Television.

You and your significant other leave the house and go through two completely different experiences.

When you come home, “tell me about your day” sounds a bit like “let’s bring back everything you found difficult or frustrating.”

So instead, you sit and watch something on television.

Sitting in front of the TV lulls you into feeling you are doing something together but wake up. You might be sitting together, but you are watching alone.

Your brain is not even on.

The next night, your time together shrinks.

Let’s hurry up and have dinner so we can watch our show.

You make it sound like a form of complicity but it’s the opposite. Soon you are not connecting. You are sacrificing coming together in the communion of a family meal in exchange for a flickering blue light.

Then you wonder why you feel so distant, so isolated and alone.

Let’s get rid of the television. It doesn’t matter what happens. Before you know it you have given hours to a show that will suffer through a badly written season and the fate of your characters won’t be worth watching anyway.

Turn to look at your significant other. Maybe instead of asking about his day go for a walk or snuggle or make love or go to dinner or pull anything out of the fridge and sit at the dining room table.

Do it now, before you look back and realize he has become a roommate, an acquaintance, a stranger.