Meh-widge.

I recently read a synopsis of a book, a rather thorough synopsis, about marriage. It was something like “Why Men Marry Some Women and Not Others.”  It didn’t delve into marriage exactly, it was more about the act of getting married, and answered such hard-hitting questions as How do women get married? How do they get a man to propose? Ultimately it was about what sort of things play into your favor if you’re looking to get married.  I am now scarred for life.

Truthfully, it wasn’t that scary. It was mostly common sense stuff, with the biggest contributing factor being, surprise, surprise, the desire to get married.  That’s a bit like saying the biggest contributing factor in whether or not a person goes out to eat is the desire to go out to eat, but I’ll play along.  

The statistics of women who marry roughly translate into: be attractive, but not too sexy, dress like a wife, don’t clean for him, don’t have sex with him for a while, impress his family but put him above your own, don’t talk about the future for the first six dates but after that let him know you are seriously going to get married, date around, then don’t, don’t live with your parents, pretend to like football/baseball/hockey/golf, call exes “losers,” be self-assured, talented and thin. Above all, keep your eye on the prize. You should eat, drink, sleep and dream of the ideal; Marriage.

He should be in his thirties, a childless widower, and, well, those are your best odds right there. Just be sure to dump him if he won’t agree to spend the rest of his life with you after about a year or so.

So, how can I say with any degree of confidence that I will not be walking down any aisle other than the shampoo one at Target? Consider this – I am attractive, but not too sexy, I dress like a couch or a college student most of the time, I will clean for you, while wearing something whore-ish and hoping we can please have sex as soon as possible, I may or may not impress your family (who are they? Am I going to be impressed with them as well? Give and take!), but it’s going to be a while before I think you rank above mine. I’m not going to talk about the future in the first six dates, but I probably won’t after that either.  I don’t date around. If we happen to meet, hit it off, then go out, congratulations, we’ve had a date. I’m unlikely to have the energy to do that with more than one guy in a week. And sorry, but sometimes I do live with my parents.  It’s a big house, they’re nice people, so what.  I will watch baseball with you. DO NOT MAKE ME WATCH GOLF! I will heckle.  My exes are all pretty nice and I’m not going to talk smack about them. I am not terribly self-assured, I am somewhat talented, and I’m not very heavy, but I will never be a stick-figure, nor do I want to be.  Finally, on the list of things on my mind at any particular time, marriage is somewhere between “when can I go to Europe next,” and “do flies reincarnate?”  It’s not a big concern. Why write a blog about it then? Sigh. I'm an unmarried woman, what else do I have to do?  As for the man himself – I don’t pay a lot of attention to age, and fine, be a childless widower if you want, but I prefer orphans.  In-laws are cray-zee!

And I mean that!