My girlfriend and I are currently not speaking to each other. It has been going on just over 24 hours now and there have been no signs of weakness from either camp. It helps that we have both been at work and that we don’t live together, but the airwaves have been dead. The customary morning and lunch-break calls have not materialized and this evening’s plan to go out together has been scuppered. The only important thing right now is that I don’t buckle first.

It has gotten to the stage now where my stubbornness to resist the urge to contact her has overtaken the original reasons for being mad at her in the first place. The only thing driving me on is to see that she breaks the silence first, thus proclaiming me the victor. Even if she only contacts me to dump me, I would still win. Them’s the rules.

As is so often the case, our current impasse emerged out of nothing – a simple disagreement about where to catch a minibus. I had taken it before, albeit a few years ago, and was pretty sure I could remember which Kowloon backstreet we needed to be on. She being a Mong Kok girl figured she knew better. She was already pissed because she was heading in the opposite direction, but this was the Dark Side and I needed her language skills.

So she marches off ahead of me, deliberately keeping the pace above casual strolling speed in some passive-aggressive attempt to display the inconvenience I was causing her. I tried my best to appear oblivious. It takes us a good 15 minutes of briskly stomping our way around Kowloon before we eventually find what we’re looking for – not exactly where I remembered it being, but nowhere close to where the Missus had claimed the bus stop to be either. I figure we’re both wrong and we can laugh it off. She has other ideas.

Peacekeeping tactics are called for. Now that I know where the bus stop is, I offer to walk her home first. I can find my way back easily and the gesture should serve as a suitably reconciliatory gesture for her (begrudging) assistance. This catches her off-guard, which I take no small pleasure in, and it takes a few attempts before she’ll agree to be escorted. The walk gives us a few minutes to calm down and although little is said she does hold my hand and I sense her mood turning back towards reasonable. I put her on the bus with a wave and a kiss goodnight and I head for home. Job done, everyone goes home happy. But yet, somehow, no.

By the time I get home she’s already online and furiously blogging about what an arrogant, pig-headed twat I am, how I never listen to her, how I always think I’m right and how I deserve nothing more than a swift kick in the family jewels. You’ve got to feel for the girl, it’s taken her over six months to realize this.

Now, it’s not the online sullying of my good name that I take issue with – hell, the fact that anybody is writing anything about me anywhere is cause for celebration in and of itself. It’s her insistence that she was right, that she knew where she was going and even after traversing back and forth through the unsavoury end of Kwun Tong she is demanding that I stop pretending I know what I’m talking about and just shut the hell up. So I have. And yes, I know it’s childish. And she appears to be bringing her “A-game” too and we haven’t spoken since.

What is most frustrating about all of this is that regardless of how this eventually pans out, somewhere down the line she’s going to expect me to apologize. No matter what occurs, this will all be exposed as my fault and forever chalked up against my name for future reference. It doesn’t matter that she was wrong, that she was abusive, that in fact I did nothing wrong at all. All that matters is that I disagreed with her. And that was apparently wrong. However, whether we get to the point of apportioning blame (on me) or not remains to be seen. Perhaps I’ll have forgotten by tomorrow and I’ll call her without thinking. Perhaps she really has had enough of me and, let’s be honest, who could blame her? Or possibly, just possibly she’ll phone me back tomorrow with a full and unrestrained apology – and if that happens, I’ll have well and truly met my match.

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