Maybe I Will Get Married

Photograph by Greg Rosenke

For long, I have so fashionably dismissed marriage as a patriarchal institution that has bureaucratized love itself. A flawed ideal which projects to us a lifetime of unconditional acceptance and care, but often crumbles under the weight of these lofty promises. There is no critique of marriage that I can provide which hasn’t been provided before. And my entire dating life has possibly reflected an unconscious desire to prove that people are too distractable and too pleasure oriented to be able to faithfully and sincerely commit themselves to a long-term relationship, let alone marriage.

I no longer am sure of what “love” means, and I hence do not hope for something which cannot be grasped. If I do get married, it is not because I love, and it is not because I want love. It is probably because I want companionship. There’s something that’s tangible, something that I know is possible.

I do not romanticize companionship. Because when I try to look at it for what it is, it simply looks like two people going through life together. Nothing more, nothing less. And while there may be moments of real pleasure, and joy, and intimacy, much of it seems bland. Two people who are unable to hide from each other the monotony, the mundanity, the melancholia that colours much of their respective lives. It is an agreement that we shall share in each other’s boredom and anxiety, and if not share in it, at least be a witness to it.

There, that’s what I’m really looking for. Someone to witness my life. Not everyone writes an autobiography that is read by millions. And so for someone like me whose life is too ordinary to be read about, my companion becomes the camera, the recorder, the audience. And maybe also my very own entourage.

As I consider the reality of moving to a city where I once more become unmoored in my social life, marriage gives me an instant exit from the terrifying prospect of trying to forge friendships. With marriage I have instant access to someone’s family and friends, and if we are not too miserable together, then I might have access to this social group for the rest of my life. And even if I do not feel close to a single one of them, at least I am not alone. I still think that being lonely in a crowd is better than being lonely alone. Hopefully, someone will notice the noose hanging from the ceiling fan.

Straight men like me love the thought of “playing the field” forever, a bunch of little Peter Pans flying about from bed to bed. And I complain about women pressuring us into “settling down”. We don’t want to settle down, why can’t we just be, why can’t we reject the labels. Such lies, such deception. I do not think that it is necessarily the woman’s hinting and probing which will make me agree to marriage. I believe it will be rather a result of my own reckoning with how lonely I am. How emotionally sterile my life is, how disconnected I feel from people, and from my own needs. Freedom loses its allure when it only runs away from, without moving towards something.

I don’t mean to imply that a woman can’t feel just as lonely and disconnected. But as a product of my conditioning, I am inclined to see the woman as either goddess or whore. And it is the goddess to whom I will submit in my loneliness, praying for her to consume me with whatever warmth and affection she can. Hold my finger and walk with me through life, because this shit is too scary.