Hemotional men and driving (long post)
I could always count on Wasband becoming an asshole when driving. He was aggressive on the road and took everything like it was either a challenge or an insult.
*wasn’t that a 🚩when you were still early in the relationship? Yes, it was. I mistakenly thought I could show him that things didn’t have to be so serious, or rage inducing and he would get better. He would learn to regulate himself through my brilliant example. WRONG. Since we’re all diagnosing ourselves and each other on the interwebs—look up explosive rage disorder. Anyway.
I remember us navigating around a neighborhood in Japan when he was driving. We ended up on this one narrow stretch that had only enough room for one car. Not one car and a sidewalk, not one car and a pedestrian, it was one or the other. We ended up behind a young woman and he was losing it. Teeth grinding, fists clenched on the wheel while he lost his mind.
“Why are you angry? Just look at this gorgeous woman walking in front of us!”
Her clothes, sexy business attire. Her shoes, stunning. Her stroll? Pure cat walk. Her hair? Just this smooth dark perfection of waist length silk.
“Look at all this you have to look at” Hopefully the young lady in front of us couldn’t feel the waves of rage pouring off him.
My driving is entirely different. I get lost easily where I shouldn’t. I have zero sense of direction. Using a paper map to navigate from one side of the country to another? No problem. In town? I regularly will miss a turn and have to hang a U turn at the next intersection. This sometimes turns into me wandering around completely lost before I’ve righted myself. I call that a Karen turn. If he were driving these things would be enough to send him spiraling into a rage.
Side note* I really think how I was taught to drive and who taught me to drive has a lot to do with my chill behind the wheel. My first bf taught me to drive. I was 21. Both my brothers had their licenses but neither they nor my father would teach me when I asked. I was too shy in high school to ever put myself in a car full of learners who might be boys.
On our first date he tossed me his keys and said you drive. My flabbers were gasted. Everything was amusing to him. I took a curve/corner almost on two wheels because of this sign and he thought it was great fun.
Okay kids behind the wheel is not the right place to learn the meaning of road signs.
We would regularly take that firebird out to the country and hit 125 mph on some back roads. One time he lost control (but not really because he righted us) going around a corner. We spun in one direction a couple times, came up briefly on two wheels, dropped back down did another couple 360’s in the other direction, again momentarily up in two wheels, dropped back down, did a couple 180’s, fishtailed a bit and bump bump very gently landed in a shallow shoulder. What was I doing through all this? Laughing my ass off. As soon as we stopped he was immediately worried about his insurance rates going up (on the off hand chance anyone saw us) so we jumped out, pushed the car out of the ditch, and drove away. That was some stunt driver level craziness. This is the guy who taught me how to drive standard, how to drive a motorcycle and how to do doughnuts in an iced over parking lot so I’d never be afraid to drive in icy or slippery conditions. Plus, it was good fun.
This was the Nothing Will Ever Phase You school of driving. I highly recommend something similar for all new drivers. Maybe wear a seatbelt even though we sure didn’t because it wasn’t the law yet.
Anywho.
The highway is like a moving stream of consciousness. If you’re tapped into it, nothing surprises you. No blinker? No problem. I knew you were going to do that and I was already ready already for your foolishness.
Back to wasband, I was driving us home from the base one night. We weren’t off the base yet so it was bumper to bumper creeping along at a walkers pace with lots of sitting still. You know when you are talking to someone and you hold their gaze? I was doing that with wasband. He was visibly struggling. His desire to look off to the sidewalk where a this young lady was walking was just killing him. I held his gaze while conversing with him far longer than I needed to on purpose because it’s fair. I finally said, “okay, you can look now.”
“Oh, thank god!”
I laughed and he was all you did that on purpose. Yep. I sure did.
Then, there were the nights he drove home from the base. It was occasionally a solid 30 minute temper tantrum. He joked he knew when to slam on the breaks by my gasp. Eventually, I started taking my glasses off for the drive home. I made sure he knew that no corrective gasping could be relied upon for our drive home. Everything was perfectly blurry and it was like looking into a kaleidoscope. Ohhh, ahhh, look at the pretty lights.
I figured we were always going to make it to wherever our destination was. We might arrive in the car, maybe an ambulance, or even a body bag, but regardless we would get where we were going. It mattered not.
Anywho, all this was to share the word HEMOTIONAL. It’s my first time running across it. Maybe it’s yours too. It’s delicious though, right?
