He Wanted to Snuggle, I Wanted to Do Laundry

The Absence of Me Time

man and woman kissing beside an airplane
man and woman kissing beside an airplane
(Image credit: Ryan Christensen)

The trouble with Matt and me wasn't so much the lack of "we" time as the absence of "me" time. My boyfriend was in law school outside Philadelphia while I worked in New York. I'd hop the train down to see him, and we'd spend 48 hours watching episodes of Entourage in his suburban apartment building, which landed aesthetically somewhere between my freshman dorm and a retirement home. And we'd just be together. It was blissful, but what it meant for me was that back in New York, I had between 8 and 9 p.m. on weekdays-and the very rare actual lunch break-to clean my apartment, buy my mom a birthday present, go to yoga, sneak in a dinner with friends, refill prescriptions, and treat myself to a mani pedi. When Friday night would roll around and Matt was ready for our self imposed house arrest, I often couldn't shake the sheer longing to be cleaning out my closet. I imagined stolen moments in downward dog, got a frisson at the thought of loading up a grocery cart at Trader Joe's. Twisted? Maybe. But now that Matt and I live together, I still feel like getting him out of his shorts isn't that much hotter than getting them washed.