2arrs, 2ells

31st October 2008

Post with 3 notes

In Defense of Marriage

Nice blend of nerdy and heartwarming… (especially nice when I feared some anti-Proposition 8 crap)

At any rate, here’s what nobody ever told me about being married and having a wife and maintaining a marriage, based on (an admittedly rather limited, compared to long successful marriages) a great three years.

• It’s fun! You’ve got somebody you like who goes with you wherever you go, and it’s someone who knows your sense of humor and what kind of food you like and what makes you laugh. BFF!
• It doesn’t have to be full of bullshit and drama like your single life. None of that “I don’t know if this is what I really want.” or “It’s not you, it’s me.” idiocy. You’re in there, you’re up for the task, and things can just work smoothly every day if you let them. Awesome.
• It reduces your sense of obligation. You get an instant get-out-of-jail-free card for any event or external commitment that you don’t want to go to, whether for legitimate reasons or not. You can just talk about how an obligation to your spouse and family takes precedence over whatever else is going on, and any reasonable person has to concede that your absence is justified.
• It’s so much less work to go out. Like a lot of guys I know, I was always working when I was single. You have to be “on” all the time, obeying that compulsive curiosity of whether that latest person who walked into the room was The One. If you’re like me, there was a lot of subconscious effort going into the work of always talking to the prettiest girl in the room. Now I still do it, I just bring her with me.
• The Ball and Chain is for Losers. I can’t emphasize this enough. Adult men I knew growing up, or stereotypical sitcom dads on TV, were always talking about how “the old lady won’t let me” just go and do whatever fun thing they wanted to do. News flash: If that’s your life, it’s both of your faults for being lame, uncommunicative, lazy bastards. Don’t settle for misery. If my wife or I want to go do something, we just let the other know, and if the other person’s not up for it, no problem. If they wanna tag along, even better.
• Married people are hot and getting hotter. I had never really done well, anything athletic before I got married. I’m hardly Michael Phelps now, but I am in the best shape of my life, and weigh a few pounds less than I did the day I got married. My wife is in terrific shape (if you’re in or near NYC, go watch the Marathon this weekend and cheer her and her 30,000 closest friends on!) and I think we’re both dressing better than we ever have. Even though I’m still very self conscious about the idea of exercising at all, I do it because it’s fun and makes me feel good, not because anyone’s nagging at me to get off the couch. Amazing what positive motivation can do.
• You can just say “screw everybody else” sometimes. Just like you don’t have to feel compelled to socialize all the time, being married means you don’t have to justify your weird political beliefs or obscure hobbies or bizarre musical tastes to anybody. You’ve got one person who’s got your back (or puts up with your eccentricities) and if some other random stranger doesn’t like it, who cares?
• You can have sex whenever you want. Perhaps the most pernicious and horrible thing people continually say about married life is that you either don’t have a sex life or that it gets boring. Tip: If the sex sucks, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.
• You become less of an asshole. All the petty insecurities of the pre-adult years of your life, all the grievances you faced when your only family members you dealt with were those you were born with — those things start to fade away in a happily married life. If, as is the case for me, both partners genuinely love each other’s family, you get a really great set of bonus relatives. In cases when people aren’t that lucky, you at least get another sympathetic pair of ears to listen to your complaining about how crazy your family is.

-Anil Dash