The previous article by my friend Liza brought up some thoughts in me that I have been struggling with for years. I am 35 and never been married. Granted I look and act like I am in my 20’s! (ego stroke, ahh feels good…) I once heard that if a man makes it to the age of 30 without being married he is either really intelligent or very unattractive. I like to lean towards the first one! but being single is great! well I’m kinda single. I think after the age of 30 you feel single even if you are dating. Girlfriend/boyfriend? Well, they are like busses and there is always another coming. The truth is I am dating someone in Japan. I don’t think the long distance is a good idea but she makes it work and I am afraid of her.
In my 20s I met an amazing girl, she was smart beautiful funny and enjoyed sex as much as I did! In fact the first time we went to bed together we didn’t get out for about 5 days!! No joke… After the five days we realized that we were running out of food and the sheets were getting crusty. This was magical pornographic moment… I think it was the first time in my life that I fell in love/lust and wow what a drug!!
Our relationship was about 6 months old when Sharon moved in with me (bad idea). We were so incredibly in love that every thing was perfect, well except for when it wasn’t.
One day Sharon and I go to a gay bar in Santa Barbara called “Fathom” which brought to my mind big gay pirates on the high seas, exploring the fathoms of their partners… sorry… We were the only strait couple in the bar, no idea why we were there, maybe because we were not supposed to be? I order us a cosmo the most popular drink at the time and we drink one, two, three each. The bartender is VERY heavy handed and in a dirty pirate way, winks at me every time I get another round. We sit in the corner together mildly intoxicated with love and liquor. I felt the love for her as strong as any emotion I have ever felt and I decided to say one of the stupidest things I have ever said in my life. “Sharon will you get engaged to me?”
AHHH!!!! Dumb ass…! This was such an idiotic thing to say because I had no idea what it meant!! I thought getting engaged was about at serious as a promise ring. Something couples did when they were in love and were thinking about getting married, I didn’t know it was some sort of contract!! I was in a gay bar – about three STRONG drinks to the wind and I was asking Sharon to marry me… And I didn’t even know it. She said yes, we cried and then I cried again when I realized what I had done.
Sharon to this day remains one of the most amazing girls I have ever met, would we have made a good couple? NO WAY… 13 years later I realize that there is NO WAY I could have lasted longer than 2 years with this girl no matter how much I loved her. Granted she has changed since we first met and I no longer know her. I recently found her wedding pictures online. She ended up marrying the “other” guy that was always butting into our relationship. It was hard to see those pictures at first, since it brought to my mind a life that I could have had. Then I snapped out of it. HELL NO!!! I no longer found the girl in the picture even attractive and reading her comments on photos told me that she was as acidic and sarcastic as ever. Not my type.
Now this is were it gets sticky. Maybe I am wrong? Maybe if I had married Sharon I would have had a wonderful life? We could have really worked in a highly dysfunctional way (ignore my cynicism) I keep disqualifying everyone I meet, even the wonderful girl in Japan I am dating. Why would I do this? Because it is true? That I am such an amazing guy I am never going to find my equal? Or is it a lie? Is it really that I am only deathly afraid of getting married and making any and every excuse to stay out of it?
No matter how I reflect and second-guess myself I will still remain single and my heart will continue to harden. I will become more and more selfish single guy and seek out more and more shallow relationships to slake a thirst I can never quench.
WOW… So serious!!!
Liza and I will eventually get married but we are both going through a very selfish time. This happens to a lot of people in their thirties and it called CAREER! I don’t know why but most of my friends are the same. I figure once I pop out the other side and am a little more stable I will want to settle down. (that is if someone can handcuff me to the alter) So if you are thinking about tying the knot? Just go for it! you can always get divorced in 5 years!
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Very interesting article.
You brought up some great points and one thing i want to say is, can we ever find the “right person” when we are always changing, new experiences, that shape our personality.
Like you said, 13 years ago she was perfect, but now shes the opposite.
This is very interesting to consider, because I think most marriages, one person restricts the other from doing what they want, may it be career or anything.
And this continues from both counter parts and it becomes dysfunctional.
I got a question for you, I had a recent post called “marriage should be treated like business” and I had one comment from a married guy who said, if you are married, you become the property of that person.
To me it does not sound right, but is marriage really like that?
Here’s the link
http://tomaszgorecki.com/2009/02/04/marriage-should-be-treated-like-business/
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Good question Tom
I believe that you have to become the other person property or you never truly can grow together. You are bound and in the binding you are forced walk the same path. If you choose to walk a different path I believe it will lead to divorce. If I had married Sharon at age 22, I might very well still be married and I might be happy but I would be a RADICALLY different person than I am today. I most certainly would not be fluent in Japanese or writing this post!! but I might still be happy…
Mike,
Where the hell do you get all these great photos?
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Hmmm, interesting article and interesting comments. Yeah, I definately think you were going through a phase when you wrote it.
Truly, I think it takes perspective. If your idea of marriage is a way to take the next step, keep the other person from getting away, or something that can happen until you grow apart and decide that divorce is a good answer (after five years;-)) then, well, marriage really will never mean anything.
Its true, men and women are very different. But that is the beauty of it. For me, marriage is a committment…a covenant. Basically, you are saying, “I realize that sometimes I am going to be an ass…and so will you…but, I endeavor to work through it…to grow internally and with you…for better or for worse for so long as we both live”. To act like it doesnt matter…to say and agree at that moment and then change your mind later…well thats like you writing a post and then later saying “ah, yeah, that was just something I thought up that moment to fill the blog space, I didnt really believe any of the crap I wrote”. But, I think you put a lot of thought into your posts…so, I dont think you believe that at all.
Sure, you should not enter into that arena until you are ready to face all that it entails (which is one of the problems these days). If you do go there, you are making a choice. And it isnt a light one. Or, it shouldnt be. But you shouldnt be afraid or cynical about it.
And I agree, who you are together will be a lot different then who you are apart. Thats another beauty of it. I do enjoy your posts, but that doesnt mean you wouldnt be interesting if you were married (you just might not have known japanese…but maybe you would have known portugese or something)
Hopefully, when it is time, you wont have to be handcuffed. I think you will know. But also, I hope that in the same way you are open and absorb everything in an effort to grow as a person (revealed in your posts), you will also learn to grow in sensitivity/selflessness in an effort to not develop a hard heart as noted above. I personnally make it a goal to not become the “cat lady” as a single (though I hate cats)
Anyways, I have said enough…this is totally off the cuff and unedited….I apologize if I have taken on the difficult personality persona:-)
cuidado
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How do you “date” someone that lives in another country? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?
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Hya. Interesting and nice article. I am a 29 year old bloke, from indian asian origin, a Mechanical Engineer by profession in U.K. I am single. I am good looking and have sexy body features and athletic built. I won,t say I am happy or unhappy. I would say 50/50. But I prefer to be single and have more beautiful relationships. I want to share my sexual experience here which changed my thinking.
Uptill now, I only had one proper 3 weeks sexual relationship with my brief friend Jackey, who was 47 years old. I know it may look strange as she is so old while usually people go for younger girls. But I was very quite and shy person.
I met Jackey at a retail store in Bradford. I just found her very friendly and gentle. We just talked briefly and I gave her my number. She called me and then we decided to meet in a coffe shop on top floor of a bookstore. I noticed the deep frustrated look on face of the local girl serving me coffee who did not want to see a young 27 year old handsome with a mature 47 year old lady. Jackey came to me and kissed me on my left cheek. She said I am too sexy and young for her to be be her daughers age. But I said it is fine as long as we are friends. I was very nervous as it was my first date in life. After coffe she decided to show me her flat where she lived alone. The flat was located 30 minutes on train at outskirts of Bradford. Even in train while sitting with Jackey I noticed strange frustrated looks of girls and ladies. I could not understand why they were staring at us like that may be to see this mismatch.
It was a nice flat. We were standing at the balcony where I had my first kisse of a woman almost twice my age, funny. I came to her and had a gentle light kiss at her lips, I was nervous. I did this beause due to my extrme shyness in sex I could not get into a relationship and I wanted one. She told me to come inside the flat. Where she became so intensely involved in kissing my lips and sucking my tongue that I became afraid. I have seen horro movies , urban legends where vampire eate human flesh and tongue n kissing. I became afraid as I never did it before. But I could not stop her. Really folks I never know this tongue sucking kiss but she was dominant on me. Then we had protected sex three times in that night. Jackey wanted to have unprotected sex but I refused, and said to have protected. She taught me well about sex that night.
I realized jackey was a decent nice lonely divorced lady of 47 years old, with one daughter of my age. She worked in a relail store. I slept with her. I was so nervous but at the end of it, I learnt a lot. She escorted me to train station to Bradford after a session of 4 hours.
She told me that shenever had this sort of nice experience before and wanted to conitune. Then i continued for three weeks before I realized it is not right. I do not know why but deep from my heart a voice sad it is not right and I left Bradford due to that incident. Jackey continued to write emails to me and said she got a lottery in form of me.
Then after three years of that incident in a new job as a Mechanical Engineer, I am still single and did not have any sexual relationship since then. I had refused to be involve with one 16 year old Bristol girl as I said she was too young and it is against the law.
I am still single at 29 years of age with handsome looks. Now I do not want to get marry but want to have a nice sexual relationship with a nice beautiful girl in twenties. I think sex at 30 will be ideal where I shall be exploring new horizons of intimacy, orgasm, deep sexual pleasures oF SEX. But at times I feel sad to be single but then I feel happy. It is still 50/50, guess. But I prefer now to be in a nice relationship.
vickheart@gmail.com
vick
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