The suitcase. Dating story no. 37

The older we get, the more baggage of failures we accumulate. It also goes by the name of "life experience". It is what helps idealists who understand nothing about the world, or perhaps about themselves, to classify every event more confidently, to make decisions and to act under uncertainty. That same baggage, however, sometimes slows us down very noticeably.

The biggest and finest suitcase in that baggage holds all our exes, starting, in some cases, almost from nursery school. In it are the failure of first love, and divorces, and tears into the pillow, and mockery, and rejections, and the fear of walking up to someone, and generally everything that goes with the hard ritual of the "mating games of the earth's inhabitants", regardless of sex, nationality or creed. This suitcase is dearer than all the rest, more precious, and so, like the proverbial Pandora's box, it is unpacked every time we risk entering a new relationship. Alas, this suitcase is at times so overfull that, when it opens, the entire contents literally "explode" and tumble out on us so fast that we have no time to work out what is where and, above all, how to use any of it. And the partner, as a rule, has exactly the same suitcase.

Polina remembered perfectly well how that had happened the last time. So now, after several years of deliberately doing without relationships altogether, having registered on a dating site again, she had tried as far as possible to sort through her beloved, overstuffed suitcase of negative experience in advance and in good time.

The thing is, this baggage too can be used wisely. You can, for instance, work out criteria for screening candidates out for certain, such that the suitcase need not be opened at all. Or you can organise its contents so as to be able to predict a partner's behaviour in future. But the sad truth is that people are irrational, unpredictable creatures, so however much you screen and however much you predict, the "explosion" will most likely happen sooner or later anyway, burying the mistress or master of the suitcase under a heap of things and memories that are of no use whatsoever at that moment.

And so now, looking at Ruslan, Polina could not stop thinking about Stepan. Both were very striking personalities, the centre of every gathering, visible from a distance and devilishly charming. They even looked alike: unhurried, expansive movements, a sharp, cold, appraising gaze, a kind of animal magnetism and an astonishing sense of style: they seemed to wear any old nonsense, yet wore it as if it were the height of fashion. Neither could live without social events and evenings with friends, holding the attention of the whole table and telling utterly incredible stories. Both had been to exotic countries Polina had never even dreamed of, and here Stepan even outdid Ruslan: he had knocked about India as a couchsurfer. And both were such romantics that Polina automatically remembered her own naive youth.

They say a cynic is a disappointed romantic. Polina was a terrible cynic, or a very, very disappointed romantic, but next to Ruslan, as next to Stepan in his day, she readily forgot her disappointments and watched and listened with delight. Though there were times when she still could not hold her tongue.

That is exactly how, with caustic and well-aimed remarks, she had caught Stepan's attention seven years before. And from a certain point on he began to put on his show in such a way that she would be sure to approve. They always sat opposite each other, and it seemed to her that he was giving it everything for her sake alone, and then stealing a glance at her reaction: had it worked?

And then Stepan went off to visit his parents and vanished. He came back three months later with stitches in his forearm and a horrifying story about how he had taken a tumble and fallen on the glass he was carrying, and how he had managed to slit his arm open from the base of the palm almost to the elbow. He was saved by a miracle and then sent home with instructions to take tablets and have an injection every day. For some strange, unfathomable reason Stepan decided that of all people, only Polina, who had not the faintest idea about injections, was the one he was prepared to trust with his backside. Polina got cold feet, but resolved bravely to live up to the trust placed in her. So they began to meet every day. Gradually this turned into dinners together and evenings watching films, and then into staying the night. Styopa's cat, whose name was Chaos, decided fairly quickly that sleeping on the sofa with Polina was softer and warmer than on the bed with Stepan. And some time later everything somehow became more serious of its own accord. And when it did, Stepan, without thinking twice, arranged comfortable living conditions for Polina at his place.

This time, with Ruslan, the long phase of moving towards something serious and the stage of questions such as "do we really need this", "what if" and "suppose that" could be skipped with a clear conscience. They had found each other on a dating site. After a short exchange of messages Ruslan suggested meeting in person, because how else do you get to know someone, and anyway, the people who write to each other for a long time are the ones who do not know what they want.

That, perhaps, was the great advantage of their paid dating site: for that kind of money everyone involved ought to know what they want from life. Later Polina read somewhere in a big-name psychology author, Litvak perhaps or someone else, that the only adult way into a relationship is to agree the rules of the game straight away. Back then the two of them had simply, intuitively and openly talked over what they were looking for, what kind of relationship they wanted and what the possible pitfalls might be. On the first date they realised that they liked each other; on the second they agreed on the aims of the relationship and on the conditions that were not negotiable. On the third he showed her where she was going to live, and formally everything was, to all intents and purposes, settled. Then came those very introductions to friends, at which Polina could no longer ignore the similarity between the two men.

You would think: live and be glad. For once in her life, everything about the relationship was known: how, what for, what to expect and what to be ready for. Any question could always be discussed calmly, every problem was solved as it arose, and there was nothing to find fault with in Ruslan's behaviour: he courted her handsomely, without the false tinsel of flowers and candles at dinner, but he always answered her calls, bought what she thought important for the household and introduced her proudly to all his friends, acquaintances and colleagues. His treatment of her was so faultless that at first glance Polina had no need to unpack her "suitcase" at all. Of course, there was no suffering in this relationship, no scenes, no fits of jealousy, none of the agonies of choice that ardent youngsters dream of. Well, they were no longer twenty. But the suitcase had not gone anywhere, and right at the top of it lay those very memories of the previous relationship.

With Stepan there had been no such stability. They were together, and yet somehow they were not. At home they were together, of course. He, like Ruslan after him, had simply decided that from now on they would live together, and that was no longer up for discussion. In public, though, without any agreement between them, they acted as if there were nothing between them. Each talked to their own circle about their own subjects, since all the gripping stories worth telling had already been told to each other, and the routine did not exactly produce new adventures. And even the trips they did take together were more interesting to tell to people who had not been there than to the one who could tell it better than you could. The one thing was that at parties like these they never let each other out of sight, just in case.

Alas, evenings with friends were not an everyday event. The daily, sticky routine mercilessly killed off the magic and the charm that had brought them together. The routine began to throw their differences into relief: in how they saw the world, in social standing, in their attitude to politics and so on. More and more often Polina caught herself thinking that the fine nonsense Stepan spouted in order to impress somebody was, from her point of view, predictable, boring and stupid. And Stepan could not fail to notice how Polina's interest was fading, shifting to work and other things. Polina was going down the standard path of his exes: stop admiring him, start arguing and criticising, and then she might even start competing over who had the bigger balls. So Stepan unpacked his "suitcase" pre-emptively. It was a technique he had already used successfully on his ex-wife, a technique that never failed. To find out how much a woman needs you, you have to stop taking any initiative and see how much initiative comes from her. Not writing and not calling is difficult only for the first couple of days.

Polina remembered from Stepan's stories how he had cut off all initiative in order to check whether his now ex-wife needed him at all, the woman for whose sake he had moved to another city, resigning from a prestigious job back home. She could still hide her disappointment at his predictability, but, alas, that was not the only "warning bell". So she, not suspecting in the least that it was in fact she who was being tested, decided on exactly the same principle to test him: after all, he had told her himself how well it worked. Such like-mindedness would have been funny had it not been so sad. The initiative stopped on both sides, contact ceased. Of its own accord, one might think. It was hard for her, but at work the annual budget was being closed just then and she could "spend the night" there with a clear conscience, and on top of that her parents had gone away on holiday and required their country house to be heated every couple of days so that mould would not set in. A month later, when she received a message saying that since she had no need of Stepan, he had no need of her things in his flat either, she took it as no more than her due.

It was easier than it would have been if it had come as a surprise. In effect she had spent the whole month preparing herself for the idea that he did not need her. But somewhere in the darkest corners of her mind, the ones logic cannot reach, a hope glimmered that he would remember, notice, write or call. It was a strange disappointment, mixed with "it was only a matter of time" and "I knew it all along". At night she cried into her pillow and sometimes complained about him to mutual friends, understanding perfectly well that, first, Stepan was certain it was all her fault, and, second, that mutual friends were not going to fall out with him by trying to convey what she felt. Gradually the pain went away, was packed as one more set of items into her precious suitcase, tamped down, pressed against the other things and almost forgotten, waiting for a suitable moment. Until Ruslan appeared.

Polina understood perfectly well that she was delighted with Ruslan. She understood that they both knew what they wanted from the relationship and what they had agreed. But she also realised that routine sets in in any relationship. And that realisation, like a little key, threw her suitcase of experience open. What would happen when they got tired of each other? What would happen when she stopped finding his jokes witty and his diplomacy brilliant? What would happen when there was too much of the relationship, and for too long? Perhaps children should be had before that point, precisely so that the two of you do not become tired of each other, since children never let you get bored? Whereas the childfree live for their own pleasure: the wife in the kitchen, the husband in the garage, and nobody frets.

She methodically looked for every possible mismatch, every situation in which routine might once again work its "black magic" and destroy the union. Political views, tastes, interests... But here too there was nothing to find fault with. And what struck her most of all was that she herself no longer wanted to build bastions and defences. Everything that could possibly fail to match, they talked over in advance. And in the end she relaxed, for miracles do not ask why they happen. She stopped looking for the catch and set about trying with all her might to be worthy of such a wonderful man.

Ruslan, too, quite quickly compared the information and decided that he was already "too old" for nerves and doubts. He had his own notion of what a "fine family" should look like and of what each of the partners should be doing in it. For his part he did everything that depended on him, and could only marvel at what sixth sense had told Polina all this, so that she acted in the same direction. Even acquaintances who had known them for decades were amazed at such unanimity. They were promised quarrel after quarrel, grievance after grievance, arguments about taking out the rubbish and the rest of it, but every time the two of them managed to come to an agreement, and sometimes there was no need even to negotiate.

– «Do you really never quarrel at all?» friends would ask.

– «Of course we do: I get cross if he takes the rubbish out before I can, and he gets cross if I have rushed ahead and not let him look after me and take care of me», Polina would laugh, while Ruslan enjoyed their friends' reaction.

– «That is just the honeymoon phase you are in!» friends grumbled, and predicted that it would pass. And still it did not pass.

Polina proudly sorted out what was left in her suitcase of memories and experience, put the suitcase itself away on a mental shelf and promised herself simply to enjoy life. And although, having sorted out her own "suitcase", she noticed similar suitcases in friends and acquaintances every time, she never did notice such a "suitcase" in Ruslan. In the end she decided that he had probably taken his own suitcase in hand and sorted it out at some point too. That, perhaps, is why he too noticed those "suitcase explosions" in their friends every time, and every time thanked Polina for not being as nervy and jumpy as all of them. On balance, a suitcase is useful after all. It just has to be kept clean and tidy. And for that everyone is responsible themselves.