By Taylor Jenkins Reid
Before I got married, I thought married couples spent their weekends doing things like double dates and cocktail parties. But being married has taught me that marriage is a little bit more low key. Here are 10 steps for acting like a married couple on a Friday night:
1. Get home from work and be ecstatic that you didn’t make any plans. Change into your stained sweatpants.
2. Ask your spouse if they want to go out to dinner even though you know you’re going to talk them into staying in. Realize there was never any chance they’d want to leave the house anyway. Remember this is why you fell in love with them.
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3. Open up the food delivery app and go back and forth about whether to get Chinese food or Pizza. Opt for pizza because, hello, it’s pizza.
4. Inhale the food on the couch. Even though you both have overeaten, look at each other and say, “Do you want ice cream?” Drive to the store.
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5. Hold hands in the freezer section. Each of you buy your own pint of Ben & Jerry’s.
6. Come home and eat ice cream while turning on Netflix. Cycle through all 100 of the movies in your queue and then say, “There’s nothing to watch.” You must believe this wholeheartedly no matter how absurd you know it to be.
7. Look at each other with regret that you’ve finished your pints of Ben & Jerry’s. Be disgusted with yourself for finishing yours while telling the other one not to be disgusted with themselves for finishing theirs.
8. Settle on watching a documentary about spelling bees or athletes. Get the blanket and pull it over you both. Place pillows under your heads. Press play. Fall asleep within the first twenty minutes.
9. Wake up when the movie is ending. Grab your spouse and lead them into the bathroom so you can brush your teeth together and then get in bed.
10. As you turn the light out, tell each other you had a great night. Because you did. After all, you just spent a solid five hours with the only person in the world that will watch you eat a pint of ice cream and still think the sun shines out of your butt. If that’s not something to smile about, what is?
Taylor Jenkins Reid is an author and essayist from Acton, Massachusetts. Her first novel, Forever, Interrupted, was named one of the “11 Debuts We Love” by Kirkus Reviews, and her second novel, After I Do, will be released on July 1, 2014. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Alex, and her dog, Rabbit. You can follow her on Twitter @TjenkinsReid.
