Welcome to "The Club"

The "Ring on My Finger" club that is. In the eyes of much of society, engagement isn't about "getting ready to get married." Engagement is about "OK, I definitely have to treat this person like a legitimate human being, if I haven't been already."

And no, I can't make a happy "I'm engaged!" post. Sure, I'm happy, but this is my blog and I like to bitch! None of you are here for my positive sunshininess anyway. So bitch I shall...

When I turned 26 a year ago and was -gasp!- unmarried and childless, it gave people cause to be judgemental and act superior. A few people who I had thought I would be tight with till the day I died decided I was a moral failure as a woman, completely toxic, and in one case, too dangerous an influence to be around their child. I stopped getting invited to hang out with certain people, socializing was for "married couples only." What I did and did not choose to do in my spare time was up for public criticism as though it were a moral issue. I was bombarded with the messages that I was still single because I wasn't smart enough, interesting enough, spiritual enough, slutty enough, educated enough, a good enough person, fit enough, pretty enough, on and on ad nauseum. Heard some stupid bullshit preaching about how I'd better not want a family, and why the hell haven't I gotten that graduate degree I know I never want, but society seemed to demand of me as a historically overacheiving, 26-and-unmarried woman? (Holy hell, can we please let that stupid 1500 on the 1995 SATs go already?! I mean, that was so long ago that I hadn't even heard of the Internet! Not to mention, my being intelligent doesn't negate my right to decide what's going to make me happy and pursue those goals!) I was a weak and needy person for wanting to get married, a bad modern-woman for wanting children, etc. My marital status or lack thereof, was far more a product of "lack of options" than an actual conscious choice on my part, and those close to me were aware that I was unhappy about my situation. Beautiful and glamourous though she was, I just never wanted to be the Wilona in the Good Times of my life.

Now I am legitimized. A carat and a half on my left hand is the key for me to be "worthy", who knew? I'd have bought one for myself years ago if I'd known how much nicer it was going to make everybody act towards me. Now that I'm part of the "Ring on My Finger Club", people who turned on me before are slowly crawling back to me wanting to make nice. But what does it say about your character that someone has to be married for you to want to treat them like ahuman being? (Sidenote... I am also encountering those who apparently have been feeling all along, "Well Toomuchcoffeelady has XYZ and I don't, but I'm married and she's not so I'm going to throw my happy personal life in her face!" and are now at a loss for grounds for feeling superior.) People now accept me and my choices for what they are, without trying to tie some negative moral significance to it to cut me down. It's all of a sudden OK for me to have the personal goals that I do - strong marriage, having children and being a damn good mom to them - it's OK for me to define and go after what makes me happy now, I'm getting married! Although I am still the same mortal with the same shortcomingas as before, nobody has criticized me nor suggested that I do something to better myself (which I heard basically daily as one of the Not-engaged-not-married). I am slowly noticing adults (the kind who remember the 70's) seem to be taking things that I have to say more seriously, like having a ring has made me smarter and more perceptive than ever before.

The funny thing is, as much as people would bash the institutions of marriage and motherhood in front of me when I was single, or pitched them to me as something I somehow wasn't good enough to be able to handle had the option been available, they've completely stopped that now. Um, if you have been blissfully happy all along with your (married with children) life, why did you make it sound to me like you were miserable? If you agreed with me that my old "all I have going for me is a resume, fat paycheck, etc" existence was a shallow and piss-poor substitute for what really matters in life, why didn't you tell me so or even try to help me figure a way out of it? Better you had been honest with me and tell me what I have been missing - even if the truth hurts. And it's not like I hadn't already figured that out. That is what you're supposed to do if you care about someone - be honest with them, even if it's just unconstructive criticism, know that calling out the elephant in the room alone sometimes can be enough to help them. When you're not, it makes me wonder what else you see in my life that I don't that you could help me by briging to my attention. Last I checked, we were here to help each other.

I don't know why, but as a society, we seem quite hung up on other people's choices, especially those that have no effect on us and are really none of our business. For whatever reason, the "marrieds vs singles" seems to be such a hot button.

It's not that I'm complaining about the attention and special treatment, but the fact is that the support should have been there for me all along. My moral value as a human being and who I am on the inside have not changed just because I'm engaged; I am no more or less deserving of being treated well than I was pre-engagement. Those in my life should have been accepting me for who I am, what I want out of life no matter how close or far I was from attaining those goals, and where I am in life all along, not just suddenly granting acceptance to me because a man gave me a diamond.