Back in my early 20s, I won the Canadian girlfriend lottery. That is, at the time, I was involved with a woman whose family owned a cottage on what is – or so they said – “the second clearest lake in Ontario.” It was at this rugged setting that I, a cottage newbie, got to know her parents and siblings.
If you’ve managed to land a girlfriend-with-cottage yourself, first of all I want to say, congratulations. Your summers will be infused with cool air, refreshing swims and an endless landscape of trees. Also, you’ll be forced – I mean, have the opportunity – to bond with your girlfriend’s family in an unnaturally intimate setting where they are seasoned natives and you are a visitor with no escape.
In my case, by the end of the first summer I had learned the ways of the North and was able to earn the family’s respect and approval. But there were mistakes made. So that you may learn from those who have trod this prickly path before, here are some things to avoid from myself and a couple other former cottage initiates.
Sucking up too much
First visit to my girlfriend’s cottage. My first cottage campfire. Just me and one of her older, idolized brothers, who was playing guitar. This is awesome, I thought to myself as his fingers danced across the frets, I’m so in with this family. When he was done, I gazed across the flames and said to him, with soul: “That was really beautiful. Did you write that?” He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. “I was tuning the strings,” he said. “But thank you.”
The next night, while playing cards with the whole family – a game called, improbably enough, Bugger Your Neighbour – I was told that whoever is currently losing had to wear one of the brothers’ childhood swim trunks on top of his or her head. I did this graciously and then, of course, out came the camera.
You’ll want these people to like you, but remember to play it cool, lest years from now you wake each morning wondering if it will be the day when the blackmail phone call will finally come.
Misplaced machismo
“I’m going for a walk,” I told my girlfriend and her parents as they read the newspaper around the table late into the morning. “The bugs are bad,” they warned me, but I waved off their concern. I should have listened; lifetime cottagers possess an instinctual internal calculating system that analyzes the direction and force of the wind, the temperature, and the week’s rainfall to conclude things such as “the bugs are bad.” In non-cottager language this translates to “near lethal conditions.” I returned from my nature stroll 20 minutes later, out of breath from sprinting, bleeding from the head and neck, hands covered in black fly carcasses.
On another day in early May, my girlfriend’s brothers headed to the lake to partake in their tradition of jumping into the water sooner in the season than they had any previous year. “You joining?” they asked. “Hell, yeah!” I said. I remember clearly diving into the water, but after that my consciousness is limited to the primal thrashings of the wild animal within, which desperately sought dry land to save its life. I spent the next two days in bed with a strained neck.
You’ll want to be all woodsy and run with the boys right off the bat, but remember that you are not all woodsy and you cannot yet run with the boys. Take your time – the cottage wasn’t built in a day.
Drinking and driving political opinions into the night
