Old friends
Caught up with a few old friends today. They all appeared incredibly happy for us when I told them the news. They also seemed incredibly surprised when I answered their questions about marriage.
At first it was “are you getting married too?”. Then it was “well you can always elope if you don’t want a big wedding”. Then there were several suggestions as to how we should get married.
In the end I just said “It’s just not us. It’s just not the way we are. We’re happy how we are and don’t feel we need a piece of paper to make ourselves any different to how we are right now.”
They kept on for a bit, so I changed the subject completely and asked after their kids. In the end, that was the only way to stop the marriage conversation.
Why is it people think it’s best to tell you the right way to go about things? Do they think I don’t have an opinion of my own? Sure, one day it might be nice to get married, but if that day never comes, so be it. My life won’t be worse off for it.
January 22nd, 2005 at 11:39 pm
Oh yeah. I know how that goes. Now every time someone asks I just say the date gets pushed back another three years- we’re now up to 129 years.
January 23rd, 2005 at 6:08 pm
I think it is more than a piece of paper. If you really don’t like the question cut them off at the knees and say we don’t want to get married end of story.
January 23rd, 2005 at 8:18 pm
Thanks Ren. That’s a good comeback.
Anon: To me, what we have now is a marriage. The only difference is that we don’t have a piece of paper to say we are married. I’m not belittling marriage, I’m just saying this is the only difference between what we have now and if we went through a ceremony.
Nice of you to comment as “anon”. Next time have the guts to admit to who you are or kindly keep your opinions to yourself.
January 24th, 2005 at 8:39 pm
I’m with you Rae. I have people hassling me to reproduce, and M’s mother introducing me as his ‘fiance’ or her ‘daughter-in-law’. I’ve never been into the ‘getting married’ thing. I’m astonished each time one of my friends goes through the whole ‘planninng the wedding’ thing…
January 25th, 2005 at 6:29 pm
Beth, I find it amazing that so many people believe you should have their opinions on life. We all believe in what we do, but it still gets to me just how much they try and push their opinion onto you.
March 31st, 2005 at 8:18 pm
god yeah, i so agree with you on that one about people pushing their opinions. shroom & i are married, but i would have been just as pleased to not have the piece of paper & to just stand up in front of our friends & tell them all that we both want to be together forever. whatever you do is what you want to do. bugs the hell out of me when people expect you to do it their way.
gets so much worse once you have the kid, too. did you cop that sort of thing with phee when she was a baby?
November 30th, 2005 at 7:14 am
Thinking about REMOTE CONTROLLED T-REX and doing aren’t the same thing my friend