Recently, I’ve received a slew of “Save the Date” magnets that have confirmed what my Facebook feed has been telling me for a while: People I know are getting married soon.
I’ve hit that age when friends can get married without anybody asking “how far along” the female is, or murmuring about religious fanaticism, and that’s fine. I’m genuinely very happy for my friends who have found the person they are going to be (maybe) spending the rest of their lives with. Someday, I too will want that exact same thing.
But currently, I’m further away from being ready for marriage than Nickelback is from writing the next “Stairway to Heaven.” Because of this, impending nuptials perplex me in a way others who are more mature than me and don’t possess crippling fears of commitment and intimacy may not relate to.
Here are some of thoughts of mine that occur most often when someone I know announces an engagement:
…Will they eventually stop hanging out with me if I don’t bring along a female companion, because they view me as sad and lonely if I’m single, and believe they’re perpetuating my angst by being all lovey-dove in front of me?
…Is it wrong to make over/under wagers on how long after wedding day it takes the husband to start telling me I don’t realize how awesome it is to be single? Or for him to commence complaints about how he never gets laid anymore?
…What kind of cost will I incur going to weddings in the coming years? Money will be spent on bus and plane tickets, and on sets of cutlery or candleholders or some shit. Also, vacation days will be invested in seeing two others profess their undying love for one another. Shouldn’t I allocate those funds and hours toward something like a singles cruise, or to support my burgeoning speed-dating addiction? And not to throw on a suit, overdrink and weep in a corner while I think about how I might forever be alone?
…I wonder what it’s like to hear your biological clock tick. This is what girls always say is happening when they’re worried they won’t be married in time to have kids. I suppose that when I get too old to sire children, I won’t hear in my mind the ticking of a clock running on a dying battery, but will instead hear some taunting voice reminding me of how many potential progeny of mine had gone looking to get it done but had found only the dark spaces between keyboard keys. And the voice will sound like Asa Akira.*
*A very talented porn star.
…Will there be an open bar? It’s not like I won’t go if there isn’t. But I need to know how much whiskey I’m going to have to smuggle in uncomfortable places. (I may buy one of those vests like the singer from Blues Traveler uses to hold his harmonicas, except mine will hold flasks and mini bar bottles.)
…Will this be in a church? If so, will anybody laugh when I wear sandals and tell my joke about how Jesus always wore them so why would it be deemed inappropriate for me to wear them to his house?
…Extravagant weddings weird me out. I realize we live in a culture that embraces the superfluous, but to drop the kind of coin many couples do on a one-day event seems kind of crazy to me. I understand your wedding day is supposed to be very special and something you remember the rest of your life, but wouldn’t being able to put a down payment on a house with some of that money be a wiser move in the long run? Extravagance isn’t what makes a memory.
…Will there be middle-aged women, preferably mothers of friends, who I can grind up on while making lewd facial expressions at sons, daughters, and other family members?
…Assuming this works out, what will that be like? Theoretically, they’re supposed to have sex only with each other for the rest of their lives. I don’t want to say this would get boring, but if you’re vanilla-minded, there are really only so many things you can do to change things up. This makes me wonder (even more so now that I’ve read 50 Shades of Grey) about the kind of crazy shit married couples are getting into behind closed doors. And it makes me never want to surprise-visit my parents, because I fear I’ll walk in and bellow that the prodigal son has returned only to have my dad stroke out because of a combination of the actual surprise and the strange shame he will feel knowing his son has seen him on a sex swing.
…Will I ever stop joking about marriage as a defense mechanism for my underlying fear that I am not, and will never be, capable of making one of my own work?
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