I’ve always been curious about that whole marriage ritual.
Ya know? Like the jewelry, for instance. Why the left hand? Why the hand at all?
Somehow, I just feel like it would be more appropriate if, instead of the finger, the ring went on the toe.
And, actually, instead of a band at all – it were a tag:
Ah. Yes. Far more accurate.
It’s interesting how easily I get wrapped up in believing the lie that my friends who’ve gotten married and multiplied like Mormon rabbits are as happy as their social media updates purport. And when I say “lie”, I don’t mean that in a cruel or snarky way. It’s an excusable lie. Necessary, even. No one wants to hear your dirty laundry – whether you’re married or not. But, as I was talking to a recently divorced friend the other day, I asked the dumb question anyway: “How is it so many families are splitting up when all’s I’m seeing is happy holidays in Costa Rica and kid milestones and so on?” I had to be reminded, after being inundated with these filtered and fabricated representations of someone else’s private reality, that online life’s never an accurate signifier of what really goes on. It wasn’t for me, back when I used to post a million pictures of myself trying to look glamorous with a cocktail and falling short with a bleached version of Natasha Leggero. (Or just falling. In the street somewhere.)
(Kinds’a moments that never made it online #onehopes)
Heavily edited reality wasn’t real for me. And it’s not with most families you keep in touch with digitally, either. Not most of them, at least. It’s not the 360 picture. This is obvi, because it was that way even when I was a kid before AOL made its way into our home like some heroin-houseguest we’d soon all be clawing eachother’s eyes out over. But it’s worse now. I tend to even think that it probably becomes a Sims style “Keeping up with the Joneses” because one housewife will see someone else’s amazing home, garden, or cooking skills and realize she has to Stepford the fckk up. So, even if it is real, they’re doing it for the same reason I used go out to clubs and dress like a London call girl: to take pictures and bomb other moms’ feed with it. (If my sunroom renovation happens and it doesn’t get at least five likes… should I just torch the whole house and start over?) This’s when it gets weird, I suppose. When the online world gets involved. Like some abstract glass-house timeshare you go on a daily basis with your family to indelibly scrawl pieces of your life on the walls. The thing is, when you’re openly over-sharing your life to your f’real friends, married or not, there kinda is indeed a bit of a death. A death of your real self. And if you’re married, that’s multiple times over – ‘cause you’ve already sacrificed your IRL freedom for the sake of another person (maybe more if you’ve created any; maybe more than more if your creator talks to Joseph Smith).
*Sigh*, maybe you’re right, Glenn.
Mayhaps I’m just being a lonely hater. I am happy for my pals who are legitimately blessed with the kiss of marital bliss. And for all I know, I might be totally wrong. Maybe this is one of those cases where you can affirm happiness into existence by passing out your cherry-picked pleasant memories to others in Zuckerworld like they’re brochures highlighting how awesome marriage is. Maybe. But in case that’s wrong, I’m thankful for my happy-medium married friends who can still look at reality and find the humor it. The ones who manage to offer bits of their authentic reality – and weave their own misfortunes into relate-ably hilarious outtakes for my enjoyment and amusement. Because if I ever go insane and accept a nuptial toe tag of my own, I wanna know I have at least a few 3D friends I can commiserate with about the update-inappropriate downer stuff.