things that piss me off: wedding edition

I had a friends hens night on the weekend. Very odd. I mean, I'm 24 and I don't feel like I'll ever be ready for marriage. It's just not something that I care deeply about. So I found it weird that a couple at my age (gasp, she is 5 days younger than me!) wanted to get married.

I mean sure, they share a mortgage, 3 dogs and a relationship of several years. But what's the rush to get married, particularly when said marriage is going to cost quite a lot of money which could be better spent on...oh I don't know, getting your windows properly sealed so your house isn't so darn cold, or perhaps put it towards the vast amount of food those dogs get through.

Even with parents covering the more expensive things, I would frankly rather they just gave us the money! Romantic? No. But practical. I've never thought about, planned, or desired a fairytale wedding with a ridiculous cake and ridiculous-er dress. What's the point? I don't believe it's just aversion therapy from observing adult relationships in my own family, this couple are both children of divorce.

It's more the expectation. I utterly refuse, I would rather end things than be hanging on waiting for a ring. If I started to obsess about whether he was going to propose or not, well I would quit that bitch and start a meaningful relationship with some cats. As if a piece of jewellery can validate a relationship, it will make everything better, and I deserve it for putting in 3 solid years. Fuck that attitude. You might as well get pregnant to save a struggling relationship, best of luck to you. Idiot. You could be with someone for the rest of your life and never get married, and it would be just as fulfilling a relationship, you would belong to each other just as much as if you had matching rings and a legal declaration of bondage.

(Ha, of course you could be married for the rest of your life and absolutely despise each other and fall asleep smiling in your twin beds, thinking of ways you would like to mutilate each other. Sounds like a good environment to bring children into...)

I really resent the idea that all women are just waiting for guys to say the L word, then the M word, then the B word. And having that portrayed in books, on TV, in movies, parodied, laughed at - aren't women WACKY, they all want this same crazy thing that guys definitely don't want oh god no, guys don't want to be TIED DOWN to a BALL & CHAIN, unless they're heartless lesbian ice-queens who are deliberately barren (hello, Julia Gillard). There are no other kinds of women! We are all the same! We are all caricatures. And that regardless of what a relationship is like, we are all just hanging out, biding our time until the timer ticks over that waiting period, usually about 3 years, and when that happens we must be proposed to or the relationship was meaningless and we should cut our losses and move on to the next victim.

ARGH!

So last night I had dinner with a couple of girls from high school, one of whom is the maid of honour (screw you, American spell check. English came from England first!) at the upcoming wedding. She & her partner have been together, oh about 3 years, and because her close friend is getting married, talk turned to whether she was going to get married anytime soon. But the questions seemed to have nasty implications, "so...whens it gonna be your turn?", like she is just hanging out waiting for it, that it consumes her every thought and she expects, nay DEMANDS, that her boyfriend pop the question soonest. The implication that the relationship was a failure, that she would be a failure as a girlfriend, if he didn't get down on bended knee in the next 6 months. That there are only two possible outcomes to a relationship, after giving the guy plentiful hints and enough time to get used to the idea, you either get married or break up.

And she said that if he proposed then she would say yes, but she wasn't going to ask about it and that it was up to him. An opinion which was loudly derided by everyone "what, it's HIS choice? Why isn't it YOUR choice?". But of course, unless she wants to do the asking herself, or put pressure on him until he cracks and goes ring shopping, then it is his choice. It is his choice if he asks her, and it is her choice if she accepts. Of course, she could choose to ask him. BUT. She is happy with how things are, she is graduating uni this year and hoping to get into a masters course. He has just bought a new car - which he has said to her will be an ideal family car, so it is not like they are not on the same wavelength here, in fact he is a little ahead of her on that one - and is angling for work promotion. They don't yet co-own property, pets, or even a herb garden. They are moving along at their own pace, yet because their close friends are getting married soon, expectant eyes have turned towards them.

How dare, how dare other people outside the relationship put that pressure on them? They endure comments from their friends, their colleagues, family members, and the poor girl got interrogated on Saturday by random strangers and relatives of the hen who had not even met her before that night. Why the hell do these people feel they have the right to foist their own expectations and opinions of relationships onto others? They are happy, leave them be.

Grr!



Of course, I'm just bitter because I'm 24 and NOT YET MARRIED! BOOHOO! COMMENCE SLASHING OF WRISTS! WORTHLESS SINGLE WOMAN!