn't understand how I don't understand. If you also have things you cannot get used to, and you do understand why, can you explain it to me?
Examples of what I mean by getting used to things:
- I'm not literate in the local language. Now I have to work as a handyman instead of an electrical engineer. But I guess it pays the bills, and hey, my pay includes use of an apartment in the basement.
- It takes an hour to get to anywhere that'll sell me rice in containers larger than 4 oz. But they do have lots of potatoes, so once I figure out how to store and cook potatoes it's not hard to get enough to eat.
- It is way too hot. I just have to resign myself to spending a couple months of the year sitting very still, nearly naked, drinking copiously, and not even peeing that much. Also, I'd probably better learn to drink cold water, and sleep on the bare springs wrapped in a wet sheet. Thank goodness for the internet.
Other than my wife, this is what everyone I know does.
Examples of not getting used to things:
- People stand too close to me on the subway. I will insist on waiting to see if the next train is less crowded.
- It's too cold. I will wear a bathrobe over my short-sleeved shirt and complain about how cold I am. (This one's not even a change: she grew up in an even colder climate.)
- I don't like the taste of (very many cheap, reliably available, nutritious foods). I will pay 4-8 times more for less nutritious food, or else go hungry if that store is closed, even though I'm already so underweight my doctor is advising me to drink Ensure and eat ice cream.
And my wife has many redeeming qualities, so I've mostly just gotten used to the various constraints she places on my lifestyle. I bring a book in case she decides to wait for a later train. We close the windows and keep a little electric heating element in the bed. I'm learning recipes for various foods she will eat, and we make her a smoothie every night to drink on the train the next morning. Etc.
But I'm totally baffled by how this happens. She's been riding these subways for years. She's been in climates this cold her entire life. She went to undergrad in a city hundreds of miles away from where she grew up, where surely the local groceries were priced differently. Shouldn't she have gotten used to it by now?
And, to be clear, these are far from the only examples. She just appears, in general, not to get used to things.
I have tried asking her. She says things like, "But it's cold!" and "It's just too crowded!" and looks at me as if that must surely explain everything. It doesn't, to me.
So I guess I'm looking for someone who, like my wife, doesn't get used to things, but, unlike my wife, understands how he doesn't. |
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