My thoughts on marriage

When I was younger, I used to think that marriage was something magical, where a girl and a boy meet each other and fall in love with each other, and they marry and some inexplicable force of nature brings a woman a baby at a certain amount of time after she becomes wed. I used to think that I had a Prince Charming in the world somewhere ready to sweep me off my feet, someone that was already predestined to be mine, our hearts tied together by a spool of red string.

Then I became older and more cynical. What with escalating divorce rates, affair scandals, adulterous stories... anyone with a sense of logic knows that the child's idyllic vision of marriage is, ironically and unfortunately, as transient as the stock marriage nowadays. I noticed that as a society becoming more and more liberal (which, fyi, I have no problem with; my opinion on most issues is liberal and I think people should have the right to do whatever they want), we have become reliant on the convenient, lazy and unwilling to fix things. I have never really liked materialism and consumerism for this reason; it makes no sense to me to keep buying more and more if we do not need it. People tell me their one-year-old cellphone is outdated while I happily use my four year old laptop to type this out (although, admittedly, it is finally being replaced at the end of the year, but not before we've been through everything -- including a cracked chassis being held together with tape at this moment). My point is, we have become so used to being able to throw things away and buy new things at the snap of a finger that we have come to treat marriage as the same thing.

To be honest, I think this increasingly utilitarian society is one of the main reasons why divorce rates keep rising. Instead of trying to fix marriages, people throw them away. Because it's more convenient, to find someone else than to fix what is already broken. Doesn't that imply that people are replaceable?

I think it's for this reason that I have a huge fear of commitment. How am I supposed to know whether or not the person I am with sees me as replaceable? How am I supposed to trust someone if an increasing majority of the population becomes more used to this idea that broken marriages = divorce? Why even bother putting in all your effort into a relationship if there is the possibility of it ending? Maybe I block people off, and maybe I do not put all of myself in because of that. Maybe I am scared of being hurt. Am I being weak or just rational...? Some people say that if I meet the right person it should feel effortless. But I haven't ever felt that, so how do I know that I am capable of that at all? Sometimes I am so scared that I am actually an unemotional psychopath who has no ability to love anyone or anything at all.

If I ever do get married, I want it to be with someone I can totally trust. I want to be able to be pretty much telepathically connected to him. I want to know and love him as a friend, and then I want to love him as a partner. We would have to be other halves. Best friends. I don't think I could marry someone I have known for less than at least three years. Best, after five at least hahaha. Someone once told me that they can imagine me getting divorced once or twice. How horrible... I would at least work hard for a stable marriage than throw it out to divorce straight up. I'd kind of rather not get married at all than have to go through a divorce I think @@

I do not want a grandiose proposal, I want to mutually decide to get married one day in passing, perhaps when we are watching television in the lounge. I do not need a decked out wedding, a simple one fit to celebrate the event of a joining of two people would be enough. Big proposals and weddings are too fantastical; love is rooted in the familiar. If we let ourselves get carried away with this surreal representation of love, it doesn't really reflect our real relationships at all... a false wedding.

Recently, my mother was in hospital. When I visited with my father, I saw him take care of her and settle her fears and worries, say soothing words of support, hold her hands, care for her as he would his own mother. I have never seen my parents kiss. They do not wear wedding bands. He never even bought her an engagement ring. Their wedding photos were staged, much after the actual wedding. Yet, they are so strong together. This is proof to me that the flamboyant rituals that society demands of marriages are superfluous. Yes, they fight sometimes but it is only ever out of small and temporary annoyances. When I saw him beside the hospital bed, looking only at her and holding her hands and saying such words of all-encompassing friendship, I felt so happy. Sinking back slightly into my childish idealism, I can only hope that one day I can share the same thing with someone.