Marriage Material

Two men have proposed to me. One used to do it near daily on campus my freshman and sophomore years. It was actually hilarious. We would be passing each other on campus and he would say something like, "You are so amazing. You are like perfect wife material. Will you marry me? Please?" And I would start cracking up. He was my friend Kevina's friend which is how we knew each other. Then one day he says, "No really you are perfect wife material but I'm not ready to settle down right now. One day though..."

I'm still looking at him laughing as he's saying this. Do you really think that's how it's gonna go down? I'm going to be sitting around with the chastity belt on while you sow your wild oats? You're absolutely right. Please give me a call when wild oats sowing time has ended and I will run to do your bidding. Bath water ready, paper secure, slippers handy, dinner ready. (This guy and I actually hung out a few times senior year but he was still in oat-sowing phase. It was pretty wack.)

I actually started chatting up another guy to amuse Stace. Here's an excerpt of the relevant part of that post.
She was like "Go ask him about infinity," and started snickering. So I did. He started talking to me about how amazing infinity and zero were and something like zero was a social construct and didn't really exist or something insane like that. I kept making eyes at Stace about the hilarity of this whole operation while engaging him in conversation. He offered to let me borrow his books on infinity. How nice of him. Crazy physics major. I'll pass!! Lol.

One time we were hanging out in his room. Not like that 1969! Lol. Though I'm sure he would've liked it. Matter of fact, there was some music on but his taste was so incredibly bizarre that there was no way you could find enough songs to slap together and pass for a seduction mix tape. We had a decent time, but what was chemistry to him was to me just hanging out having fun, being me. Then he pops the question. *blank face* He comes with the, "I don't mean today, but one day. Will you marry me one day?" His wasn't the "because I want to be a whore without recompense sow my oats" proposal. It was more the "I know we don't know each other well enough and you won't be amenable to this idea because it's crazy to you but right to me" proposal. Yeah... Sir. That doesn't really make it less weird. I stopped talking to him regularly after that and the following year he transferred.

I feel like there was another proposal somewhere along the lines of "if we're not married by this age, let's marry each other" and I said ok through hysterical laughter. The problem is I don't remember who I may have made this alleged pact with making said agreement null (unless he's even cuter now than he was then). Stace had a pact like that with this guy from Hampton. They weren't dating, she just thought his aspirations were amazing. What's funny is that when they made the pact we were sitting with this guy I'd been talking to on and off. We were in the middle at that particular time, not on, not off. Just there, but I knew I never wanted to marry him. After making their pact, Stace and her partner in crime looked expectantly at us. I made a face then said, "If neither one of us is married by age 30, let's make a pact to find the other someone to marry." Does that count?

My dad says there is no need to talk about marriage until you have a ring. I don't know about all that but if you're thinking about buying a ring, that's a good time to bring it up. Before that, let's not get into unnecessary conjecture which will eventually doom the relationship. Because if you start bringing up marriage, she's going to start thinking about when and if you're not ready to answer that question, why even bother?

The crux of this post is to give a bit of advice to men. For the love of all that is holy, don't talk about marriage with a woman you either know nothing about or have no current, actualized intention of marrying. I've been with guys before who wanted to talk all about every detail of marriage with me. Sometimes it's not a problem, but sometimes it is. Sometimes you're setting yourself up for unnecessary failure. There are other ways to make conversation that don't plant false hopes. You are absolutely making it harder when the inevitable (if you have no marriage intentions) day of your breakup arrives. You'll get to hear, "But we talked about marriage!" and all sorts of other dramatic, off-putting phrases while you're thinking, "But I was just talking!" Keep your chatter away from kids, kids names, how to raise the children, wedding locations, honeymoons and actual marriage logistics (who takes out the trash, washes dishes, cleans toilets). I'm telling you this so you save yourself a lot of headache in the future. Plus it just annoys me and there's no need for all that! Ladies, I hope there is no need for me to tell you to keep your conversations marriage-free, as well. Thank you all for your cooperation.