Relationships aren’t always easy, especially when the two of you are forging a new life in a new country. Work, money and bills can become an iron-fisted triumvirate that, given the chance, will rule your relationship cruelly and bring it crashing down around you. Communication is the only real key to understanding each other. You have to compromise and meet in the middle sometimes and complete acceptance is crucial. But no matter what happens, no matter how high or low you get, no matter what things promise to bind you forever or threaten to divide you in a flash, you should always – ALWAYS – get your own bloody dessert.
Three facts to get this post rolling:
1. Desserts never look as good to my girlfriend when they’re sitting in a cafe’s counter as they do when they’re sitting in my hand.
2. Being acutely aware of this, I always take preemptive action when we buy dinner by asking her if she would like some dessert, then asking her if she’s sure that she doesn’t want some and by finally telling her that I’m not going to give her half of mine if she changes her mind later.
3. My girlfriend knows that her loving boyfriend is wrapped around her little finger and she isn’t above pulling the ol’ ‘puppy dog eyes’ routine to get at my sweets. Consequently, she doesn’t give a #@&% about anything I’ve said in points one or two.
“Where’s the other half of my…… BAAAAAABE!!!”
The best part of my working day happens when I get home from the office. My girlfriend and I will sit down to enjoy dinner together. We’ll talk about how our day went, we’ll lift each other up if we’ve had a hard one, we’ll watch some TV together, read on the couch, catch up with our mates back home on Facebook and chat the whole way through.
But something sinister takes place most nights right after dinner. A tension settles over us where many a sideways glance is exchanged. We’ll engage in a saccharine struggle for sweets, a showdown for sugar, a taut battle for torte.
The problem is that it’s always my dessert we’re fighting over.
SPR MRKT, the cafe across the road, make some fantastic cakes and tarts including a lip-smacking bread pudding with vanilla sauce (free plug, hook me up with a bread pudding, guys!) that I just can’t say no to. My girlfriend doesn’t really have a sweet tooth but I have an entire mouth full of them so when we grab dinner there, I’ll always pick up some dessert and, more often than not, it’s their warm, soft, scrumptious bread pudding.
“No, I don’t want one. I’ll just have some of yours.” Wrong, my love. Wrong.
My girlfriend often says that she isn’t in the mood but, if experience has taught me anything, it’s that she will suddenly find herself in the mood for dessert the second she sees me about to tuck into mine. For some reason, sweets appeal to her much more when they’re in my hands than when they’re behind a glass counter. For some reason, they suddenly become irresistible.
And, for some reason – largely a lack of testicular fortitude on my part when it comes to her – she’ll always manage to get some.
I’m not saying she can’t have any of my dessert, because love is about sharing. And I’m not saying that I don’t like sharing with her, because love is also about enjoying things together. And I’m not saying that people can’t change their minds because no one’s perfect.
I’m simply saying to the love of my life: Get your own bloody dessert xo
Fine. You can have some.
Bloody testicular fortitude.
The Ang Mo Diaries 
Surely always buying two desserts is the key to a good relationship… then when she asks for some of yours you can simply give her her own. And if she can’t finish it that means even more for you. Win-win!
You, sir, are a genius!! I’m going to start buying two of them, no matter what she says.
That diet that I haven’t even started has just gone out the window!