Love and Marriage

It's always strange when two completely opposite things happen to you in the same day. Birth and death, for example, would be the most extreme of the extremes...but there lie between those milestones a million degrees of opposite occurrences which still, when aligned, can baffle the mind.

Case in point:

I walked into a girlfriend's office today-- let's call her W. I plopped down in a chair across from her desk hoping for a short interlude from work for discussing how much weight we gained this weekend and how miserable it is to be back. Instead, upon my arrival, she burst into tears and said that she and her boyfriend-- we'll call him B-- have finally broken up forever and she is devastated. Although my cynical mind never saw real potential for them long term, I couldn't help but feel a little shocked. After all, her five year plan had them married with two kids in Private school on Long Island and a membership to the local Country Club. This seemed counter-intuitive.

"What happened?" I asked, dumbly. I always ask dumb questions to people in relationships, and it's for no other reason than that I truly don't understand how it all works. I want so desperately to get it...

Anyway, W looked at me sadly and said, "We will just never work. And we both finally admitted it." Of course I was baffled by this response, and inside I was yelling, "Why? What do you mean?! Explain this to me!" But instead, I just nodded knowingly and let her vent. Tears were streaming down her face, and I was really starting to feel a pang of sadness for her, when suddenly and out of nowhere she says the following: (And pardon the Sex and the City-ness of what's coming, but I'm quoting directly from the source...)

"I can't believe he wasn't it. I'm TWENTY-NINE years old. I'm tired of this. And I'm terrified that I'm not going to find him. Where is he?? If B wasn't it, then WHERE IS HE?" I blinked, wondering how to console her. Not easy for a person who in the first place doesn't believe "he's" out there at all. Then she dropped the bomb.

"I just can't be one of those women. One of those awful, single, New York women who only care about their careers and their great apartments. I can't be one of those awful, career-driven city women."

She may as well have stabbed me just to watch me bleed. I felt a chill run up my back. All I've ever wanted was to be one of those women. And she hated them. She was afraid of them. And I suddenly felt very lonely. Was this how people were going to some day perceive me? As a pathetic, frightening figure...chained to her desk and drinking espresso for breakfast and martinis for dinner? Why would someone like W, who is smart, and successful and young and ambitious want to settle down just for the sake of settling down? To what end are we looking for Mr. Right? To quit our jobs and become Desperate Housewives??? Pun intended. Our hero's aren't Lois Lane- they're living on Wysteria Lane- and we're rushing our youths in order to join them. I accepted the fact, then, that I'm proud that my career is important to me. And that distancing as it may be, still, the one I felt sad for was W. She was discarding the elements of herself for which she has truly earned bragging rights, (great job, great city, financial independence, etc) for the false sense of comfort awarded to people in relationships. She planned to marry B. And the tears she was crying on her desk today, were probably more for the loss of that wedding and that cute little "Mrs." prefix on her name, and less for the loss of the man who admittedly, was the completely wrong fit.

On my way home, I was tossing around a million thoughts when my phone rang. It was one of my best friends in the world. A new mommy, and the source of total amazement to me in the way of strength and perseverence. If anyone should disbelieve the supposed frills of the domesticated life-- it's Stephanie. She's seen some of the worst stuff, and still manages every day to be an incredible friend, daughter, mother and girlfriend. Again- constantly amazed. Well anyway, I was thinking a lot when I answered the phone, that my philosophy of forced solitude might after all be the wrong idea. If everyone-- even the successful, ambitious and beautiful among us-- wind up miserable and lonely without a husband...then perhaps I've got my disillusionments about marriage all wrong. Steph sounded excited, so I curbed my thinking for a moment.

"I have news!" She squeaked into my ear. I knew before she said it. She was getting married.

Turns out I was right. Shane proposed at the Aerosmith concert on Saturday, and of course...she said of course. That's the seventh of my close friends/acquaintances who will be engaged or married within a one year period of time. It's a frightening trend for the single among us --the diehard single especially-- who love our careers and have been looking not for husbands, but for those better apartments. As I hung up with her tonight though, one last thing that W said lingered from our conversation. "The job is great," she said. "And I love my apartment. But come on... what good is any of it without someone to share it with you?"

I'm not so sure I know.