David's Bridal...

You sell my phone number to one more freaking telemarketer, and I'll post nasty things about you on the Internet. You got that?!? I'll be getting a dress somewhere else (I heard your alterations suck anyways) and I won't be patronizing any of the scores of vendors you so kindly sent my way, to call my cell phone during peak hours.

Asshats.

Don't let facts and figures get in the way of self-validation...

Thanks to EvilElf, who I know sent this to me because of my bitching that I'm getting married "old"....

Which is it, New York Times? Is it that "To Be Married Means to Be Outnumbered" (the title of today's article) or is it that "Among Americans aged 35 to 64, married couples still make up a majority of all households" (caption 5 on your slideshow?). In fact, the poll comes up with married NYT online readers being 61%.

Yes, folks are marrying later. Yes, more people are divorcing. This is not a suprise. But comments like "married couples have finally slipped into the minority" make the writer sound a wee bit biased. Why is it that the happily cohabitating couples make the papers, while the relationships that end because one partner insists on marriage and the other doesn't, or the relationships that result in marriage strictly because one partner realizes that it's the only way s/he's going to be able to keep the other don't get mentioned? I know of maybe two cohabitating couples where both partners are happy with their status (most cohabitating couples I know have a situation where one person feels "in limbo" or cheated by the "just living together" status), and many married couples.

Yes, Sex and the City is a cool show. But obviously, the NYT is trying to validate the choices and situations of much of NYC's demographic of young swingin' singles. Nothing wrong with being a swingin' single if that's the life for you. But for goodness' sake, at least let people make informed choices using accurate information. You mofos are as liberal-raggy as the Washington Post and the Boston Globe!

Or they could let gay people get married. Civil rights are a terrible thing to waste.

If you're not even engaged yet...

... then WTF are you doing on TheKnot? Apparently, there are discussion forums for those of you planning your wedding possibly ages before your guy is even thinking of marriage and/or before you may have even met said guy, or insulting us engaged women by asking us how we "conned" our fiances into proposing.

Um. Is it humanly possible that we were proposed to on our own merit? Sure, many of us were probably ready before our fiances and husbands were, and in fact these men may know deep down that we deserve nothing less and marriage/kids/house/SUV/etc are the only way to keep us.

And these women may also, be deserving of nothing less.... but it's a little hard to keep that in mind when you read:

"Hi, I'm 19 and been with my man for 3 months. He hasn't even brought up marriage yet. I'm sooo annoyed because I've been planning my wedding for four years now and I need to get married on 7/7/07, have been dreaming of it since kindergarden. Ladies, how did you make your men propose???"

"I met my BF in grad school and have been with him 16 years, lived together 14... He has never brought up the subject of marriage, why hasn't he? Should I trap him, I assume that's how you all got your fiances and husbands? Speaking of which, I'm in my mid-40s... that isn't too late to have a healthy baby is it?"

Honestly, you have no business planning your wedding or hanging out on a wedding website before you get the ring on your finger. You just aren't. And if you do decide to hang out on TheKnot before you're engaed... be understanding when you become a big fat joke. You look pathetic. I wouldn't wish being unmarried on my worst enemy. But... no matter when you meet Mr. Right or how many frogs you kiss first, a marriage is something you have to earn and continue to work at. There are many nice/normal "knotties" who are just freakin appalled by this stuff, and joke to make you and your brand of psychosis less frightening.

Now I'm not condoning the self-righteousness of some of the engaged and married women on there or in the real world at all... Not everyone who's reached their mid-20s and not found a husband is in her predicament because she's a bar-hopping, disease ridden slut, as some of these "knotties" claim. There are such things as being unlucky in love, having to kiss a few frogs before you find your prince, still getting your self/career situated in your 20s and preferring to do that on your own, etc, that happen and that people shouldn't be judged for. But reading pages and pages of crap like what's posted above, and it's easy to see how some of these "Ring on My Finger Club" ladies feel so smug and superior - Holy stereotype, you make all single women look psycho and desperate by writing crap like this.

Update (for my male readers' peace of mind): No! Not all women are like these psychos on the Knot... 99% of women do NOT start planning their weddings before they hit puberty, and 99.9repeating% of us would NEVER trap a guy. Only the morally bankrupt and desperate do that. Geez! Although Ibid, your reaction is the exact proof of my point that a very few bad seeds are perpetuating these horrific stereotypes about all womenkind. Although seriously, only a moron wouldn't notice if their girlfriend had poked a bunch of holes in a condom.)

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.