Right the First Time

Facebook is a landmine of engagement and wedding pictures from people from all stages of my life.  On any given day, these pictures can evoke many different emotions - joy, jealousy, disgust.  Am I, a known hopeless romantic, turning into a cynic?   

I get the most frustrated when I see someone my age or a little older getting married for the second time.  How did they get not just one , but two people to commit to them?  I know I am ignoring that their first marriage didn’t work, but that first person loved them enough to attempt the greatest leap of faith.  That counts for something in my book.

I only want to get married once.  I want to get it right the first time.  I want to know, without a doubt, that the person I marry is the only person I could ever think of waking up to everyday for the rest of forever.  I know everyone enters marriage with these same hopes.  I do think that some of the people I know have given up on their marriages too easily.  They rushed in or fell prey to an ultimatum, and they weren’t ready.  They didn’t fight to make it work.  Things got hard and they called it quits.  Marriage is not for the faint of heart.  Sharing your life with another person is one of the most difficult things any of us will ever do.  Letting them in to your heart, your mind, and your bathroom is a whole new level of vulnerable.  

I am glad I didn’t get married at 22.  I am not the same person I was then.  It’s not like I had the opportunity to anyway.  Nonetheless, I am glad that is not the path that life took me down.  I needed to know me to be able to share myself with another human being.  My parents got married very young.  Although my parents are still happily married, my mother stressed the need to let myself grow up before I chose to spend my life with someone else.    

I am not sure how one ends up getting married anyway.  I can’t even get a guy to buy me dinner, much less shell out the money for a ring.  I know that it is suppose to go something like: girl meets boy, boy asks out girl, boy and girl date for a while, boy buys a ring, and girl says yes.  My question is, how do you actually make that happen.  How do you get a guy to ask you to dinner?  How do you keep them interested?  

A guy once told me that I have too much personality to keep a guy interested unless I was sleeping with him. I took great offense to that, but part of me wonders if it is true.  Is the reason why I am single the fact that I am too neurotic?  I have always said I don’t settle, but the more I look at the men of my past I realize that is all I have ever done.  I have settled for fucked up, non-relationship relationships.  I have been in love with men who have made it very clear that I will never be their priority, and they will never care about me the way that I deserve.  

I want to get it right the first time, but what if marriage is not in the cards for me?  What if I am not meant to share my life with someone?  I like to think I would make an amazing wife someday.  I have a list of reasons why someone should want to marry me:
1) I am a good cook.
2) I am great with kids.
3) Parents love me.
4) I like sports.
5) I am pretty.

This is not exhaustive but hits the key points.  Aren’t these the things that men are looking for in a person they want to marry?  If not, they should be.  

Part of the problem is that every man I have met, who has been the kind of person that I would want to spend the rest of my life with, has never available.  I want someone that doesn’t mind that I talk A LOT, in fact, they should actually enjoy it.  He should be supportive and encouraging of my writing, and whatever other crazy dream I decide to latch onto.  He should love Christmas and family traditions, and want to make some of our own.  He must love television or at least put up with my extensive television schedule.  I want the small things, the things that are the real make or break points, the things that most people overlook.  To me, these are the things that make a marriage last the test of time.  

So, I am going to keep waiting to meet that person who is willing to take the greatest leap of faith with me.  I will wait as long as it takes because I will get it right the first time.