The reason one says yes to getting married is far too complex to boil down to a single thing, but it’s interesting to try to do it, just to distil that layered and emotional time a bit.
For me, I got married the first time because we were about to travel to the other side of the world for four or five years and it was scary. Also, I was in love. And my dad always said of other people that he couldn’t understand why you’d commit to travel together but not to be married.
The second time it was because I was determined not to stuff it up and disappoint myself, my parents and everyone else. I wasn’t head over heels in love so I figured that was the optimum setting for it: I could be rational and make it work. No matter what.
A friend told me he got married because: She said if we didn’t then she was going to take the house and the dogs and I liked the way my life was.
Another friend told me: She’d been bugging about doing it. It was summer in [a European country], we’d spent the day picking grapes and as we were driving away it occured to me that if I got married I wouldn’t have to worry about women and relationships ever again.
Now, I look back at my reasons as pretty damn silly and thin and honest. But that last one – the one from a friend – breaks my heart with its naive hopefulness and gentle giving in. Its romance and its total practicality – albeit in a magical universe of some sort.
I really feel for the poor bugger.
1000 days 