The Art of Compromise (Part 3)

Hmmm. I have discovered that in reality, living with someone means that compromise is quite difficult to achieve.

I do however still stand by my previous view that there is no such thing as compromise - merely one person whose will is weaker than the other.

Case in point - this bank holiday weekend.

This holiday coincided with my boyfriend's Mum's 60th birthday. Unfortunately there is a tendency for his family to over-celebrate these happy occasions. They become 'events'.

So this was no ordinary 60th birthday. It became a 3-day 'event' to rival the Queen's Jubilee.

There was a black tie do at their house which was professionally catered. There was a picnic on the Saturday. And when I say picnic I do not mean soggy egg sandwiches. There was a baked cheesecake. There was goat's cheese. There was champagne. Then on the Sunday there was to be a lunch out at a fancy restaurant.

In short. There was too much.

My boyfriend's family are lovely, but there's a limit to what I can take. And all of these events combined would have pushed my way over my pain threshold.

But how to broach this with my boyfriend?

I remained silent on the subject for some time, praying that I wouldn't have to talk about it and mulling over whether or not there is a nice way to say you don't want to spend time with someone's family.

Fortunately for me my prayers were answered. There was divine intervention. Angels flew down and rescued me. Whatever. My salvation came in the form of a text message from a friend organising a girls night out for the Saturday night. Even better it was going to start at the some what riiculous time of 5pm. Perfectamundo - I wouldn't be able to attend the picnic because I would need time to get ready for the night out. (It doesn't matter that 'getting ready' for me consists of a half-hearted slapping on of make-up, the pulling on of some jeans and whatever top is closest to hand.)

I could have pushed my luck and tried the ol' "I'm too hungover to go to lunch on Sunday" but even I'm not that bad.

So not really a case of compromising - face intervened on my behalf. Good job really because I don't think there's any way to compromise over that particular situation, mainly because I know I wouldn't have been the weak-willed one...