“What’s that?” I ask him, pointing to a bundle of canvas ropes, some big metal clips, and a hand crank that makes a delicious ‘rrrrk’ sound when you ratchet it along the fabric. My immediate thoughts turn to DIY bondage…

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My parents want me to get married. My grandparents want me to get married. When the marriage is over and done with (or, in most cases, before it’s even been floated as an idea) they will all want me to have children. To produce tiny copies of myself and my other half, then send them out into the world to follow in their mother’s footsteps/continue the family line/whatever it is that people expect children to do.

But although these things are unarguably signs that you’re committed to your relationship, there are other things that – to me – indicate commitment in a different way, yet are rarely celebrated or treated as exciting.

A long time ago I moved in with my partner – an ex. When I told my family, I had a mixed range of reactions, from ‘congratulations!’ to ‘are you sure? It’s a pretty big commitment.’ The latter, bizarrely, was from people who’d previously asked me when they’d hear wedding bells. I had another relative who said ‘why are we celebrating this? You’re basically just housemates – it’s not exactly commitment, is it?’

Weddings versus other commitment

I love a good wedding – they’re desperately romantic. I like turning up on the day and smiling alongside the happy couple in cheesy photos, throwing confetti and drinking booze and getting a bit weepy over the speeches. Cracking stuff. Best of all I love hearing the pride in friends’ voices when they start saying “my husband” or “my wife”. Marriage is pretty cool, for those who want to do it.

In terms of marriage as commitment, though, I think it gets far too much of the credit. Sure, it’s a commitment: a public declaration of your togetherness and all that. But as a tediously practical nobhead, I can’t help but think that ‘marriage’ gets a lot of the commitment glory that should realistically be given to other, less romantic, things.

I’m talking about mortgages, mostly.

For many reasons, I have some fairly strong ideas about money and equality and independence in relationships. When I say ‘fairly strong ideas’ what I mean is if you even think about suggesting that I live off my partner’s wages, or that my credit card bills don’t matter because he could pay them with his savings if I really struggled, I am liable to burst into sanctimonious ranting.

Independence means a lot to me. My money is my money and his money is his, and that is the way it has always been. I’ve struggle to ‘share’ in the traditional, ‘committed’ sense of the word: joint bank accounts, paying bills without splitting to the final penny, not counting up who’s added six bags of Malteasers to the Ocado order, that kind of thing.

Money as a sign of commitment

So when I say I don’t want to get married, it’s not because I have a fundamental problem with marriage, or that I’m pissing on your happy day if that stuff works for you. I’m not even saying I’ll never get married – if I were with someone who gave a massive and deal-breaking shit about it, I’d say an enthusiastic ‘I do’ to keep him happy. What I am saying, though, is that if you want a real test of whether I’m committed to a relationship, don’t ask for my hand: ask for a joint bank account.

Ask me for a mortgage. Buy a sofa we’ll sit on together. Offer to pay some of my debts then wave a hand and say ‘whenever’ when I ask how I’ll pay you back. Romance wise, it isn’t a patch on standing up in front of your loved ones and pledging to ‘love, honour and whatever it is they say instead of ‘obey’ these days’, but it gives me the warm and fuzzy feelings nonetheless.

These activities make me gooey because they’ve previously made me so afraid. If I throw my money in with yours – save jointly for a holiday, buy a house, or split the cost of getting the bathroom re-tiled, then… what if we break up? The knowledge that if this relationship goes down the toilet we’re left not just splitting book collections but setting up standing orders for repayment terrifies me. Would he charge me interest? Would I be left with a bill?

These fears and more mean that I’ve probably taken my fear of financial commitment a bit far. What started as ‘rent is split 50:50’ has become ‘I would rather watch you eat take-out on your own than eat a portion of a meal I can’t afford.’ In any relationship, my partner and I have paid for our own things, kept our own money, and always – always – split the bill.

Which means that, while my relatives might still be nagging for marriage, I can hug myself with the warm fuzzy feelings that come from looking at mortgage rates together. I can see romance in him chipping in to help re-tile the bathroom.

It’s not that romantic on the surface, but I’ll happily say ‘I love you’ with a spreadsheet.

When I do the washing up, I sing. It makes the chores less painful, and it means that for ten minutes or so, I can flush out the bit of my brain that won’t usually shut up: the bit that tells me I have a million things to do and that I shouldn’t be wasting time on showtunes.

Sometimes I can hit the high notes, and sometimes I wail off-key. The quality of the singing is not important: it’s about the fun.

And so, when my partner opens the kitchen door and pops in to put the kettle on, I need him to do something which goes against all of his immediate gut instincts at the time: I need him to not make me stop singing. No ‘cut it out’ gestures, raised eyebrows or putting his fingers in his ears: I need an absence of mockery or distaste. To not just to tolerate my fun, but to love it. He knows how to be the best boyfriend – he doesn’t have to sing along, or tell me I’m good enough to go on Xfactor (I’d be one of the people they feature in the ‘you’re having a laugh’ section early on in the show), because it’s not about the singing. He just has to love the things that make me happy, even if they make me look like a dick.

I appreciate that, when I’m halfway through the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack, that is no mean feat.

Sing like no one’s listening

It’s really important though, because if you can love my enthusiastic singing, you can love all the other bits of me that might be annoying or tricky or unphotogenic. The way I snore and talk in my sleep, the panicked way I run through the station to make sure we’re ten minutes early for a train, the way I come home late at night and fling my shoes across the room before lying face-down on the carpet.

The way I fuck.

If you want me to fuck you like I really really want to, I need to be comfortable that you’re going to embrace it. No ‘euurgh’s or ‘what the fuck?’s or ‘I don’t think you’re doing that right’s. Embracing and loving the weird things as well as the standard ‘suck dick, sit on cock, orgasm, high five‘ things.

Sometimes men ask me how they can find a woman who is kinky and imaginative and open to lots of new things in bed. I have a much much longer post coming on this at some point, but my initial gut reaction is to tell them this:

You may already know one, but it’s possible she doesn’t want to tell you about her passions. Maybe she wants to sing loudly in the kitchen. Maybe she wants to dance at that wedding. Maybe she wants to get naked and hump you with enthusiastic passion in the middle of the living room floor. But she’ll struggle to do any of these things if she’s heard you laugh too loudly when she’s fucked something up.

A long time ago someone asked me if he should tell his girlfriend that she was bad at giving blowjobs. No – God no. Never. Because saying ‘you’re bad at this’ is the exact opposite of encouraging. We get told all the time that certain things are ‘not good enough’ – as well-meaning friends and relatives take metaphorical red pens to half of our lives. Don’t tell someone what they’re doing wrong – tell them how to do it right.

‘I love it when you do X’ will always be more effective than ‘you’re bad at Y.’ Because if you hurt someone over Y, they’re unlikely to try Z.

How to be the best boyfriend (partner, lover, whatever)

So, what’s the most important quality in a partner?

I think it’s enthusiasm. Enthusiasm for me and what I do, even when I do it wrong. Enthusiasm for trying again, and failing again, and laughing together on the sofa. Being as comfortable with someone’s quirks as you are with their successes. Let me sing in the kitchen, lie face-down on the carpet when I’m drunk, and whisper my weirdest fantasies in your ear.

Syrupy e-cards encourage us to ‘dance like no one’s watching’, but we know that someone usually is. If you want someone to really open up about their deepest fantasies, their most exciting secrets, and all the fun they’ve dreamed of having, you need to smile even through their fuck-ups. Don’t wince, or groan, or imply that someone’s failure means they should never have tried, or that their fun is less important than the way they come across: enjoy the times when they let themselves go, and do something for the sheer, sparkling fun of it.

No matter how bad I am at it, make sure I always want to sing.

How the hell do I dominate a man? If your partner has any kind of submissive tendency, and if – like me – you’re enthusiastic yet clumsy when it comes to wielding a whip and calling someone a ‘filthy puppy’, at some point you may have heard the two most terrifying words in the English language:

“Surprise me.”

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