Dear Amritsar,
My IO (Insignificant Other, although, honestly, Input/Output isn't a bad description of our sex life), Delbert, and I used to fight constantly. But, our arguments were not the Hegelian ideal of synthesized antitheses that led to a new synthesis. Hunh, we should be so lucky (except, perhaps, for the occasional political revolution.) Our arguments consisted mostly of Delbert saying something stupid, me pointing out how stupid what he just said was and us repeating our points until one of us either got hoarse or passed out from lack of oxygen.
As much fun as this sounds, it did have its drawbacks: it was, for example, cutting drastically into our television watching time. At the point where I couldn't avoid Downton Abbey spoilers on the Internet, I decided something had to be done.
Fortunately, there's an app for that. (Yes, I know that that phrase is something of a journalistic cliche - Brenda Brundtland-Govanni made me say it. [The phrase is overused for a reason: it's the only way readers will know that an article is about a cellphone application. BB-G] Couldn't I just say, "I bought a cellphone application that...?" [Amateur writers! Always think they can do better than employ traditional journalistic tropes. Fortunately, there's an app for that. It involves giant gloves slapping around your online avatar! BB-G] Did you just - okay, this isn't getting us anywhere - I'm going back to my question, now.)
Delbert and I bought a cellphone application called Synthesize This, Pal! When two phones with the app are in close proximity (I think that's a suburb of Baltimore), they begin to monitor the conversation between the owners of the phones. If the conversation devolves into an argument where the two sides are just repeating the same points over and over, their phones let out a loud, piercing sound (a cross between a screech owl and a Senator whose expense claims have been denied). Once the app is satisfied that the human beings have stopped arguing, it takes over, sending the points back and forth between phones so that the human beings can move on to other topics of discussion.
The first test of the Synthesize This, Pal! app came the day we got it. Delbert claimed that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen weren't twins - they were actually triplets. Unfortunately, the third child had been born too ugly to be on television, so her existence was kept a secret from the public. I thought this was ridiculous. I argued that their parents didn't seem to have any trouble exploiting the twins, so I felt confident that they would have been able to find a use for an ugly triplet.
After five minutes going back and forth on this point, the app let out a sound that would curdle Cthulhu's ichor. Sure enough, our cellphones took over the argument.
We were silent for a couple of minutes, unable to drink our lattes, mortified that we hadn't thought to test the new app in the privacy of our own home. Then, Delbert insisted that taxing dental hygienists at a lower rate than taxidermists would help grow the economy. Well! I couldn't let such inanity stand! (Obviously, for maximum economic benefit, high school teachers should be taxed at a lower rate than stock brokers.) That argument lasted two minutes before the Synthesize This, Pal! app took over.
Then, we tried to argue about why good directors insist upon producing bad B-movie knockoffs - that ended abruptly. Then, we tried to argue about America's unwavering - I would say unthinking - commitment to the war against white noise (I support it while Delbert really supports it). Desperate because we were fast running out of things to argue about, we fell back on our old standby: boxers or briefs. By this time, the app had become familiar with our arguing patterns: it cut us off after only 13 seconds.
Now, we find we have nothing to say to each other. It's been weeks since we last had a conversation that was longer than, "Please pass the wombat sauce." or "Your hair would be prettier if you got more monosodium glutamate in your diet!" A couple of days ago, we tried arguing about the fact that we didn't seem to argue as much any more, but the Synthesize This, Pal! app would have none of that.
We thought we were going to end the foolish arguments; instead, we seem to have joined a monastery. Is there anything we can do about it?
Cathi Creemore
Hey, Babe,
Sometimes, silence can be golden. Unless, I suppose, it's an aggressive silence, a silence meant to out-silence your partner. In which case, get help. Quietly.
Send your relationship problems to the Alternate Reality News Service's sex, love and technology columnist at questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Amritsar Al-Falloudjianapour is not a trained therapist, but she does know a lot of stuff. AMRITSAR SAYS: for some relationships, a rhetorician can be more helpful than a relationship councillor. How do you know if you're one of the lucky ones? If you were tempted to argue the proposition that a rhetorician can be more helpful than a relationship councillor, it's a good bet...