I do or do I?
It's Sunday morning and I've woken up about 2 hours prematurely...
I've been thinking about marriage a lot lately. I'm not planning on popping the question anytime soon, (I imagine it will still be many years before we find a willing and able Mrs Beerman) but next month I'm attending the wedding of a high school friend (the first friend of mine from school to get hitched), and even the simple tasks of RSVPing and looking at their gift registries has made me take a hard look at the institution.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not one of those guys that says that I'll never get married, or that marriage is an arcane and pointless practice for the 21st century. I still believe that if the right girl came along, there would be no doubting my ability to step up to the plate and ask if I could put a ring on her finger.
Some of my pondering inevitably revolves around the fact that my friend and I are more or less the same age and he's nearly married. It's not that I believe that he's too young or doesn't know what he's doing or anything like that. I think that he is a man of solid judgment and therefore I trust that he is making the correct decision. Nor do I believe that 23 or 24 is too young an age for marriage. Most of my parents' friends were married by then. With that said, both of my parents were closer to 30 than they were to 20 and both had advanced degrees by the time they got married, and on some level this has always altered how I looked at marriage. Getting married and starting a family was something that you did after you got your career or professional life in order (or closer to it).
Being mildly career oriented as well, will I do the same? Probably. I'm not ready to bring another person into my life on the level that marriage requires. Would I be willing to sacrifice my career for hers? I'm not sure that I would be able to do that at this stage in my life. And because of my unwillingness to to that, I don't think that I'd be able to ask the same of her.
Note that, as with any subject, I reserve the right to change my mind at any moment. And if Mrs Right came along, I would be man enough to make the appropriate personal sacrifices for the relationship. But for now, I'm 23, single, and enjoying it.
I've been thinking about marriage a lot lately. I'm not planning on popping the question anytime soon, (I imagine it will still be many years before we find a willing and able Mrs Beerman) but next month I'm attending the wedding of a high school friend (the first friend of mine from school to get hitched), and even the simple tasks of RSVPing and looking at their gift registries has made me take a hard look at the institution.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not one of those guys that says that I'll never get married, or that marriage is an arcane and pointless practice for the 21st century. I still believe that if the right girl came along, there would be no doubting my ability to step up to the plate and ask if I could put a ring on her finger.
Some of my pondering inevitably revolves around the fact that my friend and I are more or less the same age and he's nearly married. It's not that I believe that he's too young or doesn't know what he's doing or anything like that. I think that he is a man of solid judgment and therefore I trust that he is making the correct decision. Nor do I believe that 23 or 24 is too young an age for marriage. Most of my parents' friends were married by then. With that said, both of my parents were closer to 30 than they were to 20 and both had advanced degrees by the time they got married, and on some level this has always altered how I looked at marriage. Getting married and starting a family was something that you did after you got your career or professional life in order (or closer to it).
Being mildly career oriented as well, will I do the same? Probably. I'm not ready to bring another person into my life on the level that marriage requires. Would I be willing to sacrifice my career for hers? I'm not sure that I would be able to do that at this stage in my life. And because of my unwillingness to to that, I don't think that I'd be able to ask the same of her.
Note that, as with any subject, I reserve the right to change my mind at any moment. And if Mrs Right came along, I would be man enough to make the appropriate personal sacrifices for the relationship. But for now, I'm 23, single, and enjoying it.
posted by Mr Beerman at 5:10 AM
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