You Have Plenty of Choices, Provided They All Lead to Sir

Dating a man who always needs things his way can be surprisingly confusing, mostly because Sir rarely introduces himself by saying, “Hello, I shall be making all major decisions from now on.”

Goodness, no.

Sir is usually much more charming than that. He listens. He considers. He may even ask what you think, which gives the evening a lovely little feeling of participation.

Then you tell him.

And somehow your perfectly respectable opinion begins developing problems.

The restaurant has dreadful parking. The film has terrible reviews. Your holiday idea is lovely, naturally, although the weather there can be unreliable. The evening you wanted to spend at home could surely happen another time.

Nothing has actually been forbidden. Your ideas simply have a curious habit of not surviving the conversation.

After a while, you begin noticing something rather interesting about Sir: his preferences have a curious way of becoming the sensible thing to do.

Sir Knows a Better Way

Imagine the two of you setting off together with one of those beautifully confident navigation systems telling you where to go.

At first, everything looks promising: two people, one journey, plenty of road ahead and the charming assumption that both of you had some say in where you were going.

Then Sir prefers another route. Perfectly normal. Couples disagree.

Except Sir does not merely prefer his route. His route is quicker, easier, less crowded and generally blessed with better judgment. Yours has traffic, questionable parking and, quite possibly, a pothole somebody mentioned three years ago.

Ah. Recalculating.

And soon the journey develops a little rhythm of its own. You mention somewhere you would enjoy, and Sir knows somewhere better. Another plan sounds lovely until he notices the inconvenience. Something different might be fun, although unfortunately Sir has already found three reasons why it will not be.

You almost have to admire the consistency.

No matter where you point the little arrow, it develops an extraordinary fondness for swinging around and heading back toward Sir.

You Have Plenty of Choices

Sir, naturally, does not think he is controlling everything. He is simply being sensible, and sensible men are wonderfully difficult to argue with because their preferences tend to arrive already looking like common sense.

You are still perfectly free to choose, of course.

Would you like the scenic route to Sir’s Way, or perhaps the express route to Sir’s Way?

Take your time.

Very generous.

And this is where the whole thing becomes rather clever, because it can look a great deal like compromise. You both talk. You both have opinions. Sir may even pause thoughtfully while yours passes through the room.

Then, by some little miracle of navigation, you end up exactly where he wanted to go.

You eat at his restaurant because yours was inconvenient. The weekend follows his plan because his made more sense. You stay later than you wanted because, goodness, nobody actually forced you.

And yet you seem to spend an unusual amount of time being gently talked out of what you wanted in the first place.

Then You Notice Where You Keep Ending Up

Couples disagree all the time and that is hardly the interesting part. The interesting part is looking up one day and realizing how often the journey ends in exactly the same place.

Plans seem to have been drifting toward Sir for quite some time, and somehow the timing tends to follow. So do all those little everyday choices nobody would bother arguing about on their own. Your preferences are still perfectly welcome; they simply seem to have a much easier journey when they are traveling in his direction.

Eventually, you may stop suggesting certain roads altogether—not because Sir has taken away the map, which would be terribly obvious, but because you already know which routes come with forty minutes of discussion, three explanations and one slightly wounded expression from a man who cannot understand why everything has suddenly become so difficult.

Goodness. It was only dinner.

By then, the picture is wonderfully clear. Two people supposedly set off together, yet one of them keeps choosing the destination, correcting the route and occasionally asking the other whether she is enjoying the scenery.

Sir, naturally, is puzzled if you are not enjoying yourself. Maybe you are being difficult, maybe compromise is not really your thing, or perhaps you should simply relax and enjoy the drive.

By this point, even the GPS is probably wondering whether it may say something.

Because “my way or the highway” sounds terribly firm until you notice that Sir has accidentally offered you two options.

His way.

Or the highway.

And after enough time being repeatedly rerouted toward the same man, his opinions, his choices and his plans, the highway begins to look surprisingly appealing.

Especially when the nearest exit comes into view and you realize you want to take it.