It's Memorial Day, and thousands of Americans are sleeping like logs right now while this Canadian is at work (I was going to say, "while this Canadian works". Hah.)
I realized that I don't think I've ever been "in love". I have certainly never experienced anything I thought of as "The One Big Love". And I am perfectly okay with this.
My two closest guy friends are both going to be 30 this year. I will be 29. They aren't anywhere close to getting married, and neither am I. We're not in a rush, either. There could be a number of reasons. Men tend not to worry openly about this, and if they do, it's not until the mid-to-late thirties I think. Plus, we live in Quebec. Marriage is far less popular here than just about anywhere. People just don't bother with it. It's just an expense and a hassle. My interpretation: Quebeckers would rather invest in a life together than one day of...whatever. On the other hand, the guys I know, the less close friends and acquaintances, are all married, every single one of them.
I am dating right now, and I definitely like the people I am seeing, well, I like Cat for sure. There are two others that I could really get into as well, but...I have to figure out where I am going with Cat and where she is going with me so that I can act accordingly and appropriately. I'm off track now. The point is that I am not "in love" with anyone (and I don't expect anyone to be in love with me, except BC Jenn, who I STILL haven't written about).
I don't read a lot of men's journals. Those ones are usually of gay men (single or otherwise) or single straight guys, at least, the ones I run across. And I rarely find one that has guys writing very much about the loves of their lives. If you do, please let me know. I'd like to read how they talk about their girlfriends/wives.
Women seem to go through so much anxiety over getting married off. There seems to be real familial and societal pressure to marry women off, (and men off, too, in certain communities) but it appears as though most of the pressure comes from the woman herself. And I cannot relate to this at all. I've been a little frustrated at times that I didn't have someone to sleep with, hold hands with, and do couply things with occasionally, but marriage? I just can't bring myself to give a shit.
I joked to my dad once and said that I was thinking of getting married. He looked at me as though I told him I wanted to jump out of a plane with a sketchy parachute, or as though I had bovine spongiform encephalitis. The president of my company still can't figure out why he bothered to get married. He was very close to saying that it was a waste of time, and that's probably what he thinks deep down, not that he doesn't love his wife. He does.
Liz said:
| I think that NOT being in love scares people because it makes them fear that they are incapable of love. This wouldn't bother you because the love you do have that isn't being poured into one person, you spread around. |
So, love. I guess I'd just like to say that it might suck if I never experienced the thing that so many women absolutely require, but then again, it might not at all.
Update:I just remembered, my two closest male friends, Saab and Suj, both have been willing to marry someone. They've been there, willing to take that step, but it didn't work out for them, and it hurt them badly. Hmmm...I forgot about it because they are very much over it now. It's been years.
Posted by JonasParker at May 26, 2003 08:28 AM
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