Cupids Dating Blog

Seriously, my ability to mess things up is quite shocking. The closest I've ever come to providing useful advice was to offer first-date tips in the form of cautionary tales. If I were the kind of person whose family had a coat-of-arms, it would be a foot being inserted into a mouth against a glaring red background.

They have guides that make it possible for people so thick that they can't use a laser level without blinding themselves to build their own houses, so why is a "relationships for dummies" guide such an unreasonable expectation?

Speaking of building things, Ikea once destroyed a perfectly good relationship of mine. I was living with this girl and we decided to buy some furniture. Personally, I loath Ikea, but saying as much was only the first thing I did wrong that fateful day.

Actually, that was really no big deal. I actually liked the stuff we bought. But things started to go south when we got the stuff home and my girlfriend wanted to assemble the stuff herself. She said she liked doing things like that. See, now, I assumed she was just trying to be nice, because she knew I hated dealing with anything that said "some assembly required" on the packaging.

Now, I'm not particularly handy, but I know which way to screw on a bolt and how to read instructions. I can even use a laser level. So when I heard a loud bang and cursing coming from the kitchen, I figured it might be time to offer some help. This, apparently, was a mistake.

Now, I do understand that once a person has been frustrated by something, they want to finish what they've started to justify the aggravation. I'm like that, but when I see someone struggling with something that I know I can fix, I try and help. Call me a dummy. She did.

Of course, Ikea didn't really destroy our relationship. It's not like I tried to help at that moment and it was suddenly time to say goodbye to romance between us. It just seemed to me like a lot of our problems started that day. We were always having fights, because she thought I didn't respect her or because I didn't think she was capable.

The ironic thing is that I did respect her, I still do, and with most things she was extremely capable. Assembling furniture was just not one of those things. Anyway, all this to say that I would really love if someone could come up with a guide on how to deal with this kind of thing.

I tend to think that the problem had more to do with a lack of self-confidence on her part rather than my being overbearing, but I still wish I could have found a way to help in a way that, you know, helped.