Marriage

3 April 2010

They will keep throwing the controversial ones at me.

I'm not married. Never have been. Looking unlikely at the moment, but never mind that.

I do wonder if I'm involuntarily abnormal. OK, I know that most abnormal people are involuntarily so, I just mean that I'm abnormal by association - almost none of my friends are married.

This doesn't mean - although I'm sure it happens - that I used to have friends who then became married and vanished off the face of the planet. It's just that I can count on my thumbs my actual proper friends who have tied the knot. Everyone else has tried the not.

The upshot of this is not just a weird disassociation with "normal" life; it also means I don't get to go to many weddings. I'm a bit miffed about this. Weddings are extremely expensive parties at which - for the small investment of a wok and listening to some utterly fatuous speeches - you are treated to vast quantities of free food and drink. My selfish friends for some reason think that any love they might have for their partners does not need consummating with a massive slap up feast and embarrassing binge drinking from teenage relatives -they think a simple life time of constant affirmation of affection and loyalty will somehow suffice. THE SELFISH FUCKERS! Are none of them thinking about ME??

So when I hear apparently intelligent, independent seeming women having conversations planning a wedding that - since they're single - exists only in their head, I have almost no cultural reference point to understand why they are doing it. Especially since there seems to be a lot evidence that women are limited and in some cases actually harmed by marriage. Marriage seems to be a bit like smoking in movies. Everyone knows it's not as harmless and glamorous as it looks, but as that 1940s femme fatale tags a drag she looks so damn cooool.

Maybe instead of railing against it I should try it. Oh. Might take a while. I think there's quite a few words I need to have randomly generated before I get that far.