Tuesday, September 20, 2011

If this is what marriage is, it's pretty adorable.

I haven't blogged in so long I forgot Blogger was reformatted like this. My logic is based on the fact that, if I'm procrastinating on a writing assignment, and I also blog during that period of procrastination, I could be doing the assignment, so in the interest of avoiding schoolwork and my own guilt, this blog has fallen by le wayside. Lo siento.*

Okay, this has melted my little icy (and jaded and stony) heart.

If marriage entails being silly and making stupid jokes and making toilet brushes British-accented puppets, then I really, truly, do want to be married. It's not just these things, it's the fact that they're comfortable enough with each other to do them, and statements of affection for each other need not be more complex than, "Thank you for being married to me. I like it."

I don't particularly know why I'm even discussing this at length. You might be thinking to yourself, "Yeah, that's marriage, big deal." but seeing people in love (actual, comfortable, marriagey adulty love as opposed to short-term marshmallowy teenage love), makes me feel all warm and fuzzy deep in my grinch-sized soul hole.

At the risk of becoming another cynical statistic, I have to say, I think this craving for "marriagey, adulty love"** is because when I did see it, I wasn't exactly taking notes. I didn't get to see my flesh-and-blood parents flirt/be loving married adults during my pubescent formative years.*** Which, if I'm free to place blame here, some study (not citing source tsk tsk) suggests is why I/other kids of divorced parentage tend to be socially/romantically awkward. Because flirting is a magical learned skill that people pick up from their parents relationship or something (again, boo un-cited claims).

Footnotes:

* Side: I'm going to have to conduct a phone conversation with the sister of my aunt's friend's friend (i.e a complete stranger) entirely in Spanish, and I'm dying a little. Granted, it will be easy questions like, "How is your sister doing? Which room is she in?", and so on (and not flirting, which is related and aforementioned in my struggle with this language).

** Such a way with words I have, if I do say so myself.

*** I will admit that I'm lucky to have parents that are still stupid and jokey and amicable towards each other regardless of marital status.

2 comments:

Alex said...

I may be about to spew a blog's worth of comment into this comment but whatevesies.

I find it weird when I talk about marriage with other people because I can't help my "jaded child of divorce" stance on things. And it's not so much about love but about the institution and monogamy.

Like, how can two people promise to each other that they're going to want to be together for the rest of their lives? And how does a peace of paper give any solace? It's like Katherine said, jokingly, that she could do this for another five years. Commitment to your partner is cool with me. Within reason.

I think the idea of marriage is pretty sweet. I like the idea of having someone to depend on to love and take care of you until death do you part. And then there's the part of me that says it's naive to think two people won't eventually outgrow each other.

And it definitely works for some people. But is marriage really something that should be pushed and sought after to the extent that it is in our society? I'm not convinced.

Vita said...

Other than an idealistic "TRU LUV 4EVER" stance, I support marriage for its legal practicality. Being legally recognized as a unit can be extremely beneficial. I suppose I feel that if you are already in an extremely committed, potentially life-long relationship with somebody, you have nothing to lose and a quite a bit to gain by getting married to them (provided you don't get divorced in which case it gets considerably more difficult to break up when married than when not married). It's really just a legal contract; all the extra stereotypes about marriage come more from our own perceptions of it.

That said, I have no problem with people choosing not to get married. It's none of my business anyway.