▸ Column · Modern apartment, evening, two coffees getting cold on the table
BATMAN replies.
The letter
My boyfriend of two years cannot have a serious conversation without quoting movies. I tried to talk to him about whether we wanted kids. He answered with a line from The Princess Bride. I asked him to be serious. He quoted Top Gun. I love that he loves movies. I would also love to discuss my fertility plans without him doing a Christopher Walken impression. How do I get him to take five minutes off the bit without making him feel I'm rejecting who he is? — Stuck in Act Two
Batman replies
He's not dodging. He's flinching. The quotes are armor. I wear a different version of the same thing. Don't try to take the armor away — take its function away. Before you raise the big topic, ask him three short questions that have nothing to do with it. Make him answer in his own words. Then move into the real conversation while his voice is already warm. If he reaches for a quote on the question that matters, don't lecture. Go quiet. Sit there. Wait. Silence is more disarming than any rule. He'll come out. They always do.
— Batman
The Joker weighs in
Oh, sweetie — Batman's just told you, with the slow brooding chin, that armor is a flinch. How profound. Here's mine: outbid him. He Walkens you, you Walken back, but louder. Quote The Room. Quote Showgirls. Make the bit so big it eats him whole, and the only ground left is your actual question, sitting in the wreckage. Ha-ha-HA! If that fails, stage a quote-off in front of his mother. He'll never recover. THAT'S couples therapy.
— The Joker