Alan spilled water on me while I was trying to sleep.
June 6, 2014 6:48 PM   Subscribe

Claire Meyer and Alan Linic, a twentysomething couple in Chicago, have been keeping a public record of every fight they have fought since August of 2013.
posted by SkylitDrawl (73 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
I love the classics: Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About
posted by NortonDC at 6:50 PM on June 6, 2014 [39 favorites]


I will have the utmost respect for this endeavor if they keep it up once their "fights" stop being Twitter-cute.
posted by prize bull octorok at 7:00 PM on June 6, 2014 [18 favorites]


"That was a fight"

"No it wasn't"
posted by srboisvert at 7:05 PM on June 6, 2014 [13 favorites]


Oh my God, Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About! FLASHBACK FRIDAY
posted by Chrysostom at 7:10 PM on June 6, 2014 [14 favorites]


From NortonDC's link:

She really over-reacts whenever she catches me wearing her underwear.

This is a thing that has happened multiple times?
posted by dmd at 7:15 PM on June 6, 2014 [4 favorites]


Positive reinforcement for conflict behavior. This is an amusing thing that has no possible shot at ending well.
posted by mwhybark at 7:19 PM on June 6, 2014 [6 favorites]


If you're fighting this much with someone about such trivial stuff, why are you even in the relationship?
posted by hippybear at 7:21 PM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]


How serious are they if they aren't ever fighting about money? (I only scrolled back a few months)
posted by padraigin at 7:23 PM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]


They seem to have a lot of fights about other women.
posted by SkylitDrawl at 7:27 PM on June 6, 2014


#Loathsome
posted by uncleozzy at 7:29 PM on June 6, 2014 [4 favorites]


I mean, really, the more I read this....

It's either a record of how they are picking on each other in an affectionate way with some actual fights thrown in, or it is two people who possibly enjoy fucking but who want to modify each other away from their natural selves to be remolded into some form of ideal.

If it's the first, then it is kind of cute that they are having all these "fights", which in my mind aren't actually fights but more moments of teasing frustration which is not at all serious.

If it's the second, well, it's never good to take on someone else as a project, let alone having two people take on each other as mutually overlapping projects.

The one relationship will probably do fine. The other will end, most likely when the kids are around 10 and 7, with deep bitterness and extended court battles over child custody and monetary support payments.
posted by hippybear at 7:32 PM on June 6, 2014 [8 favorites]


It has to be the former, hippybear. I mean who really fights like for real about Fergie vs. Katy Perry?
posted by Sara C. at 7:48 PM on June 6, 2014




Is this the kind of thing that you can still get a book deal out of?
posted by octothorpe at 7:50 PM on June 6, 2014 [19 favorites]


I mean who really fights like for real about Fergie vs. Katy Perry?

Well, they ARE 20-somethings. I've been hanging with that age group more recently for various reasons, and I've seen pairs of them (not even dating couples, just people in a group who happen to be talking) get pretty passionate and stop talking to each other over things like iOS/Android and Honda/Toyota.

I find it all pretty inexplicable, really.
posted by hippybear at 7:51 PM on June 6, 2014 [3 favorites]


As long as there is an Urban Outfitters, there will be a book deal for this sort of thing.
posted by padraigin at 7:52 PM on June 6, 2014 [5 favorites]


If it's not about money or extramarital shenanigans, then it's just cutesy bullshit.
posted by Brocktoon at 7:56 PM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]


great core idea for a rom-com spec script. re nortondc's link, if your relationship partner asks you "am i your favorite woman in the world?" you should be able to answer reflexively "fer sure, no doubt about it."
posted by bruce at 8:02 PM on June 6, 2014


I like how love in the 21st century has to be a public display of art because how else do you get the masses to approve you rubbing your genitals on someone else
posted by saucy_knave at 8:05 PM on June 6, 2014 [9 favorites]


It is beautiful, I think, to see such passion in a relationship.
posted by Flashman at 8:32 PM on June 6, 2014


"...since August 2013."

Ten months ?!?

Just as a baseline, or maybe as a counterpoint:
My partner and I have not fought that much in forty years.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 8:38 PM on June 6, 2014 [26 favorites]


Give it a year and Hugh Grant will be in this.
posted by 4ster at 8:42 PM on June 6, 2014 [4 favorites]


If it's not about money or extramarital shenanigans, then it's just cutesy bullshit.

Now now, there's always arguing about the best way to kill an elder relative for the insurance money. ...Which can still be pretty cutesy.
posted by happyroach at 8:49 PM on June 6, 2014 [3 favorites]


I had some friends in college but thought making up was fun. So we'd be out somewhere and suddenly out of the blue:

Her: "I hate that shirt!"
Him: "Those pants are ugly!"
Both: "Ooooooohhhh ... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
(They kiss)

This behavior directly led to the creation of the Shandon scale, where one shandon is the amount of cloying cuteness it takes to make a gerbil explode at one meter. I'd say this pair rates a three.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:55 PM on June 6, 2014 [3 favorites]


Shepherd and I have been married for five years now, dated for three before that (thank you, late lamented Barbelith for hooking us up), and we always have sort of bizarre arguments or disagreements that are so weird and petty we never bother telling anyone.

Until Shepherd discovered Tumblr. Now it's an occasional--from me---"Wait, are you remembering this for your Tumblr?" and then being mindful that it might be high japery for other strangers to point and mock. (I legits don't mind, honestly!)
posted by Kitteh at 9:01 PM on June 6, 2014 [37 favorites]


OH MY GOD KITTEH INSTANT FOLLOW
posted by tzikeh at 9:23 PM on June 6, 2014 [4 favorites]


So I gave up on the main link after a couple minutes but I've already spent the better part of an hour, with what looks like it could be another hour to go ahead of me, reading Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About as suggested by NortonDC. Time well spent!
posted by scalefree at 9:24 PM on June 6, 2014 [4 favorites]


I get debating over things that are things, like the best way to hang up the washing. But I was married to one of those Really Critical People and after that, I can't imagine doing the "this is what we argued about" in public, ever. In fact, it was a condition in our wedding vows that we wouldn't rat each other out that way, precisely because it made me so uncomfortable to argue and whinge about each other's (my) shortcomings in front of our friends.

This is an interesting project, and different strokes for different folks, but I cannot imagine why anybody would want to do the tweeting their argument thing if the arguments had anything to do with their real life.
posted by immlass at 9:44 PM on June 6, 2014


Yeah that tumblr is awesome Kitteh. Reminds me of American Elf. The twitter is ok, but faker.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:45 PM on June 6, 2014


A really dark way to end this project would be to just start tweeting "Drug Addiction" every day for 5 years.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:47 PM on June 6, 2014 [43 favorites]


It's all fun and games until it devolves into this.
posted by Pudhoho at 9:53 PM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]


When my kids eat something they aren't familiar with and maybe won't like, I've taught not to spit it out and make a big 'ack-barf-yuck!' show but to swallow and then politely say, "Thank you but I don't think this is for me."

Thank you, but I don't think this is for me.
posted by From Bklyn at 10:07 PM on June 6, 2014 [13 favorites]


This makes me uncomfortable. I hope these are just teasy not fight fights, not like, fight fights. It's hard to tell without knowing them personally. Either way, this sounds a bit exhausting. It is always interesting to see how other people choose to live. What exhausts me exhilarates another, I suppose. Thanks for posting.
posted by sockermom at 10:16 PM on June 6, 2014


the missus and me have been sharing our fights for years, but instead of the internet we use loud voices and thin walls
posted by mattoxic at 10:48 PM on June 6, 2014 [19 favorites]


Christ on a stick I am tired of these thinly-veiled ploys to leverage cutesy bullshit social media "projects" for book or tv deals.
posted by modernnomad at 11:25 PM on June 6, 2014 [11 favorites]


Give it a year and Hugh Grant will be in this.

Four Arguments and a Funeral?

As was said, this sounds exhausting, even if it's meant to be cutesy. Maybe fun when you are twenty, but not anymore.
posted by Dip Flash at 11:27 PM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]


the missus and me have been sharing our fights for years, but instead of the internet we use loud voices and thin walls

and the kids! We don't always manage to include them but hey nobody's perfect.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:40 AM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]


Jesus X Christ, I either need to get back on drugs or immediately fly to Shannon and fall off the Cliffs of Moher.

Is this what america has become????
posted by lometogo at 1:44 AM on June 7, 2014


After a week with multiple mass shootings in the U.S. and lots of jackasses carrying rifles in public, I wish this gimmicky twitter account represented what America has become. Having a fight over "Fergies Vs. Katy Perry" is pretty damn stupid (Fergie, obviously), but at this point I'm just glad not to be reading about a violent incident.
posted by Area Man at 2:51 AM on June 7, 2014


Because if your life isn't completely documented on the Internet, then it's not real? Ugh, you self-absorbed nitwits.

Or maybe it's a cutesy social media project and then I want to punch them in the face.

Ugh. Just ugh.
posted by kinetic at 5:09 AM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]


AsYouKnow Bob: "My partner and I have not fought that much in forty years."

Only been together for 14 years but same here.
posted by octothorpe at 6:21 AM on June 7, 2014


Alan didn't have dinner with me.

Oh ... I hate this so much more than I thought I would.
posted by crayz at 6:39 AM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]


Nine months later:

Alan is sleeping with Karen. I know it in my bones...

Claire set our bed on fire!
posted by Pudhoho at 7:04 AM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]


You know what's better than a book deal about fighting with your partner? A partner you don't fight with.
posted by Metroid Baby at 7:14 AM on June 7, 2014 [6 favorites]


Is this the kind of thing that you can still get a book deal out of?

Shit We Say to Each Other
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:15 AM on June 7, 2014


The first rule of Fought Club is tweet about Fought Club.
posted by anothermug at 7:36 AM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]


I wouldn't have thought it possible, but the interview in the first link made me like them even less.

I didn't know a transcribed interview could sound just like a 13 year old singing about unicorns over a ukulele.

We've hit peak twee.
posted by rock swoon has no past at 7:50 AM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]


I had an incredibly bad fight with someone over whether George W. Bush was stupid. Like multiple-days-without-talking bad. You never know.

That's very nearly friendship-ending, right there. What is the argument for him not being a moron?

I am now trying (and failing) to picture the person on the other side of this fight. I can only imagine Drunk Uncle slurring, "Thanks, OBAMA!"
posted by misha at 7:56 AM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]


We've hit peak twee.

I will pay for this shirt.
posted by kinetic at 8:14 AM on June 7, 2014 [4 favorites]


I dunno, "Alan got jealous of a pear" is kind of beautiful. I'm imagining it illustrated by Edward Gorey: three or four well-dressed gentlemen, umbrella stand, striped wallpaper, faintly unsettling fruit bowl.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:17 AM on June 7, 2014 [11 favorites]


We've hit peak twee.

I will pay for this shirt.


No problem, but they only come in women's XS. Each shirt costs 2 pairs of oversized eyeglasses and one infuriating giggle/shrug combo.
posted by rock swoon has no past at 10:49 AM on June 7, 2014 [3 favorites]


Can. Not. Resist. Derail. I'm So. So. Sorry.

What is the argument for him not being a moron? [GWB, that is.]

That he knew or suspected or was informed how his policies and decisions would affect people, and was either actively hostile to the people negatively affected by his policies, or at best indifferent because he considered the people positively affected to be his friends and peers, and their approval of him outweighed other considerations. That appearing "not too bright" in public was a simple way to deflect questions about his administration's policies.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:10 AM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]


Kitteh & Shepherd's Tumblr = awesome and funny.

Alan & Claire's TwitterFite = meh.


No problem, but they only come in women's XS.

Yeah, but that's vanity-sized, right? So the tee will totally fit a 200-pund guy with a belly?
posted by soundguy99 at 11:15 AM on June 7, 2014


the young rope-rider: "It has to be the former, hippybear. I mean who really fights like for real about Fergie vs. Katy Perry?

I had an incredibly bad fight with someone over whether George W. Bush was stupid. Like multiple-days-without-talking bad. You never know.
"

And your stance on that was?
posted by symbioid at 11:24 AM on June 7, 2014


I think arguments about George W. Bush are totally apropos. That's a different thing from pop stars, though.

I mean are there assumed stances and feuds and such in that world, where Rihanna fans hate Ke$ha or whatever? Is that even a thing? Nobody argues about that.
posted by Sara C. at 11:50 AM on June 7, 2014


I mean who really fights like for real about Fergie vs. Katy Perry?

One time, when my boyfriend asserted that Neil Young has "no redeeming qualities", I flipped the Trivial Pursuit board off the table and started crying. It became a Neil Young vs Britney Spears yelling match.

We are now married and he's on Neil's side with me now, though.
posted by wats at 11:53 AM on June 7, 2014 [5 favorites]


Over a decade before I came out as trans, I had a massive fight with my straight girlfriend over which of us was a bigger Ani DiFranco fan. And with twelve years hindsight it's obvious that it was really a fight about gender, and how she was fed up and exhausted at having a "boyfriend" who was literally always refusing to act like one, and how scary it was for her that I would flip out any time she asked me to go through any of the normal straight-dude I Am A Good Boyfriend And I Respect You And Will Not Hurt You song-and-dance routines.

But Ani DiFranco was a convenient symbol for all that shit to coalesce around, because she was clearly designated as For Girls (and specifically designated as For Empowered Girls Who Do Not Take Any Shit). I imagine the subtext for my girlfriend was something like "Back the fuck off, this woman is a symbol of me and my resilience in the face of idiotic guys like you, do not try to crowd in on that." And for me it was something like "Fucking hell, now there's another thing I need to do differently just because I have a penis?"

And neither of us had any freaking idea, at least not consciously, that that's what the fight was about. We just knew that one minute we were politely disagreeing about whether I was a "real" Ani fan or just a boyfriend tagging along to the show, and the next minute we were both yelling.

...so, uh, it was not a successful relationship. But we weren't just vapid self-absorbed nitwits, and this wasn't some weird millennial "kids these days" thing. We were fighting about important shit that we had absolutely no vocabulary to talk about.

I'm pretty sure when other people fight about pop music they're basically doing the same thing. The musicians are symbols for complicated identities and social stances that are hard to articulate otherwise. And, I mean, that's what pop stars are for is serving as that sort of symbol. Honestly it would be weird if we didn't fight about them.
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:43 PM on June 7, 2014 [19 favorites]


I'm going to start a Tumblr of all the things my husband and I have agreed over. It's going to be very pleasant, you'll see. Only when something fails to appear will you suspect there has been a disagreement at Chez Biblio.
posted by Biblio at 12:48 PM on June 7, 2014 [6 favorites]


I know this is rather mean to say, but this gives me a really terrible feeling about their engagement, even after reading their cutesy interview answers (from the first link). I hope I am wrong, I guess?
posted by likeatoaster at 1:13 PM on June 7, 2014


Maybe I'm having a glass-half-full day, but I'm kind of encouraged that they seem to realize what minor things these are.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:00 PM on June 7, 2014


Biblio: Only when something fails to appear will you suspect there has been a disagreement at Chez Biblio.

THE ARGUMENT
HAS NOT
BEEN HERE
[watch very closely for the removal of this sign]

posted by Harvey Kilobit at 2:43 PM on June 7, 2014 [5 favorites]


That interview makes me want to grow two extra arms so I can simultaneously punch them both in the face twice.

Jesus. Their answers are like plot points from the world's laziest romantic "comedy."
posted by Reversible Diamond-Encrusted Ermine Codpiece at 5:15 PM on June 7, 2014


Christ on a biscuit. These are two massively insecure, micro-managing, drama-loving people who's marriage is going to tank in the first three years. At which point, their divorce lawyers will introduce them to the meaning of the word "fight."

Seriously, my spouse and I have been coupled for almost 12 years and we've had fewer arguments than they've had in the last 30 days. And we are complete assholes.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:28 PM on June 7, 2014 [3 favorites]


Claire left another dead bird on the doormat.

Alan refuses to do anything about that nostril wart.

Claire doesn't fully accept the theory of pre-Clovis settlement of the Americas.

Alan insisted that Jesus Christ died for my sins.

Claire still can only bench-press 75 pounds.

Alan is just a figment of my imagination.
posted by gottabefunky at 7:52 PM on June 7, 2014 [5 favorites]


Reading that interview, it's as if they're going through life doing things solely for their twee-tale value.

Like people who are always posing for an imaginary photographer.
posted by gottabefunky at 7:56 PM on June 7, 2014


Alan got chocolate in my peanut butter.

Claire got peanut butter in my chocolate.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:57 PM on June 7, 2014


They are not going to make it.
posted by QueerAngel28 at 9:50 PM on June 7, 2014


Thank you, but I don't think this is for me...



ack-barf-yuck!
posted by BlueHorse at 9:55 PM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]


I prefer the Butthole Surfers
posted by philip-random at 10:38 PM on June 7, 2014


There is some crazy passive-aggressive shit going on.

Also, these people both sound insufferable.
posted by desuetude at 10:41 PM on June 7, 2014


I'm going to start a Tumblr of all the things my husband and I have agreed over. It's going to be very pleasant, you'll see. Biblio, this I would read.

Alan asked if Claire wanted French-press organic free-trade coffee.

Claire felt that French-press organic free-trade coffee would be lovely.

Alan and Claire opened the Sunday NYT and Claire read the Magazine and Alan read the Style section.

Alan watered the purple petunias and Claire checked the heirloom cherry tomatoes for rot. They shared the faux-ironic watering can in the shape of a 1900's milk jug.

Alan didn't finish his Whole Foods fruit salad and Claire ate the underripe honeydew.

Alan and Claire purchased coy fedoras and admired their reflections in their antique barber shop mirror.

Claire and Alan purchased micro-cupcakes with understated colors and enjoyed them as they watched Netflix.

Clare and Alan felt that two episodes at a time of "Orange is the New Black" seemed a proper way to enjoy the program at a reasonable pace.
posted by kinetic at 4:55 AM on June 8, 2014 [2 favorites]


This is a parody, right?
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:26 AM on June 8, 2014


I wish all the people in Chicago who like improv comedy would go form their own city-state at the bottom of the lake and leave the rest of the city to all the bitter drunks who do not find that shit funny at all.
posted by Juliet Banana at 12:11 PM on June 9, 2014


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