Stacey Lace

Columnist

With a new boyfriend in my life, I have to voice a concern that is starting to dawn on me. There will come a day when we get too comfortable.

Even in such a new relationship, I can feel the comfort level changing. It didn’t take long before he knew about my weird (and slightly embarrassing) hangover regimen: I turn on episodes of “Star Trek” while I sleep, and I sip tomato soup through a straw.

I’m sure whenever that first visit with my parents happens, the BF will hear all about my escapades as a child–every embarrassing detail. In fact, my father prides himself on remembering my worst moments so he can quickly recall them. There is actually a home video of me circa 1993 in which my mother is dressing me after a bath and my father says something along the lines of “Wait until your future boyfriend sees your naked baby butt, Stace!”

My mother had this converted from VHS to DVD so I really don’t see a way to keep this hidden.

Beyond my sometimes embarrassing past, getting too physically comfortable with each other creeps me out just as much. This week, I had an 8 a.m. class and the BF had stayed over. I felt bad waking him since he didn’t have class until the afternoon, so I left him asleep in my bed and went off to my four hours of regularly scheduled lectures.

It’s not really a big deal, but if we’re already at the point where it’s no longer weird to sleep in each other’s bed without the other, how much further is it going to go?

As someone addicted to “How I Met Your Mother,” I can’t help but reference the show. There’s an episode in Season One (“Zip, Zip, Zip”) when Ted and Victoria get a little frisky on the couch and Marshall and Lily end up stuck in the bathroom for hours on end. Even after dating for nine years, the couple had never gone to the bathroom in front of each other.

While it’s wonderful to be so perfectly matched for someone that you never worry about how they view you, certain things just don’t need to be shared. If I could keep a guy from realizing the extensive eyebrow plucking I and other women go through just to look presentable, that would be great. Also, while I know my guy plays basketball and other sports, I’m really grossed out by sweat and just assume he never sweats. I realize this seems utterly ridiculous, and while I agree, I’ve managed to avoid seeing him post-game thus far, and I intend to keep it that way.

I’m fine with things as they are, but let’s hope they don’t progress too far into the comfort zone. Since I haven’t discovered anything too strange yet, I’ll just keep myself on a need-to-know basis.