Quirks in relationships: The big production is over

What is your beige flag?" C. wants to know from us. This somewhat strange peculiarity that is neither green nor red flag, but which irritates the other person for a moment. I don't have to think for long: "That I don't shower after high-intensity training, but instead slip straight into my work clothes, ungodly sweaty." I get disgusted laughs. “That I have never cut my fingernails in my life,” says R. with a laugh. And adds: “Just nibbled”.

C.'s is hardcore beige: She always comes home from work so late that she usually brushes her teeth in bed, she says. Then she curls up in her cozy down blanket and is often too tired to get up, go to the bathroom and spit out the toothpaste. The solution: a burp cup next to her bed. Sometimes she leaves the saliva-toothpaste liquid for days until the goo in the cup turns yellow, she says shamelessly. “What do you do when your boyfriend visits?” I ask. C. laughs: “Then I hand him the cup and he spits in it too.”

I think the shared spit cup is an absolute green flag. In romance films, he would undoubtedly represent the failed relationship in which all romance has evaporated and ruthless impartiality has taken its place. It actually bears witness to the opposite: to a perfectly healthy intimate relationship, to the liberation of the “Feminine Mystique”, this lying spectacle of the flawless woman.

It's an emancipatory act to stop always wearing sexy underwear, to change your tampon shamefully behind closed doors, to always smell of roses and never to drink too much. The big production is over: we fart, we curse, we drink, we wear unsexy but extremely practical period underwear.

Influencer Taryn Delanie Smith puts it best: "Your inner self isn't a princess, is it? It's a gargoyle forced to stand on a pedestal in a ballroom, trapped in a waltz none of us ever wanted to dance." Their appeal: “My God, we have to resist!” That's what we do. But only because (at least some) men now allow us to, and even look for, this in a partner.

In her book “Fuckgirl,” Bianca Jankovska distinguishes between men who love women and men who like women. The former are those who see women above all as a fuckable and possessable body. The latter are those who understand women as people, with their own ideas, dreams, wishes, theories and longings.

A man can love and want to protect his wife and daughter, but not treat them as equals. He can enjoy looking at women but not listening, he can use the female body for sexual gratification but not respect it; even being disgusted when he menstruates or has hair, sweats, burps, farts or shits. He can desire women, but always give his admiration, respect and approval to men.

But a guy who shares a spit cup with his girlfriend likes women. When C. is about to break up, she decides against it at the last moment. “Who else is going to put cream on my herpes on my bottom?”