I'm not intentionally difficult, really

When Mr. J and I started dating I learned a particular personality trait of his: he is nearly incapable of making decisions for me. He flat refuses. He wants my input; he wants to make sure he does it right. This applied to everything from what we would spend our weekends doing to how much food he scooped onto my plate.

It was a little disconcerting. I'm not entirely sure why, but I wasn't used to it at all. I should not complain, because it really was like being treated as though I was a princess, but some decisions were just too hard for me. I didn't care how many peas he gave me or how much gravy he poured over my mashed potatoes. It was just food, and if I wanted more of something I'd get myself more. He made dinner because he liked cooking for me (and, let's face it, I am a terrible cook); he made my plates because he wanted to dote on me. I thought it was nice, but I just wanted him to make my plates like he made his own; if it was wrong, I would tell him.

This was a little source of weirdness between us, the doting on his part and the bluntness on mine, and I began to make stuff up just to give him an answer. When he asked me how many scoops of mashed potatoes, I told him I wanted one and three quarter scoops. When he asked me how many peas I wanted, I told him 42.

While I don't have much of a preference about how food is piled on my plate, there are things that I like just so, and this wobbling between extremes makes things infinitely more confusing for my husband. And out of all that, I started having preferences just about the time he stopped asking.

It's a wonder he puts up with me.