Mike Dojc

RELATIONSHIPS

Instructions For Living--Giving Your Lover Driving Directions

5/19/2006

You’re hunting for a pick-your-own apple orchard in the country to stock up your fridge with baskets of Red Delicious and Macintosh.

You’re hunting for a pick-your-own apple orchard in the country to stock up your fridge with baskets of Red Delicious and Macintosh. If your lover is behind the wheel, that makes you “the navigator”, and while the name may conjure up adolescent fantasies of zooming through the cosmos, trigger finger itching to blast incoming asteroids, in the grown up world you’re just the keeper of the map.

You prime directive: keep your eyes peeled for oncoming signage to verify that you indeed know where you are, and have a reasonable idea where you are going. Think of navigating as giving a full body massage. Be thorough. Don’t just stare out the scenic side, you don’t want to miss anything.

Get caught up bugging out over a sleek Aston Martin and you’ll risk missing a road closure indicator or an exit which can derail your romantic afternoon with a “where the hell are we now?” panic attack followed by a “let’s stop for directions,” and “no we’re cool, I got it” vinegary pissing match putting you both in that precarious purgatory somewhere between a breakup and relationship-reaffirming makeup sex.

If you still end up blindly raging down an unknown road, windows steaming up due to hot- and-bothered-in-a-bad-way wordplay, then take the fight out of the car. Playing the blame game on the road is as dangerous as flossing your teeth while changing lanes. Pull over at a gas station, preferably one with a Tim Horton’s(NYSE: THI) so you can cool your motors with an Ice Cap, then smack lips and get back on the road.

“If you are directionless on the road of life, your relationship road is at an intersection.”
–Zen Couples Koan

This article first ran in 2 Magazine

Copyright © Mike Dojc, 2006