Landwhale by Jes Baker

Author:Jes Baker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2018-05-08T04:00:00+00:00

Unsolicited and potentially disastrous relationship advice: When you have “some emotional investment but not too much” with your new supercrush that you hang out with all the time, make it a point to play “I’ve Never: The Game of Truth,” the early-2000s board game designated as “The Best Drinking Game Ever!” by Anonymous and featured in Newsweek and Playboy.

Imagine a board game that looks a little like Candy Land, but instead of landing in the Candy Cane Forest, you land on a square that requires you to pick up a card that asks, “What is the most bizarre place you’ve ever had sex?”

The box design is outdated, purple, orange, and just as hideous as everything else from that decade,3 which only adds to its charm.

Play it multiple times with your crush until you run out of cards or questions. Play it until you’ve ripped off all of your old relationship bandages. Play it until you’re no longer afraid to ask any question. Play it until you drunkenly work through sordid details to the point where they no longer hold any power. Play it until they want to hide the card deck.

Then, maybe, don’t play it anymore.

Don’t play this with your parents.

Do play it with your best friends.

We played it, just as I was starting to accept that maybe I could have this balanced, honest, vulnerable partnership thing I’ve always wanted. That timing worked out as well, because now I find myself in an exceptional relationship where we don’t lie.

I look at that sentence and think how impossible it sounds. Considering that, in general, I think most human beings are inherent liars, the overall likelihood of this happening feels minuscule. And it probably is. But I have somehow found myself in several relationships where complete honesty is the norm—with my mother, with two friends, and with my partner.

I can’t explain how important that last one is.

We have not lied to each other once. We did bend the truth a couple of times in the beginning—once when he told me I nailed “9 to 5” at karaoke (not my range, and I know it) and once when I said I would be happy to sleep on the couch (I hated the couch but hated his tiny twin bed—which would comfortably fit an infant but certainly not two adults—even more)—but even then, we called them out and replaced them with truthful clarity. From the beginning, we built an understanding that even if it was difficult, the truth was and always would be the most important thing. It started when we had nothing to really lose—his “No” to dating exclusively and our pact to be honest about being #1 Bitches. It continued through every card of “I’ve Never,” and through every time a part of me craved drama or uncertainty. We started from the beginning, though I didn’t know at the time how critical building that foundation would be. And after coming from dysfunctional, secretive relationships, I still can’t believe that this is possible.

There have been some hard truths that we’ve had to bravely say.

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