Much like every other handsome mid-20's not-so-single male out there, I think about marriage a lot. I don't mean that I dream about the day I'll get married. Nor do crouch in fear of the day that ball and chain is tied to my leg. I merely sit and ponder.
There are 2 questions that dominate these times:
1. Am I ready to settle down and be with one person for the rest of my life?
2. Is my current significant other a person that I could marry?
One way to determine these answers is to follow the tried-and-true method from Friends. Of course, I mean the Rachel and Julie Pro/Con list. Example:
Pro about being married:
I'll have the security of knowing that my wife will always be there to support me, and help me to better myself. We will experience life as a team.
Con about being married:
My poker nights will be replaced with "watching the baby" nights.
Pro about marrying my current significant other:
We make each other laugh, and can talk for hours and not get bored.
Con about marrying my current significant other:
I will finally have to admit that I'll never get to marry the real J-Love.
As you can imagine, this doesn't help a lot. You can write lists until you are blue in the face (how the hell does writing a list make you blue in the face?) but you won't get any closer to answering those questions. So, I've devised some more questions that you can ask yourself that may help you get closer to a conclusion. These are subtle questions that test the different aspects of marriage and fidelity. I use a complex algorithm to calculate a % for how ready a person is to be married, and if they want to marry their current significant other.
Here we go:
1. When going to your local convenience store, you stop in front of the gatorade section. You see Red gatorade, which is the best flavor of all time, but as you're reaching for it you see that Orange gatorade is on sale today. Do you pick the retail priced Red Gatorade? Or the cheaper Orange gatorade?
Ok, so that question didn't have anything to do with marriage and relationships. I just wanted to mess with you. Or maybe I didn't.....
2. Which scenario appeals to you more?
- Waking up in a strange place, next to a strange person, with only hazy images of the previous night.
- Waking up in a tastefully decorated bedroom in your house, next to the same woman that you've slept next to for the last 45 years.
3. When an attractive member of the opposite sex sends you non-verbal signals that seem to indicate that they want to engage in "private" undertakings with you, which is your first thought?
- This person is too much of a blabber-mouth. My significant other would probably find out. It's just not worth it.
- The thought of a few minutes (or hours) of fun with this person does not outweigh the love I have for my significant other. After doing it, I couldn't look them in the face.
4. Are there things that you want to experience some time in your life that you won't be able to do if you stay with your current partner?
5. Imagine yourself breaking up with your significant other. How do you think they would respond? How does that make you feel?
6. Imagine that your friends are heading to the bar tonite for drinks, and they invite you. However, when you get home from work your wife tells you that you have to stay there and watch the kids while she goes to a tupper-ware party. Do you compromise with your wife and negotiate another day where she can watch the kids while you go out? Or do you smack her across the face and tell her to get back in the kitchen and bake you some pie?
I realize that some of these questions may seem humorous and non-sensical, but really think about them. Maybe some day they will help you decide if you are ready to take the plunge...
4 comments:
My answers are so damn definitive, you can call it the ANSWER KEY.
1. What a trick question, in twofold reasons. Never have I encountered a store that discounts Gatorade based on the color. Granted, purple frost might as well be Grimace in a bottle, but still, there's no discount. And, you choose neither. Yellow is the best.
2. I'll take the second scenario, not because I'm already married, but because I think Harford just agreed to buy me a house. (And decorate it tastefully, no less!)
3. I like how you put quotes around "private" but not undertakings. That way we know that private is figurative, but undertakings is literal. So, undertaking with a hot woman - having you been watching 6 Feet Under, again?
I realize I didn't answer the question. So...
4. Yes - but I think my window has closed to be a race horse jockey.
5. Definitely throwing things. And in pain (Katie's uncle is Brett Favre.)
(Which probably means, actually, that if anyone else is in the room they're a bigger target than me. Ok, bad analogy.)
6. Drink beer out of the tupperware. What's the problem? Oh wait - missed the second part of the question. Compromise is the only way to have a successful marriage.
So send the kids to the tupperware party, wife goes out with your friends, and you head out to the 24 Hour All Night Pie Store.
I'm hungry now.
I won't intrude on your poker nights if you don't intrude on my obsession with bags and underwear (hey, at least it's not shoes). Just try not to lose all of our money so that I can actually buy those things sometimes:)
Ok, from the lofty vantage point of one who has been with his beloved for twelve years today - our first date was September 25th 1994, dottie should just have answered your question.
Appearance can change without warning. Talking is great, but eventually you wind up out of things to talk about. Obsession just fills up all the empty spaces, and obsession with underwear? Frankly I can't think of a real likely downside to that one.
Seriously though, one of the best things my wife and I did was move in together first. All shouting of religious stuff aside, we knew walking up to the pastor what we were getting, and that it was what we wanted. Too many couples I meet wind up breaking up due to the accumulated detritus of minor habits.
Note that if you're really of a religious bent, you can still do this - I'm not talking about premarital hanky panky. I'm talking about knowing if the person you intend to share a bathroom with for forty to eighty years does such terrible things to their commode that you could never countenance it. I'm talking about knowing if the person you intend to look at every morning looks so hideous with bed head that they make you want to flee in panic.
I know I'm making some jokes here, but that's what I asked myself years ago, and that's why I'm still, all things considered, a very happy guy.
you court death by blogging publically about such topics...AHEM, "I WOULD NOT SAY SUCH THINGS IF I WERE YOU!!!!."
Post a Comment