CLUES YOUR RELATIONSHIP IS LOPSIDED

When I was in my mid-twenties, I spent the summer working at a church camp in northern Iowa. 

With very little dating experience under my belt, when an attractive young lady named Melissa expressed an interest in me, I was more than eager to establish a relationship. 

(Spoiler alert – This was the first Melissa I ever dated and I only ever married the second one. So let’s call her redhead Melissa.) 

That summer, Redhead Melissa and I were not the first couple to form among the staff, nor the last. I was relieved not to be left sitting on the edge of the dating pool for once.

Early in June, we knew camp was going to be closed for a few extra days around the 4^th of July weekend and I asked redhead Melissa if she would like to travel with me to Indiana to meet my parents. I was perhaps taking things a little fast.

In the few weeks between me asking and the holiday weekend arriving, I had already decided there was no future to the relationship. In fact, she was driving me a little crazy. She couldn’t stop talking. If there was a lull in a conversation, she filled it – with something.  With anything. No matter how inane. 

Her go-to filler was this question: “What are you thinking about?”

I didn’t renege on my invitation to Indiana, but I should have. For both our sakes. It was an 11-hour drive. When she offered to drive for a few hours, I gladly allowed it so that I could close my eyes and pretend to be asleep.

At one point, on the drive back to Iowa, after a weekend which must have left my parents scratching their heads, I was behind the steering wheel and we hit one of those lulls in the conversation. Redhead Melissa asked, “What are you thinking about?” And I could honestly answer, “I was just sitting here wondering how long it was going to take before you asked me what I was thinking about.”

Unbelievably, later in the day, Redhead Melissa again asked, "What are you thinking about?"

This time I responded, "If I wanted you to know what I was thinking, I would have said it out loud."

The relationship didn’t last much longer after that.