Fiction | August 19, 2021

The Past

Danica Li

My new boyfriend and I have been fighting a lot recently. We’ve only been dating for six months or so, so it’s to be expected, I suppose, that things will come out, aspects of the other’s personality previously concealed or ignored, strange living habits, uncontrollable facial tics, troubled relations with one’s mother, preferences for whole grain mustard or Dijon, etc. I’ve been surprised by the theme of these arguments, although I suppose they aren’t arguments, per se. That would imply that our conversations lack civility, intent facial expressions indicating active listening, measured and thoughtful responses. Still, the fundamental thing about these conversations is that we can’t agree. We start far apart, and after an evening spent going back and forth, nodding thoughtfully at the other’s point of view, presenting our own, invoking our piecemeal knowledge of the relevant fields of academic study—sociology, biology, epistemology, phenomenology, zoology, and all the rest—we always find ourselves farther apart than before.