Road test

How a relationship can find its purpose somewhere outside Gary, Indiana

by Jay Jaroch

I thought I was hiding it, so I was surprised when she asked me what was wrong. I said, "Nothing." "Well, something's bothering you," she said.

"What makes you think there's something bothering me?" I asked, wondering how she possibly could have seen through my stoic façade.

"Because when you're aggravated you hold your breath for about five seconds. Then you let it out through your nose."

Now, nobody had ever discovered how my moods affected my breathing patterns before. That worried me. I mean, even I didn't know. I liked to fancy myself as more of an enigma, somewhat complicated, and this was the second time that day that she'd known what I was thinking without my even opening my mouth. Could she always read my moods like that? I wondered. Did she always know what I'm thinking? Am I that obvious? I exhaled.

"You're doing it again."

She was right. I was doing it. Maybe I did it all the time. Yet another of my walls had come tumbling down. I wasn't sure if I had any left.

---

I guess I should have known this would happen. When I agreed to a month-long cross-country road trip, I thought of it as one of my last pre-responsibility chances to get out and explore -- and when I say "explore," I'm referring primarily to the National Parks. It was to be all picture-taking fun (and, of course, a night in Vegas). It didn't occur to me that we'd eventually be forced to reveal everything to each other: exteriors, interiors, quirks, faults, fears. Everything.

The road trip is unlike any other test of a relationship. The front two seats of the car quickly become a capsule with no escape hatch. You can't storm out of the room and slam the door when the room is moving at 72 miles per hour. Nor can you have any "me" time; your only time alone comes in a GasMart bathroom in Two Teeth, Alabama. Sometimes the road trip feels like a 24-hour staring contest; sometimes like an invitation: "Hey, wanna see all the weird shit I do when you're not around?" You don't expect, going into a road trip, that someone's secret fondness for after-after-meal cigarettes will be a secret for only a few more days, or that your frequent use of swear words will raise the suspicion of Tourette's, or that you'll end up knowing exactly which foods make each other "gassy." It just happens.

This may not seem ideal for two people who want to continue to like each other, and maybe more. But I'm now convinced that the road trip may actually be the best thing for a relationship. After all, you're not trying to be friends. "Friends" are people who like each other a lot, but not enough to want to hang around each other all the time. The appeal of friends has, to varying degrees, a limit. (This is why they serve alcohol at parties.)

Relationships, however, strive to be something greater. They require that you make virtually everything about yourself known, exposed. Dating can get you to the edge of that potential abyss, but it doesn't allow you to peer over the edge. And moving in together is a risky way to test-drive a relationship, especially when -- in the throes of passion -- you both sign your names to the lease and furnish the place from your newly opened joint bank account, only to discover two weeks later that you have radically different ideas about whether Q-Tips can be used more than once.

The extended road trip, however, can get you over these hurdles with minimal risk. If you end up not being able to stand each other after three days, you just cut your losses in Illinois and head back home. But if you can last the duration of the trip and still manage to be enamored of the person when you return -- well, you'll have passed about as rigorous a test of your relationship as you can get, save perhaps cancer or locking yourselves in a walk-in freezer.

In my case, getting past Illinois was no big feat. We had been together long enough, in fact, to survive the entire Midwest, a region that would be severely trying to a couple with a shorter history, if only because there aren't a whole lot of reasons to get out of the car (exception: the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota). But apparently we hadn't been together long enough to avoid a few bumps in Oregon, and then again in Arizona. By the time we reached Colorado, we had been forced into a sort of relationship clarity. Whether we wanted to or not, I had learned a lot of little things about her, and she had learned a lot of little things about me. And somehow all these particulars, like knowing why she has a mild heart attack every time you use the oncoming lane to pass, or why I always avoid the subject of circus clowns, add up to something greater.

And it only took us 6800 miles to figure them out.

---

I'm sure there are other, equally effective ways for a relationship to get to this essential point. For instance, I've heard that puppet therapy can be beneficial, and then you won't have to worry about when the Podunk Motel last washed its blankets. And I would hardly suggest that couples should set off across America just to achieve mutual understanding; the main reason should still be to see parts of this country that you wouldn't normally see -- the West, the South, the Corn Palace. But for those of you who might consider such a trip with your significant other, here are three small pieces of advice. You'll eventually learn them on your own, but -- please -- let my experience spare you the grief.

1) Most people pride themselves on being good drivers. But in thousands of miles of driving, everyone's going to make mistakes. Just accept it. So unless your loved one doesn't see that semi with the drunken yahoo behind the wheel about to cross the divider, keep your freakin' mouth shut about his or her driving, okay? (Trust me on this one.)

2) Different people like different music. There's no point arguing tastes. You may think country music is sent straight from hell; another person might think its beauty lies in its simplicity. It's a give and take. And when that doesn't work, the driver gets to choose and the passenger gets to sit in his seat and wonder if his girlfriend is partly to blame for the existence of Branson, Missouri.

3) Skip Arkansas.

Jay Jaroch is a freelance writer living in Cambridge. He can be reached at jayjaroch@hotmail.com.