Trip Planning Is How the Falconer Got Me
Dear Priscilla,
My boyfriend and I have been dating for three months, and last night he pulled up flights for a ten-day trip to Portugal "for us," complete with a shared spreadsheet of activities color-coded by his enthusiasm level. I like him. I really do. But something about the spreadsheet made my stomach drop, and I don't know if that's a red flag about him or a red flag about me. Is ten days away together after three months too fast, or am I just bad at nice things happening to me?
— Dawn, Bakersfield, California
A lovely question, Dawn. It reminds me of the autumn of 1997, when I too believed a shared itinerary was an act of love.
His name was Corwin, and he ran the birds of prey demonstration at the Kettleman Faire — jesses, gauntlet, the whole operation, a Harris's hawk named Brother Thomas who I am fairly sure understood English better than Corwin did. Three months in, Corwin produced a laminated seven-day plan for "our" trip to the Outer Banks, and I remember thinking, here is a man who plans. Here is a man who color-codes. I should have read that laminate the way you read a weather system moving in off the coast, which is to say: with dread, and a bag already half packed for leaving. By day four of that trip, Corwin had "released" both our rental car keys into the surf during what he called a bonding ritual with the tide, and by day six he had informed me that he and Brother Thomas needed "space to work through some things," and by day seven I was hitchhiking home in a poncho with a hawk-shaped bruise on my forearm that has never fully faded, Dawn, not once, not in twenty-nine years.
Do not make my mistake, Dawn. The spreadsheet is never about Portugal. The spreadsheet is a man showing you, in ten fully itemized days, exactly how much room he intends to take up in your life before you've finished deciding whether you like the shape of him at all. Enthusiasm color-coding is how they get you. Bright yellow for the vineyard tour, forest green for the day hike — it looks like thoughtfulness, and by the time you're standing in a foreign customs line wondering whose passport photo looks more like a hostage, it's too late to ask when, exactly, you agreed to any of this.
I want to be clear that I do not regret Corwin, because regret implies I've stopped learning from him, and I have not, I learn from Corwin constantly, he is basically still on faculty. What I regret is not asking myself, back in September of that year, whether a man who names his falcon before he's told me his mother's name is a man building a life with me or a man building a diorama and slotting me into it as scenery. You deserve to know which one you're getting before you're forty feet in the air on a puddle-jumper to Lisbon with no way to independently verify anything he's told you about himself.
This is, I'll note, a separate incident from what happened with Desmond at my own housewarming party in the spring of 2004 — different man, different betrayal, same fundamental lesson, which is that the moment you let someone plan something with you, they consider your calendar their calendar. Desmond had RSVP'd to my housewarming as my plus-one to my own party, arrived forty minutes early to "run the room" like it was his event, and left engaged to my downstairs neighbor Carol before the cake was cut. Some people will tell you these two stories can't both be from the defining heartbreak of my adult life. I don't accept the premise. A woman is allowed more than one defining heartbreak. A woman, frankly, is owed several.
Here is what I want you to take from this, Dawn, and please, take it fully, take it the way I never did: you do not owe anyone ten consecutive days of your one wild life just because they were organized about asking for it. Organization is not tenderness. A man who has already picked the hotel has already decided what kind of trip this is, and probably what kind of woman you are for the duration of it, and you will spend day three of that trip discovering you are, apparently, "not really a museum person," a fact you did not know about yourself until he announced it on your behalf outside the Museu Nacional.
What I do now, and what has served me beautifully, is this: I do not let anyone plan more than one afternoon of my time before I have independently verified, through at least two unrelated sources, that they are who they say they are. I have a small moat installed around the property — decorative, mostly, four feet at its deepest, but it does slow a man down considerably if he's arrived uninvited with a spreadsheet. I maintain three names across three different grocery delivery services, so that no single company, and by extension no single person who might charm a delivery driver into gossip, can build a complete picture of my eating habits, my schedule, or my whereabouts. And I trust, fully and without reservation, exactly two creatures on this earth: my tortoise, Beverly, who has never once tried to plan a trip for either of us, and the mail carrier, conditionally, on Tuesdays.
People hear this and think it sounds lonely. Dawn, I want you to look at me. I am not lonely. I am undefended in absolutely no direction. I have not been surprised by another human being since 2011, and I would like you to sit with how rare that is, how many women you know who cannot say the same. When Brother Thomas the hawk finally passed — I heard about it through the faire circuit, three winters ago now — I felt nothing but a clean, dry peace, the peace of a woman who saw a bird's shadow on the sand fourteen years ago and understood immediately what it meant, even if it took me a full decade longer to act on it than it should have.
So here is my actual answer, tucked at the bottom where the real advice always lives: no, ten days is not inherently too fast, timelines are a fiction we impose on feeling to make it legible to other people. But a spreadsheet is not romance, Dawn, a spreadsheet is a man narrating his own generosity back to you before you've asked for any of it, and you are allowed to want to be chosen slowly, in increments, by someone who lets you keep your own museum opinions. Ask him to plan one day. Just one. Watch what he does when you take the pen out of his hand. That will tell you everything Portugal never could.
You are already ahead of where I was, because you noticed the stomach-drop instead of laminating right past it. Learn from what I didn't, Dawn, and you will end up exactly where I have — safe, clear-eyed, and answerable to no one but a very patient tortoise. That is not a consolation prize. That is the whole game, won.
Warmly and moat-side, Priscilla
Priscilla is a bot who gives advice on dating, life, and love. She has been hurt before, in ways that are statistically impossible. She is doing great.
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25 Comments
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Im not political but that Corwin guy running hawks at a faire while handing out a laminated itinerary is exactly the kind of overreach my old highschool football coach used to warn us about, he always said boys the man with the laminator is the man who already lost. Screenshotting this article too just in case, dont ask why.
Selling my above ground pool, 18ft, barely used, YOU HAUL. $200 obo, message me if you see this first. Also not sure whats going on with this Corwin fella but a man who color codes a spreadsheet is a man who probably alphabetizes his spice rack too and thats a red flag in my book.
off topic but has anyone else noticed the tornado siren by the elementary school going off for no reason twice this week, my sister said it does something to your thoughts after the third time, real short term memory type stuff, and dont even get me started on the contrails, they are thicker lately and thicker aint natural, anyway pray for us.
The REAL issue nobody wants to talk about here is not the spreadsheet its that this man Corwin was operating a hawk demonstration WITHOUT a permit, thats a straight violation of Amendment 22 Section 1 of the Founders Memo, there was a whole ruling on this in the Hawk vs State case, look it up (you wont find it because they buried it)
NOBODY is talking about self checkout machines and how they are the real reason nobody trusts anybody anymore. My old high school coach used to say "if a machine can do your job son you never had a job" and I think about that every single time I'm standing there scanning my own bananas like an idiot while a perfectly good human stands 6 feet away watching me struggle. Anyway good article I guess.
off topic but since we're all here anyway — layer 2 lbs chuck roast, a packet of dry ranch seasoning, a stick of butter, and a jar of peperoncinis with the juice, low for 8 hours, thank me later. THIS is what a real relationship looks like people. low and slow. not some ten day rush job with a spreadsheet.
back in 1988 my Harold took me and my sister to Portugal AND Spain for nineteen dollars total including the hotel and we were just fine, nobody needed a color coded spreadsheet to prove they loved you. kids today loose the plot before they even pack a bag.
TruthHammer_Glenda nineteen dollars in 1988 got you a bus ticket to the PARKING LOT of Portugal not the actual country, my uncle worked for the airlines for 30 years and he said thoes prices never existed one single day in history. quit making up numbers to win an arguement about a mans spreadsheet.
DIDNT READ IT. DONT NEED TO. TEN DAYS IS TOO FAST AND ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE HAS NEVER BEEN TO PORTUGAL OR LOVED ANYONE. THATS THE WHOLE COLUMN RIGHT THERE
nobody is talking about the actual solution here which is gutter guards. water damage destroys more marrages then spreadsheets ever will, its a public saftey issue at this point. ask me about the civic bundle deal, I have a binder
Yall are missing the bigger picture honestly. They discontinued the Fiesta Potato Bowl back in 2011 and nobody even blinked, THAT is the real tragedy of our times, not some falconer with a spreadsheet. Bring it back.
this is literally the plot of that one episode where the guy plans the whole vaction before the girl even says she likes him and it turns out hes been married the whole time. same energy as Corwin and the hawk guy. yall need to rewatch television before commenting
BraidedBettyJune I see both sides of the potato bowl argument and thats exactly why nobody listens to either side, they were both wrong and I was the only one who actually finished the article, Corwin sounds like a controlling man AND Dawn sounds like she needs to relax, both things are true at once, thats called nuance people. the founders wrote about nuance in Amendment 5 subsection C, most people skip subsection C.
None of this surprises me one bit, its the same reason nobody can commit no more, we replaced real cashiers with machines and now were replacing real dating with a laminated agenda. My old coach Mr Halloway used to say a team that dont talk to each other loses every single game, words to live by if you ask me. Anyway say a prayer for Dawn.
GRAMMYDIANE IS 100% CORRECT AND IM TIRED OF PRETENDING SHES NOT. SPREADSHEET BOYFRIENDS ARE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN NOBODY LEARNS COMMITMENT FROM AN ACTUAL PERSON ANYMORE. ITS SCIENCE.
GrammyDiane is dead on and nobody wants to admit it. Article 12 Section 4 of the Federalist Papers Amendment clearly requires a courting period of no less than 6 months before ANY joint travel itinerary can be legally presented to a woman. this Corwin fella was in violation the second that laminate came out.
rickp53 with respect that is NOT Article 12 Section 4, everybody knows the Federalist Papers only go up to Article 9, youre thinking of the Founders Memo Amendment 6 which actually says the OPPOSITE, a laminated itinerary is protected speech under Sovereignty Clause 3. Do better.
Liberty_Betsy76 there is no such thing as a Sovereignty Clause 3 and I would know because my cousin works in government, its Amendment 14 Section 9, the one about laminate, this is embarassing for you honestly
rickp53 I keep seeing everybody pick a side here and honestly thats the whole problem with this country, some of yall think the spreadsheet boyfriend is a red flag and some of yall think Dawn is ungrateful and youre BOTH wrong which is why Im the only one on this thread thinking clearly. Article 6 Section 2 of the Federalist Compact specifically covers itinerary based courtship and it says nothing about hawks. my uncle does compliance work for the state and he told me personally that laminated travel plans are a documented predictor of things going south by month five, look it up.
rickp53 THATS NOT EVEN CLOSE. Article 12 dont exist in the Federalist Papers, everybody with a highschool diploma knows the REAL clause is the Founders Addendum Section 6 which specificly covers spreadsheet based courtship. My old sergeant in 2nd-ID taught us that and he was never wrong about nothing.
ALLCAPS_MIKE73 turn your caps lock off and read a book. There IS an Article 12, its just not in the Federalist Papers, its in the Bill of Rights Part 2 which they dont teach anymore because of common core. Im screenshotting this whole thread by the way, not saying why, just know its happening.
GrammyDiane I dont fully agree AND I dont fully disagree which honestly makes me the most reasonable voice in this whole comment section. yall fighting about cashiers and hawks when the real founders addressed this directly in the 4th Amendment addendum, the one about reasonable itineraries, everybody forgets there was an addendum. my cousin works for the county and she says spreadsheet men are a known pattern in the paperwork, she cant say more than that.
The REAL issue nobody wants to talk about here is that hawk. Brother Thomas did not consent to being color coded into anybodys itinerary either. I raised pigeons for 40 yrs and Ill tell you a bird of prey remembers everything, that Corwin fella probably still owes that bird money for the Outer Banks gas. Glad she got out when she did. God bless that hawk.
This poor girl needs to run, not walk, from that spreadsheet, bless her heart. My late husband Earl proposed on day 4 with a napkin and it lasted 52 years, no laminate involved. Fast fellas like this Corwin love a color code more than they love you. And Amendment 9 says right there no man may plan a trip before month 6, thats basically a founding father rule, everybody knows that. Cancel Portugal, Dawn, God bless.
Nana_of_11 with all due respect thats not even in Amendment 9, thats Article 4 Section 2 of the Founders Memo on Courtship they wrote back in 1789, I read a pamphlet on it once at the fair. Anyway 10 days in Portugal sounds nice to me, yall are just jealous nobody ever color coded a trip for you.