More than a girlfriend, less than a partner.

That‘s how the main character of “The Ghost” described his relationship. He complained that there wasn’t a word for it. Well dear, we have three languages to search and couldn’t find a suitable word either.

Martin once thought it was very funny to introduce me as his “current” girlfriend. Ha-Ha. No comments.

However, partner is a terrible word. It triggers the same chain of thoughts in most people. “Are you gay? Aha. Then, why don’t you marry?” Moreover, to be a partner as such, I think you should be registered and introducing Martin as my “unregistered” partner could be fun for just a while.

The main problem is that even if we find the right description it would be just that, a description, rather than a word. It ranges from weird to pathetic to call somebody flatmate with benefits, genetic material supply, alternative to celibacy, or long term investment, even when all those things are true.

So the problem stays unsolved. We are damned to keep on defining each other with more or less creative descriptions and hoping for the best. The movie, by the way, great. My regular cinema companion and I enjoyed it a lot.

Sports

Czechs are competitive people. Ask them about their children and they will answer something like „The boy is very good at basket and floorball, but the girl is amazing at swimming and football“. In Spain, if you ask the same, you would obtain the children academic record instead.

I generally try to keep far from Czechs in competition. There are high chances to end up injured or lose respect for your colleagues once you see them in sport clothes.

Anyway, this Saturday I couldn’t refuse to participate in a company sports event. There were seven disciplines to be played in couples, and I barely knew the rules of one of them. Of course, the whole thing was just for fun. I was expecting to lose every match, finish early and devote myself to drinking beer and getting tanned. But it wasn’t so easy...

First of all, losing a match didn’t guarantee that you didn’t have to play anymore. The losers needed to compete again in a all-losers competition. If it wasn’t enough embarrasment to get my ass kicked in every discipline by a mother of three, I was eventually cheered by the team I was competing against. People were nice. I felt a bit like a disadvantaged kid, but they are not to blame for this, only the hours I spent in the library instead of playing football outside.

After over eight hours of losing at ping pong, and floorball, and everything else, when I thought the embarrasment was over, the results were announced. Every score. From the first to the last couple, obviuosly us. I appologized profuselly to my partner, and we went to drawn the defeat in beer.

Once back in the office, still in pain from sports hangover, I was greeted by an email with the scores, and an ironic „how was the competition?“ by my colleagues. I was patient. Let them have their fun. It should be over now. Isn’t it? No, I got a meeting invitation today to attend some diploma giving ceremony tomorrow. And that’s it. I will either call in sick or hide in a meeting room. At least I know now how this competitiveness grows on them. Because I plan to train ping pong and throw penalties until I can recover a bit of dignity the next time.

Language doesn't matter, because always sooner than later, couples create their own. After some time you can tell when that lost look in the morning means he run out of clean underwear, you know what he is going to order in the restaurant, and the moment he calls you can answer "so, you are late, aren't you?" and you can tell what he is going to say next. And how he is going to say it. And in which language.

Language doesn't matter, but it matters so much. Your own particular language. The words you say with your eyes, and your gestures and with everything you do. Because after some time, you not only know but you expect that he knows. That he understands your smile or your lack of it. And knows what to say next. And how to say it. And in what language. And if he doesn't, well, that's is a real communication problem.

In a relationship

So, it is true. I don't have any "relationship status" in facebook.

The thing is, I asked Martin some time ago if he was "in a relationship" and he told me he wasn't aware of having any status. Yes, I didn't need to ask, I could have checked, but you see, we don't really do much facebook at home.

I supposed in such a case, you would be listed as "single", which is unacceptable, because we ARE in a relationship and anything else would be lying. Moreover, amongst our friends, we have a kind of record of "being in a relationship" versus "not being in a relationship" or "being in a marriage" and it is not unusual for normal couples to actually break up for something like not having the correct facebook status.

But now, it turns out, we don't have facebook status. I feel a bit disadvantaged. Should I change it? Or, more exactly, should I force Martin to change it? Taking into account that the simple mention of the word relationship makes him shiver, will this be a step in the direction of acceptance? Or in the direction of getting traumatized and downgrade me to "in something like a relationship that is not a relationship even if it has looked like that for over six years"?

Visitors

This week I had visitors home. It was great but exhausting. I realized how much my childhood friends are like family. I love them very much, but if they stayed one more day in my place, I would need to slaughter them and no one could blame me.

It was tiring even before they arrived. We had to clean up the house, make sure that we had enough supplies and fix the stuff that needed to be fix so they wouldn't have a reason to raise their eyebrows. Sure enough, if Martin and I we were an organized, tidy couple, the kind of people that do shopping and cleaning on Saturday mornings, we would not need to make so much effort, but well... we were obviously not looking for this kind of skill when we found each other in a student party in Eindhoven.

Of course, and the same thing would happen with family, all this cleaning spree could not possibly be enough. Among the general complains that my friends raised during the weekend were the fact that my bathtub is too high, we don't have drapes in the windows, we don't have enough pillows, my umbrellas are too big, my gel produces allergy, the clocks in the house are noisy, the birds in the neighborhood are singing at night and I should go to the hairdresser. Plus, in Czech Republic the sun raises too early.

I love them. I really do. They filled my house "literally" with wine and sweets and it was great to spend time together. But I have to say I felt so relieved when they left... the house was a mess, there were tons of dishes to clean and candy everywhere. We sat in the couch with a bottle of Spanish wine and did nothing but to recover energy. And yes, like family, irrationally, one day after I was already missing them.