The M-Word

I'm not very comfortable with the topic of marriage.

Not just the topic, but the thing itself.

Marriage creeps me out.

I realize this is bad and strange, especially for a well-behaved, nice Mid-Western girl such as myself. Nice Mid-Western girls are supposed to revel in thoughts of marriage. They're supposed to want to be married from the age of five. They're supposed to want to find a man to validate them, to love them, to take care of them and to complete them.

Yeah...not so much.

I look at my married friends and siblings and none of them make me want what they have. I don't look at them and feel jealous. I don't envy their situations. I don't long for their lifestyles.

Instead, I look at them and think, "Aren't you guys sick of each other yet? The same person, day after day after day after freakin' day? Don't you ever want to shove each other's faces in and tell each other to shut up?"

Because I'm pretty sure I would.

Marriage to me seems like a bit of a death sentence.

I mean, what comes after marriage?

I'll tell you. Kids, retirement, and death.

That's it.

Kids, retirement, and death.

Woo-hoo! Who wouldn't want that?

I mean, once you get married isn't the rest of your life all planned out for you?

You buy a house, you have some kids, you work to put the little snots through college, they leave home, you retire, you die.

Best time ever.

Seriously. After marriage, what else is there to expect out of life?

I'm a bit cynical about the entire arrangement, and FINE (before every married person out there gets on my case about this post) MAYBE in the future I won't view marriage this way...but right now? Marriage is just...icky.

And most people are confused by my reaction because the fact that I'm in a relationship is supposed to make me want to crave such a thing. People are already jumping the gun and using words like, "the one" or "forever" or..."marriage."

Ew! Since when did we get from here to there? Shouldn't there be some sort of logical progression here? That isn't logical, people! "Relationship" does not equate "marriage." I mean, for most well-behaved, nice Mid-Western girls it does. But I'm not one of them.

Pretty much it all comes down to kids, retirement and death. And that, my cutesy little married friends, is not my idea of a good time.

So there.