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2003-01-01 - 5:14 p.m.
Since I became of marriable age every holiday season has found me, after Christmas,
with people grabbing my left hand to see if I have been finally (in their eyes it is finally)
coerced into getting married. It is really quite irritating. First of all, what if I were one of
those girls who had been hoping and praying for an engagement for Christmas and was left
bereft of that? Wouldn’t their grabbing of my left hand, my bare left hand, be kind of a
kick in the ass? But fortunately I am not one of those girls, there may have been one year,
many years ago when I had kindled that hope (and thank god it didn’t come true) and felt
that jab in the gut when someone grabbed my left hand to see whether I had finally
stepped into the world of proper society. I guess in previous years it didn’t make me as
mad as it does this year. I had been in a very long term relationship and it was kind of
expected, and in fact he and I had been planning a wedding...but THIS year is different.
People are so desperate to get me married off, because they believe I am somehow a
waste unless I do so, that they are grabbing my left hand with more urgency this year
never mind that I have only been dating this guy for SIX MONTHS and actually it is in
reality LESS than that since he lives in mother fucking FRANCE for heaven’s sake.
I guess the whole thing has just sent me on a tizzy. I look at him sometimes and say,
“You wanna go to Vegas and get married?” Not because I want to get married but
because it somehow feels like the only thing I can do or say to really tell him HOW
MUCH I am in love with him. In truth, I don’t think I want to get married. Because I
don’t understand it. I don’t get marriage, it is a piece of paper. Marriage in this day and
age seems like something you just DO, like getting a high school diploma, because it is
expected. The sanctity of marriage is pretty much ruined these days, it isn’t a permanent
guarantee, it isn’t someone saying, “I am going to spend the rest of my life with you,” it is
someone saying, just as I do when I suggest Vegas, “Right now I feel very close to you
and we should get a piece of paper to say that our lives, for the moment, are going to be
shared, but I CAN leave, and I MIGHT leave if something else comes up...” And more
than just the sham that marriage is, I don’t like the idea of merging my life with someone
else’s, at least not that wholly. I would NEVER, not in a trillion years, change my last
name and I expect that any girl child born to me would take my last name as well. I would
have my OWN money, my OWN bank account. Hell, I even want to live NEXT DOOR
to my future life mate and not even in the same house because I cannot fathom living with
someone. So why in the hell should I get married? Someone please tell me.
What I feel when people grab my hand, when people say crap like, “When are you
going to finally settle (and I find this hilarious because I am the QUEEN of being settled
down, I seriously go out and whoop it up about twice a year) down and get married?” or
“We got Pammy married off finally, what are we going to do about you?” is that I am not
good enough if I am not married. That I have failed (in their eyes) no matter what I do in
this world unless I am married. People cannot be happy for me because I have this
wonderful person who flies across the ocean to see me, a person whose company I enjoy,
a person who makes me excited to be alive...they are only happy for me because there is a
prospect of marriage in my future. Really..I can say...”Oh, E. is the sweetest guy, he sent
me a gourmet chocolate cake for my birthday because he couldn’t be here,” and they will
say nothing more than...”When are you getting married?”
I like things this way, I like having my weeks of solitude and then an interlude of E.
tornado’s. I like that nothing,except that I will make biscotti when he is due to arrive, is
routine in our relationship. Sure, I would probably be happier if he lived close to me, but I
am happy this way, I am at peak happiness and not even thinking about marriage, I don’t
want to think about marriage. That’s another thing about marriage that irks me. It causes
issues. It starts at this point, when some girl starts dating some guy and after a time she
thinks...”okay, it’s time to get married,” and when he isn’t ready or moving fast enough
for her she starts getting weird, starts getting bitchy, resentful, hurt....so they DO get
married and suddenly a whole new crop of issues pops up...why don’t you share in the
housework?...why don’t you put out more often?....why don’t you quit
nagging?...eventually one of them becomes interested in someone else and that someone
else seems so much better because there are no issues (yet) so they have an affair and
well...here come more issues if the marriage survives the affair..essentially I believe
marriage destroys love. When you take the choice out of things people get weird, start
fleeing, start creating issues out of nothing. You just can’t cage people.
So yeah...this is totally NOT put together, just stream of conscience thinking I guess.
But it was on my mind. So I wrote.
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