A work in regress
One of my friend TG’s crusty blonde hoebags likes to say people are a work in progress. I’m thinking I’m a work in regress right now.
I was just reading an article on the decline of marriage. It’s not that more babies are being born, per se, but that fewer women are getting married because the quality of the men from which we have to choose is in rapid decline. Financially anyway. And who wants to mate with/marry someone who will be more of a burden than an upgrade?
I don’t know. I never really thought about it that way. I figured, just let me find someone who loves me and I’ll be happy. Then I found that. And I thought, well, if I can find someone who loves me, then let me find someone who can support himself and therefore me … and therefore any offspring that might, well, spring.
Aaaand, that’s where it stopped.
I’m not rich. I only rent a condo in the best ZIP Code in South Florida. That doesn’t mean I have furniture, a decent car, clothes from anywhere other than Ross or Marshall’s, or the ability to take a vacation or BUY A FUCKING LAPTOP* without going into heart palpitations.
* I’ve been waiting to buy a laptop secondhand. I really need a new computer so I’ve been shopping with my tax refund. I almost bought one last night. And the last six times I’ve walked into Best Buy. I simply cannot make a purchase over $100 without worrying that it will jinx me and things will fall apart**.
** Speaking of “Things Fall Apart,” the horrible book that launched a thousand yam fits, the author died yesterday. I’d had a mini yam fit the day before, ostensibly in his honor. Yams***.
*** Did you know that there’s a Nigerian Yam Monster named Zobi? His catchphrase: “Me Eat Yams.” When this career drives me to the mother of all yam fits (it’s coming), this is my backup career.
So, financially suitable men. Look, I’m still looking for love. But I’m also turning 39 this year. If I might ever want kids (*shudder*) I’m not exactly certain I’ll meet Mr. Right in the very small window I have for fertility. I often wonder whether I should think about putting the cart before the horse.
But then I think, hey, I thought I was such a prize because no man has to inherit some other guy’s kid. Yet I keep getting messages on dating sites from men with kids. Multiple. And I think, well FUCK, I might as well have had one when I had the chance and they would damn well have to like it.
Yet, being a free agent still hasn’t made me all that attractive, eh? Even when single guys say they love it that they don’t have to deal with another man’s legacy, that isn’t enough to keep them around. (Old, crusty, homely blondes with their own lookalike offspring apparently is somehow NOT a turnoff somehow. *cough*)
Actually I think I’ve figured that particular guy out. It’s not the Whorothy of it all, but rather the having women on speed-dial IF he wants them, rather than actually having to commit to a life with any of them.
He’s fun and I would have loved him if he’d let me. But we never have to find out because he won’t let it get that far. And I think that’s what he does with all his girls.
He’s happier being single even though he’ll swear whorebag is his girlfriend. To me.
Ask any other girl he would meet, though, and I wonder if I would fall into that coveted title category instead. I’m a catch, damnit.
Hey, I can’t fault anyone for self-preservation. I probably deserve it after some of the shit I’ve pulled in my day.
No, I don’t deserve it. But I completely understand it.
I can say I’m single because I have to take care of Princess. Or that I have to work all the time. That nobody would ever put up with me because I have so many commitments and no time to have fun and frankly no fuse left at the end of the day/week to be a nice person because everybody fucking trampled on it.
Isn’t that easier than putting forth effort to find/keep someone?
I get you, TG. You’re right, we are kindred.
Anyway, the decline of marriage. It’s true — college grads want another college grad. I don’t care how cute you are — if your personals ad says “high school grad” or “some college,” your witty little letter doesn’t get a reply. When I don’t have magic or conversational compatibility as a metric, your social resume is all I’ve got.
From the article:
“Put starkly, technology makes it cheaper and easier than ever to be single. It makes marrying a financially unstable man even more risky.”
I’ve done the “poor” thing. Now I’m doing the “working-class poor” thing. I’ve all but missed my window to have kids. Is it so wrong to want a guy who can afford to take me to Paris or at least to support me if this career thing of mine stalls again?
That’s not to say I wouldn’t have sold my soul for exactly one guy in my whole history. I know “could have been” when I see it. Poverty or at least “being broke” is a fluid state when you’ve got the education, charm and smarts to change your lot in life. I would have been more than willing to wait it out together because better days are coming for us all.
Plus, I’m not a girl who’d need a ring — I can buy my own, if I could just downsize from this ridiculous rent. But … I also wouldn’t mind someone buying it for me and, for once in my life, enjoying a little symbolism, tradition and maybe even security that the next homely blonde who walks by us in a bar isn’t going to make his head snap around …