How to be (slightly) difficult

You know, in case you needed a few tips.

Last night, I had a terrible argument with my wife, possibly the worst we’ve ever had, and it has left me shaken. I don’t remember how it started, nor even what it was about, you see, because it all happened in a dream.

I have terrible rows with people in dreams. It’s my subconscious, I think. It’s trying to let me know that, deep down, everybody — everybody who is not myself, of course — is a bitterly unreasonable person.

Now, by day, everything’s fine. I go about, content in the knowledge that I’m a sound thinker, with whom no reasonable individual would ever disagree. I’m nonchalant. I don’t like to argue with people, for the same reason I no longer play chess — I’m good at it. The trouble is, beating someone in an argument, or a game of chess, never seems to improve the relationship. In fact, arguing about anything serious just feels a bit like kicking sand in people’s faces.

No, the trouble for me starts when my head hits the pillow. Suddenly, I’m asleep, and every denizen of the astral plane wants to pick a fight with me.

Still, even while sleeping I’m a gentleman, so when, in a dream, I argue with my wife, the argument never exceeds room temperature. She’ll accuse me of eating the last piece of shortbread or something, and I politely point out that she ate it. And so on. We go back and forth about the shortbread, until I mention her father probably ate it, even if he lives on the other side of the world — it’s a dream, remember — whereupon the entire argument goes off the rails.

Mind you, that’s the extent of any conflict I have with my wife. It’s confined to imaginary spaces — my rich inner-life, so to speak. Generally, all women, when they appear in my dreams, are sober-minded and sensible creatures. Men, on the other hand, are a different matter.

For some reason, I seem to have all sorts of physical altercations with men when I’m sleeping. Sometimes it’s my friend Byron, in Pennsylvania. I’ve been tolerant of Byron’s nonsensical attitude and general outlook for going on two decades, and not once have I punched him in the nose, not even while inebriated, when I might feasibly have an excuse. I’m just too good-natured, I think. But asleep? I’ve probably smacked Byron in the chops a few dozen times. My working theory is that my subconscious mind lacks the patience of my waking self.

You know, I’ve never heard any man say, ‘I dreamed about you last night, and frankly, you were rather unpleasant’, or words to that effect, but I’ve heard it from women more times than I can count. It seems to be a fairly male experience to wake up to a frosty silence on a Sunday morning, only to learn hours or days later that he behaved like a complete louse in his spouse’s dreams. I’m not sure why this happens chiefly to men, and I doubt I’ll ever really know.

Years ago, I walked into work, passed by a colleague and said good morning to her. She looked at me, visibly disturbed, and told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was a bad husband to my wife. I asked her what the hell she was talking about, and she explained that, in a dream she’d had the previous evening, I had run off with another woman, abandoning my wife and children, like a complete reprobate. And furthermore, my colleague explained, she would never see me in quite the same light, ever again.

I wandered away in a daze. Then, I sat at my desk and muttered savagely under my breath for an hour because, after all, this sort of thing has happened to me before. In my early twenties, I had a girlfriend named Leanne who was frequently disappointed at me over things I’d done in her dreams. I used to apologize to her, too, if you can believe it.

I think this is just something that happens to some men. You go about your day, living a blameless life, then you get told — out of the blue — that someone has dreamed about you, and furthermore, in that dream you behaved like a dog on a croquet lawn. And now they are just plain disappointed in you, and there’s nothing you can say or do about it. It’s just one of those things that can happen to a person.

Now, to be fair, my wife has never done this. Evidently, I behave admirably in her dreams. Then again, she has always been a reasonable human being, and never given me much reason to complain. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to run away and grow a beard and live in the woods, but that’s only because I’m a man. My chief issue with my wife is that she never gives me any reason to run away. And yes, sometimes that gets me down, because deep down, we all want to be hermits in the woods. It’s something to do with chromosomes or something. All men fantasize about growing beards and chopping down trees; it’s inevitable, in much the same way we all develop a mad tendency to abruptly become fascinated with birds.

(Let me interrupt myself; there was a television show, years ago, called The Sopranos, and in the first episode, this career criminal, a gangster, looks out a window and sees some ducks. He then becomes so enchanted by those ducks that his wife sends him to a therapist. Unfortunately, he meets with a female therapist who is bemused and nonplussed by this sudden, mad fascination with ducks. But a male therapist would have said: ‘Yes, yes, we all do that. Perfectly normal, sadly. Nothing can be done about it, old boy. Still, could be worse. Some of us also fixate on military history. Or model trains. Or, God help us, interesting rocks. But birds? We all get that one. Something to do with chromosomes.’)

The other thing about my wife is, she only needs six minutes to get ready before leaving the house. I need precisely seven minutes — though in fairness, this is because I must obsessively check the doors and windows are all locked. My wife, meanwhile, sits in the car, wearing an expression of fabricated patience. Point is, I’m married to one of the rarest varieties of women, the sort who needs no time to be ready and out the door. In our marriage, it is she that looks at me impatiently, while I exit the house in a rush. So as you can see, no marriage is perfect.

But, and this is my point, I think, why not blame people for the things they do in your dreams? It makes life interesting. It’s fun, and also a bit witchy. It keeps ‘em off balance, which is always a good thing, when you think about it.

Perhaps, if I’m feeling bored later today, I’ll call up my friend Byron, in Pennsylvania, and say: “Dude. I dreamed you kicked a dog last night. Not cool, dude. Not cool.”

Then, I’ll just hang up before it turns into an argument. That’s the thing about arguments; they just never really improve the relationship.

With chaste affection,

Kris St.Gabriel

I made this card roughly 15 years ago. I’ve matured so much, since then...