Cloying Obnoxious Mushiness Warning

Gag alert. No, seriously. Just wait. Gray and I...we don't fight.

November marks the anniversary of his moving in with me and in that time, there's been maybe two instances of mild bickering. That lasted like 30 seconds. It's totally disgusting, I know. It's also really odd because before Gray, I was married to a man who took fighting very seriously. We were together 8 years and I think we spent the better part of them yelling at each other. And the make-up sex sucked. Naturally, if I wasn't fighting for the make-up sex, I figured I was doomed to a life of domestic strife. That both of my parents were divorced (and not just from each other) only confirmed my suspicion. The fighting, it seemed to be inevitable. I pictured myself as that old lady who likes to hit people with cast-iron frying pans, wave around kitchen knives and screamthreats at my useless, arm-chair bound husband. Threats involving castration and another 30 years of marriage to me.

As it turns out, I'm not a fighter. It makes me feel icky. And sort of like I'm drowning (or how I think I would feel if I were drowning, because as a live person, I have never been drowned, and for that I am thankful). I'm almost entirely non-confrontational (spineless) and prefer to compromise (doormat style) rather than argue. Despite what you might think, based on my mad whining skills exhibited here, I'm relatively low-maintenance as far as girlfriends go. I'm like the Toyota of girlfriends. Except that I'm American. It also helps that Gray is about as laid back as a man can possibly be. Also, he takes pride in being the antithesis of my ex-husband (for which I am also thankful).

We understand each other pretty well. Sometimes this extends to the creepy reading each other's minds thing, which I could live without, but again - I compromised. Plus, it's not like some kind of a switch we can turn off and on at will, and probably stems more from the massive amounts of time spent together than from any kind of psychic abilities. If I had any psychic abilities, I'm pretty sure I'd be able to avoid running into doors, tripping over things, taking jobs with companies that are about to undergo massive layoffs. That kind of thing, that's what psychic abilities are useful for.

A list of other reasons we probably don't fight:

• We share a love of porn and strip clubs, which totally averts the whole "degrading to women, you don't love me, you think I'm fat, I'm not swallowing that" argument (and is totally hot, might I add).
• We don't share bank accounts. That one is self-explanatory.
• His friends don't suck. They don't call me at 2am and ask me to pick them up downtown because they lost their car and they all got separated from each other and they don't know where they are but they still want me to drive downtown in a stick shift truck that I don't know how to operate, and walk up and down the blocks of bars searching for 3 drunk fools among hundreds of drunk fools (the most depressing Where's Waldo ever) after bar close in the ghetto, only to call after an hour to tell me they caught a cab home but thanks anyways. And if they did, he wouldn't think it was funny. That never happened, I just made that right up out of thin air. Honest.
• My friends don't suck. But for much less dramatic reasons.
• When it comes down to a choice of doing what I want to do or what he wants to, I win by default because he derives as much pleasure from making me happy as he does from doing what he wants to do. (Maybe he needs some therapy?)
• He always wipes the pee off the toilet.
• I always leave the room to fart. Well, almost always.
• We like the same music, movies, and activities.
• We agree to disagree on the topic of spirituality and the afterlife (he believes, I don't)
• He's exactly the same person when he's drunk.
• He thinks it's cute that I'm a tiny bit pushy when I'm drunk.
• We both hate the Olympics.
• We both hate seafood.
• We are both double jointed. Not really, but it sounds like fun!
• He almost never throws up. He's like Seinfeld, and trust me - I've got my eyes peeled for that damned black and white cookie. This one might sound odd, but puking freaks me out and makes me more likely to behave irrationally. A kind of "every man for himself" mentality.
• We're not married.

So aside from those glaringly obvious reasons, I've often wondered why we get along so well. It's one of the great mysteries of modern times, right up there behind Why Do People Eat Beets? and Got Milk? I hate to say it, but I'm afraid it might come down to all the ooey, gooey crap like emotional maturity and mutual respect for each other and undying physical attraction.

Or it may be the Xanax.