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Shikha Sharma
My husband is three episodes ahead of me.
He has been three episodes ahead of me for two weeks. I know this because he told me, unprompted, in a tone that was trying to be casual and was not quite casual, which is how I know he is not actually casual about it.
We started the show together. This was the agreement. We found it, we decided we wanted to watch it, and we agreed that we would watch it together, which meant at the same time, in the same room, at a pace that was shared. The agreement was explicit. Both of us said yes, we will watch this together.
Within four days he was one episode ahead.
He had come home from something, I had not been back yet, and he had sat down and the episode was right there and it was only one episode and he would watch it and then we would watch the next one together and it would be fine.
It was not fine. I came home and found out and I said we were supposed to watch it together and he said we could still watch the next one together and technically this was true and also technically beside the point.
By the end of the second week he was three episodes ahead. I do not know how this happened. I have not asked for a full account. The account would involve several instances of the same logic applied iteratively and I do not need to hear the logic again because I already understand the logic and the logic is wrong.
We were on the couch last Sunday, Sunfeast Marie Light between us and the television on, and he suggested we watch the show. I said I would watch the show but I was on episode four and he was on episode seven and we could not watch together without him watching three episodes again or me watching three episodes alone first.
He said he could rewatch episodes four through six with me.
I said rewatching is not the same as watching together.
He said the content would be the same.
I said the experience was not the same.
We watched something else. The show sits there, three episodes of gap between us, unresolved.
The Agreement and What It Means
The watching-together agreement is not really about the show.
The show is the vehicle. The watching together is the thing. It means you are experiencing something new at the same time. You are encountering the plot twists simultaneously. You are reacting to things as they happen, together, in the same moment. When the thing happens in episode six that you cannot discuss with anyone yet, you discuss it with each other because you are both at the same place in the story.
Being three episodes apart means he has already had the episode six thing happen to him. He has already reacted to it alone or called a friend about it or processed it without me. When I get to episode six I will react to it and he will be watching me react to it from three episodes in the future and that is not the same as us both being in the moment together.
I explained this to him. He said he understood. He said he was sorry about the first episode. I said the first episode had led to three episodes. He said he would catch me up. I said catching up was not the point.
My friend Priya has the same problem with her husband except the gap is seven episodes because he has no impulse control around good television. She said she has stopped agreeing to watch things together because the agreement creates a fiction of shared viewing that never survives contact with reality. They now watch separately and report back to each other. She prefers this. She says at least it is honest.
The Episode Gap as Relationship Data
I have been thinking about the episode gap as information.
The gap exists because he found something compelling enough to keep watching when I was not there. This means the show is good, which we both knew. It also means that when he is alone and has an option between waiting and watching, he watches. This is information about how he handles the tension between what he wants to do now and what he agreed to do later.
I am not framing this as a character flaw. I am framing this as data. The data says: in the moment, the show wins. The agreement is real but the show is also real and the show is right there and the agreement is abstract and the moment is now.
I have the same data about myself in other contexts. There are things I have agreed to wait for and have not waited for. The thing was right there and I wanted it and I took it. The agreement existed and I acknowledged the agreement and I did the thing anyway.
The episode gap is his version of this. I should not be surprised by the episode gap. I should have predicted the episode gap. I know who I married.
My friend Kabir watches shows at whatever pace he wants and tells his wife what happened. He does not consider this a problem. She has accepted this arrangement under protest. She said the protest was not effective and she ran out of energy for it and now she just watches separately and they discuss at dinner.
She said the dinner discussions are actually the best part. Better than watching together would have been. The discussion is the shared experience and the watching is separate and the combination works.
I have not told my husband about this arrangement. I am not ready to give up the agreement.
The Rewatch Question
He has offered to rewatch episodes four through six with me three times now.
Each time I say it is not the same as watching together. Each time he says the content is the same. Each time I say the content is not the point. We have had this exchange in three variations and reached no resolution.
The rewatch is not the same for this reason: when you rewatch something you already know, you are not watching the show. You are watching me watch the show. Your experience is my experience of the show, not your experience of the show. We would not be having the same experience. We would be having two different experiences that happen to involve the same episodes.
I know this distinction sounds like a lot. I know it sounds like I am making this harder than it needs to be. I am probably making this harder than it needs to be.
But we started the show together. We were going to watch it together. He is three episodes ahead.
He will finish the show before I get to episode seven. When I get to episode seven he will be done. And we will never have watched the ending at the same time.
This is the part I am most upset about. Not the gap. The ending.
I want us to find out what happens at the same moment.
I am going to catch up this week.
