(Ann Arbor, MI) Dating is weird, right? I feel like that is something we should all be able to admit at this point. It’s not like all of the apps and websites have made it any less weird, probably just more so. However, occasionally two people meet and are truly able to make it work. One such couple that we are profiling today live right here in Ann Arbor. Their names are James and Harriet and they have been dating for almost 2 years. Although it started slow, both of them would tell you that this relationship isn’t like anything they’ve experienced before. And yet, even a relationship like this can be tested by the simplest of comments. We are here to overanalyze one of those comments today.

 

The scene.

 

“Hey, it would be cool if I got a tarantula as a pet?” says James, entering the kitchen of their two-bedroom apartment with his phone in his hand.

 

Harriet, cooking dinner, looks up from the frying pan full of green beans. “A tarantula? Like a real one?”

 

“Yeah I’ve been looking at them online. Check this out?” He shows Harriet a picture of Goliath birdeater on his phone before adding. “I don’t know, they’re only like $200. Seems like it could be fun.”

 

“Mhmm.”

 

“I don’t know, just something to think about. Anyways, need help with anything?”

 

“No, I”m good. Thanks though, it will be ready in a minute.” With that, James left Harriet in the kitchen.

 

She immediately turned the burner off and began to fan herself with a nearby oven mitt. “What just happened?” she thought to herself. After collecting herself, Harriet spent the next 30 minutes finishing dinner, thinking of nothing but their short conversation. “Who is this person? A spider, in my home? I can’t even imagine it.” While they ate together, Harriet kept catching herself looking at James, trying to see if she had missed other things before.

 

Although James doesn’t know this, Harriet has been reconsidering their entire relationship over the course of the last few weeks. “Does he know me at all? Why would he say that?” Finally, Harriet broke and had to bring it up again in order to find out what he had meant by it. She just couldn’t stop thinking about it and needed closure.

 

“So, babe,” she start softly. “When you were talking about getting a… a… a birdeater the other day, were you serious?”

 

“Yeah. I mean kind of. Why?”

 

“Oh, I just, I don’t know if I would be cool with that. It just kind of freaked me out because it seems like you would know I wouldn’t like that.”

 

“Babe, don’t worry, I can’t afford one anyway. But trust me, it’s very safe. They send it directly to you and you just have to buy a terrarium for it.”

 

“In. The. Mail?”

 

With that, Harriet walked out the door and never looked back. She didn’t need that kind of thing in her life. As they say, there’s plenty of spiders in the closet. Which closet? You know the one.

 

 

 

 

This was written by Nathan Ellwood who knows that he eats spiders every year, but just likes to believe they are all living in harmony in his stomach. Follow him @NPEllwood.