Cutest Couple, an Individualist’s Dilemma

(A Love Story)

In high school, my senior year superlative in the yearbook was a shared victory. My then-boyfriend and I, together for over a year at that point, won Cutest Couple. It wasn’t the most satisfying win. 

It’s not like I was vying for a different category. As co-editor of the yearbook, I was happy enough just making sure some photos of myself and my friends made it into collages. Getting voted for a superlative meant you were either a) valedictorian (Most Likely to Succeed) or b) hot and popular (Best Hair, Nicest Eyes, Most Athletic, etc.). I was neither. My high school experience was fine. Good, even. I look back fondly, but not particularly often. 

If I had to win a superlative, though, Cutest Couple was not one I would have picked for myself. I would have wanted one that actually said something about me, and not just my circumstance of being one of the few seniors also dating another senior at the time. Carrying something like Most Likely to Succeed or Most Eccentric (a real category) into college was, at least, an ice breaker. It could be something to boast about or laugh about. Simply having a boyfriend was not, in fact, an accomplishment. Not to me.

Last month, I got married. People congratulate me when I say that. It manages to catch me by surprise every time. Having a husband does not feel like an accomplishment any more than having a boyfriend in high school did, but I take it in the spirit it’s given and say thank you.

My senior superlative, and my discomfort about it, has more or less defined my relationship to dating, whether I’ve wanted it to or not. My romantic life since high school has been largely in the form of serial monogamy. Throughout most of my adult (and adolescent) life, I’ve been somebody’s girlfriend, the other half to a cute couple, antithetical to how I’d always seen myself while never really knowing myself any other way. 

The thing is, I like this life. I like being settled and jumping right to the serious relationship part without the endless first dates part. I have no regrets. Therein lies my unease.

Despite my pre-determined fate of being one half of a cute couple, in every relationship I’ve had, at some point being reminded I was part of a couple would momentarily stun me. Not because I didn’t want to be with the person I was with, but because it just didn’t sound right. An instinct would kick in to correct them before remembering there was nothing to correct. 

I was one half of a couple, but I was also a whole person and I found that way too often, it was the coupled part of me that seemed to matter more to people. I spent a couple of years being single in my late twenties, and it was great. I focused on my career and hobbies and dated a little bit but purposely avoided serious relationship territory. The question I got asked most often during this time was when I’d start dating again. Wasn’t I lonely? Wasn’t I just so sad to not have a boyfriend anymore? This came from family more than friends, but as a woman, I knew this also came from society at large. A few years of being single and it was as if I had to return to the kids’ table. Come back when you’re ready to conform, the message seemed to say.

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My husband and I like to listen to podcasts together. One of them is Amy Poehler’s Good Hang. In a recent episode, she talked about her enneagram number, a thing I had not heard of until she mentioned it. Like a Meyers-Briggs assessment (INFJ here!), this is sort of a fun nonsense thing that’s meant to tell you who you are. We both took the free online test (this one) and we both got the same result: Number 4 - The Individualist. 

In the enneagram world, Individualists are described as “authentic and highly sensitive people who are always in search of a higher purpose.” My husband decided that made total sense for him and proceeded to not think about it ever again. I, however, took the test twice because I did not agree and felt misunderstood. (Classic Individualist!) 

I don’t put too much stock into personality tests like this. They are fun to think about, but usually, like astrology, every category can apply to everyone in the right context. And yet. I can’t deny the term resonated. It did, after all, explain a lot of things.

My inner conflict is not as strong these days; this comes naturally with maturity and developing the kind of confidence in myself I wish I had in my twenties. But, it still flairs up. And while I’m OK with being congratulated on marrying the man I already considered my husband, I still bristle at the larger implication that suddenly, finally, our relationship is real. Or that I have somehow become the right kind of adult, and the right kind of woman, just for signing a marriage license. 

It helps that the husband in question is a man who, when told I’d be writing this and did he want to read it before I pressed Send, told me to express myself however I wanted, no approval necessary. A man who compliments me, but doesn’t complete me. The way it should be. Just two (cute) Individualists in love. 

FUN STUFF:

What I'm Reading: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

What I'm Watching: The Lowdown (Hulu/FX)

What I'm Listening To: The Cranberries, MTV Unplugged

What I'm Eating: Chocolate