Thes “Cooking the Books” episode I did with Emily Gould is now up. It’s pretty adorable. When I woke up this morning I saw that a writer I admire had tweeted that his favorite part about the video is when I talk about how marriage is not a priority for me. I tweeted back: “i don’t judge the marrieds, i just don’t get them.”
Even thinking about marriage in reality – though obviously not in the fictive realm – feels absurd to me. Like talking to women who REALLY want to get married is the strangest thing. Once I knew this woman who told me in great detail about what her perfect wedding ceremonies (yes, plural) would be like. There was the beach ceremony version and the castle ceremony version and then I was like, “Do you even have a boyfriend?” And she was like, “A girl can dream.”
And then I was like, “You are insane.”
Marriage! I don’t know, you guys. I missed that fantasy when I was a little girl. I watched “Bride Wars” a few weeks ago (shut up) which is a terrible movie about Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson control-freaking out about looking perfect and having pretty hair and having a perfect, pretty wedding so that someday they can look back at all their pictures and say to themeselves, “Look at how great my ass was then.”
Anyway, the beginning of the movie is all about two little girls fantasizing about their dream weddings, and I kept thinking, I never did that. The phrase, “When I grow up and get married,” never entered my brain. In fact – and I just remembered this at this exact moment – when I was little I was mad at my parents one day and I drew on their wedding album. Oh my god, I was such a little shit! But do you see? Even then, I didn’t care about marriage. (And apparently I actively disrespected it.)
All right, all right, I’ll calm down now. I know marriage can be great for lots of people. I went to two lovely weddings this summer for two decidedly non-bridezilla friends, and I cried at both. The exquisite expression of love between the brides and their grooms at the moment they exchanged their vows was beyond touching. And my friend Joseph and his bride Anna married in Iowa last year in part because Iowa legalized gay marriage. I support this kind of behavior!
I always hold up my brother and his wife’s marriage as an example of a good marriage. They met when they were in college and they’ve been together more than twenty years, and they are pretty much a unit. It’s very impressive to watch them in the kitchen together. Someone to cook with, someone to dishes with, in perfect harmony. That seems pretty sweet, although I don’t think you need to get married to have that in your life.
And finally, I understand there are other benefits to marriage: health care, taxes, and invitations to married couples-only dinner parties where I bet you get to feast like a king. (Don’t lie, I know they exist.)
But it is nearly impossible to picture myself slotting into the bride world. This morning I keep thinking about those life-sized wooden characters you see at a circus or on a boardwalk, the ones with the holes cut out of the face, so you can put your face inside instead and transform into a clown or a princess or a super hero or yes, even a bride. I probably wouldn’t even put my face inside any of them. I’d be off on the ferris wheel. I’d be in line for cotton candy. I’d be sitting on a bench watching the crowds walk by, making up little stories about them in my head.
