"She said yes!"

Being the first blog of the new year, one might expect me to write about resolutions. I'm not going to do that. I don't have any. I'm certain, though, that if I had any I would probably keep them. I'm a determined sonovabitch, that's why.

I was sitting at my desk on New Year's Eve when I received not one but two of those "She said yes!" texts. From different people. I don't like text messages very much and anyone who knows me knows how little I like weddings. Put the two together and there's a Molotov cocktail of indifference. It's not the institution of marriage that I dislike, I just don't like weddings. The flowers. The preparation. The travel. The planning. The rehearsal dinner. The bridesmaids that always seem to think that my kilt is awesome, flirt with me for a bit, and then tell me about their "awesome boyfriend that played football at Georgia". Strangely enough, that's the feeling that I get most every time I go the bar. Minus the kilt, of course.

I wonder what the fascination with marriage is. I understand it as an institution. It's everything that leads up to it that I hate. The nights at the bar. The facebook stalking (shut up, you do it, too). The "did she ask about me?"s. [I'm not sure how to properly punctuate that.] The "is she single?"s [Again with the punctuation ambiguity.]

My friend and hetero-life-mate Matt Melanson are in the same boat. It's the same thing with us week in and week out. I'm constantly reminded of the world's shortest fairytale:
Once upon a time a man asked a woman to marry him and the woman said "No!" The man then began riding his motorcycle, going hunting and fishing, playing golf and baseball, drinking lots of beer and whiskey, hanging out with his friends, saving his money, leaving the toilet seat up, farting whenever he wanted and lived happily ever after.
And I feel better. I really got to thinking about it a year and a half ago when I got laid off from my job. I did the responsible thing, took my severance package and drove across the country. If I were married, do you think that my better half would have let me get in my car, drive to a different time zone and go play in the mountains for a week and a half? Probably not. Also, if I were married, do you think that I'd be able to wake up on a Sunday morning, blog, watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and then plan on playing Wii? Let's be serious.

I realize that all of this makes me sound like an asshole... but I'm not here to impress anybody.

My dear friends, I love you all. I just don't want to receive any more of those "She said yes!" texts... for multiple reasons.