On marraige, part I

Like the old man said, "mawwaige is wat bwings us togevah, tooday."

The subject of marraige has been coming up a lot lately, what with Marley and Miss Happy planning their big event, and the last of my single friends are taking (or contemplating taking) the plunge. I suppose it's normal for one at this stage of life to watch people pair off like swans into irretractable monogamous bondgage. Er, bonds. Yeah, bonds. Not bondage. What am I thinking of? It is somewhat less normal, perhaps, for one at my present stage of life (isn't that nicer than saying "age?" "Age" makes one sound so old, but "stage of life" could be absolutely fucking anything) to have so little personal experience regarding the internal workings of relationships (not to worry; amazingly, I'm not going to turn this post into a whiney, self-pitying diatribe about my miserable lonely state).

I havn't been in a relationship since I was 19. Depressing as that is, it has afforded me the opportunity to view with objectivity the relationships and marraiges of my friends and peers as they paired off around me like some twenty-first century ark-dwelling freak show. *sniff, sniff* Dost I detect the scent of bitterness? Well, perhaps a little. It's not possible to be 100% objective, but I do observe many marraiges with distant detachment, unclouded by personal involvement. It's become a sort of academic project for me. If one can't live in a rainforest, one can still learn a great deal about tropical ecology by watching episode after episode of Nature, Nova, and that dildo from Down Under, the Crocodile Hunter. (Of course, having lived in a rainforest, I can also gaurantee that watching Nature in no way compares to waking up each morning with Wompoo Fruit Doves calling out your cabin, the green smell of the moss while pissing on the damp leaves, or the magical sense of how incredibly privelledged you feel every time you encounter a previously unseen member of the local fauna, which happens about once every 38.5 seconds. But that is neither here nor there.)

In my years of emotional isolation I have observed many interesting phenomenon, but one stands out above all. Everyone, whether they are aware of it or no, has a reason for getting married. There are only three possible reasons. Everyone I've ever met falls into one of the three categories, but few do it consiously. Neither one is superior to the other, and it doesn't matter your particular reason. The key to making it work is that both parties have to be in it for the same reason. Here they are:

1. I want to marry you because you make me happy.
2. I want to marry you because I want to make you happy.
3. You have a lot of money and may die soon.

Take the case of my friends D and L. Their relationship is no longer based on love, devotion, or any of those storybook things. At the moment, it's based almost entirely on mutual codependency and abject terror of ever being single again. Why isn't eveything as hunkey-dorey as it once was? Simple. D is in category 1, and L is in category 2. To put it another way, D married L to make D happy, and L married D to make D happy. So we've got two people whose soul missions in life are to make D happy, and no one making any fucking effort to make L happy. Not surprisingly, L is unhappy. What is surprising is how puzzled everyone is by this.

It seems such an obvious thing, to ask yourself "Why do I want to get married?" yet few people do. Even fewer ever ask "Why do you want to marry me?" The categories I mention are polar opposites, and not many people are one extreme or the other. There is a whole spectrum of motivation, but it's still important to understand just how much of your energy you intended to devote to filling your partner's needs, and how much you intend to devote to filling your own needs. If you're both using all your resources to make half the pair happy, your relationship will be stilted and one-sided.

With so little personal experience, I can't say for sure where I fall, but it's definately on the "I will marry you to make you happy" side of the spectrum. I am more than willing to give everything to make the right person joyous and content, but I can only do that if I am absolutely confident that the better half will be doing the same for me. The most unsightly accessory for a wedding gown is a tatoo of the word "welcome" on one's forehead. Blushing bride = good. Doormat = bad.

Perhaps one day the experience of objective observation will prove helpful to me in navigating a successful relationship with a wonderful person. Perhaps everyone should spend seven plus years of their life in dark, lonely ineptitude, eating Godiva ice cream in front of Meg Ryan movies and callously watching the two-by-twos board the boat of salvation while the first faint rolls of thunder can be heard in the distance. Or not.