We Could Be Married

Now Playing: Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress

How can you not love this band? I traveled home this weekend for a wedding and the three albums of theirs that I own (Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant & The Boy With the Arab Strap) were my car tunes for the trip. If you haven't heard them, give them a try, you will not be disappointed. Side note, Pitchfork's reviews can be a bit pretentious at times (OK, all of the time) but since High Fidelity is one of my more favorite movies, I enjoyed the FYHC,YWLaP review. Holy Acronyms Batman!

So yeah, I was at this wedding this weekend. It is a bit ironic/funny/sad because the bride was the first girl I really dated. That was way back during my freshman & sophomore years in high school so any feeling of ill-will or animosity are far gone. I tell people that I went to a former girlfriend's wedding and they're like "you went/were invited/are going?" And this isn't even the first ex-girlfriend's wedding I've been to. Out of my 4 relationships I've had in my life I've gone to 2 of their weddings. That's 50% folks. I'm not sure what to think about that. I mean is this normal? Or am I some sort of statistical nice-guy oddity? The whole "we can still be friends" cliche is supposed to be just that, a cliche, not something that is really supposed to happen. But here I am, remaining on good-enough terms to be invited to ex's weddings. Obviously they still think highly of me to invite me. At least I don't think that either of them were curtesy invites.

I enjoy weddings though, no matter who it is. For one, I get to dress-up. I enjoy looking good and wearing shirts & ties and what-not. I again sported my bright-green shirt with matching green & blue tie. This is a good combination for me, as I get many a complements on it. But I need to lay-off of it for awhile. I mean if I wear the combo too often, it will become devalued and lose its luster and allure. Gotta switch it up to please the ladies, ya know? That leads to the second reason I enjoy weddings, the women. Not that I've really ever been successful at picking up women at weddings, given the circumstances I should have a better track record. Usually there are a fair number of attractive, single women out there to be had. I think the thing is, the last few weddings I've been to, I'm friends with everyone there and they know me too well. Shoot. So this leads to the third reason I enjoy weddings, that being the requisite open bar. Alchohol that you don't have to directly pay for is always welcomed.

Of course weddings get me thinking about my own situation. Wondering if I'll ever find someone that I'll consider marrying or if I even actually want to get married someday. I'll be honest here, there are a lot of times I don't see myself getting married. There is a myriad of reasons for this. I am deftly afraid of a failing marriage. For whatever reason, I see that as the ultimate failure. When I get married I want it to be for good. Its funny because I'm really not afraid of failure in other aspects of my life, but for whatever reason I place a high value on marriage. I think that too many people out there see divorce as an easy way out of a bad situation and don't give much thought to the worse part of the "For better and for worse."

Over the last several years, I have started to realize my own sense of self. OK, what I mean is that I enjoy my independence and doing stuff on my own. I'm a very solitary person and enjoy being by myself a lot. There are things I want to do in life where I see having a life partner getting in the way. If I want to go take 3-4 months off and climb Mount Everest or sail down the Mississippi or walk the Appalachian trail I see a wife vehemently objecting if I do one, let alone all of these things. Really though, I'd want to find someone that would allow me the freedom to do things like this. And who knows, I may find someone that does, and that would be just fine by me.

I do know that I want kids. This may be a bit self-centered, but I know that my genes are too good to go to waste and I want to breed genetically superior offspring. It is kind of hard and still pretty socially unacceptable to do this by myself, especially for us males. At least women can go to a sperm bank and get pregnant. I really can't go to an ovum-bank, buy an incubator set and grow-my-own-kid.

But this doesn't mean I won't get married, I just don't see it happening anytime soon. I'm too focused on my schoolwork and a career to worry about supporting a family. Honestly I do hope to get married someday. I see my married friends and my parents who've been married almost 32 years now and see immense amounts of love, devotion, and happines. And I know I want that someday.