They are right, but they're wrong too

So I was hanging out with my friends at the New Year's Eve party, and one of my friends is sort of asking advice about dating. This person doesn't date much. After having an account with eHarmony, she is switching to Match.com, because it is less money, and because in her opinion eHarmony takes too long.

Except for switching to a different dating website, it seems like this person had this same conversion last year and got mostly the same advice from mostly the same people.

This person doesn't date much, but I suppose that she's decided if she's ever going to have someone special in her life that it is time to do something about it. I'm guessing that she decided this a few years ago, but she still hasn't found anyone. And she hasn't dated much in the past, so she's a bit worried about dating now. She's also worried that if she does meet someone that she wants to be with that they will get married and she won't like being married after being single for so long. She has quite a list of things that she is either worried about or just flat out does not want.

I haven't seen her list. I haven't heard much about what is on the list. But I don't see that having a list is a bad thing. You probably go out on fewer dates if you have a list and stick to it. But I don't see that as a bad thing either. How can it be a bad thing if you don't date someone that you already know you wouldn't want to end up in a serious relationship with.

Everyone else seems to be telling her that she's doing this all wrong, and that she should just start dating and enjoy meeting different people, and that she shouldn't be so worried about what might happen. They tell her to stop worrying and just let it happen. She's not going to have a good time dating if she's always thinking about getting married.

I think that is the whole point of dating, so I think that they're wrong. Maybe it isn't as much fun, but if she's really looking for a husband, shouldn't she stop dating someone as soon as she's decided she wouldn't marry him? Wouldn't it be better to not date at all rather than waste time with people she doesn't want. And I'm guessing that dating isn't all that fun for her anyway, or she would have done more of it.

And I do think that she has valid concerns about finding someone nice, getting married, and then not being happy after finding out what actually living with this other person is like.

Maybe she has such a long list of things that she wants and does not want that she will never get a date, and maybe she should shorten the list, but I don't think that she should be talked out of having a list or even told what things she can have on that list. If she's that worried about ending up with someone who snores, why can't she be honest about it?

RSVP?

Okay, so I'm not a very social person, at least not when it comes to the formal stuff. But I do get the occasional written invitation to parties, when one is expected to RSVP, or tell say whether or not one is going to be there.

I've always thought that this means to say if you are going. If you don't say that you are going, it would be assumed that you are not going. So if you send out a hundred invitations to something, and then you would get back maybe seventy-five answers saying that they would be going and whether or not they were bringing an escort, and then you would maybe get back five or ten answers saying that they would not be going and apologizing and saying why they would not be going. And then that would leave fifteen or twenty other people not going, but they either did not have a really good reason for not going or else just didn't want to say what it was, and you would assume that since they did not answer that they would not attend.

A few years ago, my sister got married, and one of her new in-laws explained to me that the opposite was supposed to be true. For a formal invitation only event, it is more important to answer if you will not attend. If you send out a hundred invitations and seventy-five people answer that they will be there and possibly bringing escorts, and five or ten people apologize that they will not be attending because they have to be somewhere else, that leaves fifteen or twenty other people you assume will also be there but that their answers were lost in the mail or something.

As no one else on my side of the family had ever heard this explanation, I just went back to thinking that just isn't the way it is done. Maybe that was the way it was originally supposed to work, but I don't think that anybody does it that way now. It seems almost rude to say that you're not going to something you're invited to if you can't give some good reason to stay away. I'm not going because I have to be out of town that weekend sounds perfectly reasonable. To make a point of saying that you're not going to be there and not give a reason sounds cold or something, and it seems unnecessary. They'd figure out that you're not going to be there when they notice that you haven't said that you were going to be there.

No need to rub it in that you won't be there because you'd rather wash your hair or clip your nails and watch TV.

I more often get less formal invites anyway, by word of mouth or emails. If I want to go I say that I'm going and ask if I need to bring something or if I need to wear something special. If I don't answer, they'll figure out I'm not going. If they ask me a second time I'll elaborate that I don't like to drive in the dark or to the other side of Dallas or whatever my problem is.

Now there is the electronic invite, the Evite and other similar things. I haven't quite gotten it through my head that this now counts as a formal invite, though if it is a wedding I think that paper invites are still the thing.

So the daughter of a friend at the club is getting married this month. And the wedding is a small family only thing, but he said that we were invited to the reception they are having later. And I don't really know the daughter and thought he just mentioned it in passing to me just to be polite, and that he didn't really expect me to go. I don't go to a lot of weddings. I went to some with my family when I was younger, but as an adult I can only remember going to three. One of them was mine and another was my sister's. I really don't go to a lot of weddings, and it seems that those I want to attend happen when I really do have to be somewhere else like an out of town business trip.

So an email about the friend's daughter's wedding went out, and I didn't really pay any attention to it. A lot of emails come about club stuff that doesn't really have anything to do with me and I don't answer them. Just thought that it was one of those group emails that goes out to the whole group, mostly to be polite, but they don't really involve everyone.

So then I got another email, saying that I most have missed the first one. Well, this one I didn't see until just now, but he sent it a few days ago. And I hadn't seriously thought about going at all, since I think I've maybe met his daughter twice, and he has two of them and I tend to get them mixed up. So I'm not even clear on which one is getting married, that is how little I know her.

So I wasn't going to go because a.) I don't really know her, b.) I think that one usually gets all dressed up for such things and I'm not sure that I have anything to wear that fits right now, and c.) I think that when one does go to a wedding reception that you get the couple a gift (often something expensive and/or totally useless) and I have no money for that sort of thing now and I certainly don't want to spend money on someone I really don't know anyway.

Now I'm not sure if I'm being asked because he would just like me to confirm that I am not going, or if he was really expecting me to be there and wants me to say that I am going.

Now I don't know what to do, but I'd better say something to him today.

Finding a new spouse

I used to be friends with a certain person we will call Mr. Cigarette. Mr. Cigarette was married, and they had a little girl J. When a bunch of us would go somewhere, J would usually go with us, but not Mrs. Cigarette. I really didn't get to know Mrs. Cigarette. She just wasn't around us except maybe once or twice. I don't think she was unfriendly, just that she didn't have the energy to go out much, and when she did she probably had better things to do. She had some illness and was on dialysis. Even we she felt good she couldn't take any long trips or anything, cause she had to be near home in time for the dialysis.

Mrs. Cigarette died. I didn't know that things had gotten that bad for her, but eventually she needed a transplant and didn't get one. It was a bit of a surprise for me, but not for her family. I didn't see Mr. Cigarette for a couple of weeks, but after that he seemed mostly himself and not that upset. J didn't even seem that upset when I saw her later. I think that they must have lived a long time with the idea that Mrs. Cigarette was going to die and gotten past most of their grieving before it actually happened.

I was out of town and missed the funeral. A bit after that Mr. Cigarette got some insurance money and bought a new car and some other stuff. He went through his wife's things and got rid of a lot of it, and he boxed up a lot of his own stuff because he thought he might move soon.

I never really know what to say to people after there's been a death in the family. But I wanted to say something. He kept insisting that he was okay.

At some point he said that everything was fine, and that Christmas was coming and that he and J would be okay, but he was really not looking forward to the months after that. I didn't know what he meant.

Apparently he expected everyone he knew to start trying to find dates for him, and he wasn't really looking forward to dating.

So just tell them no thank you, you're not ready or whatever.

But he didn't want to do that. He wanted to get on with it. He had been single before, and he did not like it. He said that he wanted to meet someone else and get married again soon. He hoped to have met the next Mrs. Cigarette and be in a serious relationship before next year's Christmas cards were sent out.

I was shocked. I couldn't believe he was serious.

He started dating again. Once in a while we would meet someone that he was dating. The women looked attractive enough, but I didn't like most of the ones I met. I thought that one of them looked at me funny, like--this is my man, go away. First of all, at the time I thought I had happily married stamped on my forehead, and was not doing anything that would make anyone think that I was after Mr. Cigarette. Second, Mr. Cigarette had made it plain enough that he liked me and found me attractive, so I'm sure that if I was not married or had given him any hope of thinking I'd ever me interested in him that way, it would not have been much of a contest. And for another thing, since I didn't find Mr. Cigarette attractive that way, I wondered why any attractive woman would be all over him like that. It made me wonder what was wrong with her, if she was a pretty package that contained nothing.

An attractive bitch is still a bitch.

I found the whole thing a bit creepy. J had just lost her mother, and her dad was in a hurry to marry someone else who was a complete stranger and possibly quite full of herself and clueless about being a parent or even a wife. One of these women was supposed to be J's step-mom?

When Mr. Cigarette was not with a date, he would complain to me about how tired he was from all the dating. He said that he wasn't having a lot of fun most of the time. He didn't have time to do the stuff that he wanted to do. While I would not like for my husband to die, I had given the matter some thought and was pretty sure what I would do if that happened. If I ever was again in a situation where I would be dating again, I would think that it would have to be romantic or at least a lot of fun or I wouldn't be doing it.

So stop dating.

Only he couldn't do that, cause he had to find the woman he was going to marry. Dating was a necessary evil one must go through as part of finding that person.

I saw less and less of J and Mr. Cigarette. All that dating left him little time for the things that we used to do. I didn't know who he was dating or if it was going well or what.

And then he said he was going to miss something, because he was going out of state for his honeymoon.

Okay. See you when you get back.

And then a month or two later, I met the new Mrs. Cigarette. She did not always speak pleasantly, though she was pleasant enough when talking to me. She was short and round, and didn't resemble anything that I would call pretty. She constantly seemed to be on Mr. Cigarette's back about stuff, reminding that he had to do this and that, and that if they didn't get such and such done that they would be late for something else, and don't forget to go to the store, etc....

She was perfect.

Or, at least, she was perfect for Mr Cigarette and J. New Mrs. Cigarette looked very tough, but she must have been really easy to get along with. She is not into the whole fandom thing, but for their honeymoon she went with Mr. Cigarette to a convention. She also smoked, though probably not as much as Mr. Cigarette. I really disapprove of smoking (though not as much as I disapprove of alcohol), but if you're going to smoke you should at least marry someone else who smokes so that you don't have arguments about it.

New Mrs. Cigarette also had a daughter, who was a couple of years older than J. But J was a bit tall for her age, and the other little girl was a bit small for her age, so that they ended up being about the same size and were able to share clothes. The two girls appeared to be best buddies.

They all seemed to mesh together quite well. They were a smaller version of the Brady Bunch, only with cigarettes and without a maid.

A bit after this, I had to go out of town a lot and did not see as much of them as I would have liked. Our little group was drifting apart anyway. I joined a different group, and he joined the same group, but after a while he declined to do anything with us. Instead of just doing what he wanted to do, he was trying to spend an equal amount of time doing what she wanted to do. And the stuff that you have to do when you have a child like go shopping for clothes, and arranging for piano lessons, and going to soccer games, and helping out with homework had now doubled now that he had a stepdaughter. That left him less than half the free time that he used to have.

I hung out with the new group as often as I could, but Mr. Cigarette seemed to drift away from that group too. I didn't see him anymore, except for the occasional party those first couple of years. After that I didn't see him at all except at someone's funeral.

I wonder if they all stayed as happy as they seemed when I knew them.

In any case, I think that I was too judgmental of his desire to get right back into dating after his wife's death. His family was incomplete, and he needed to go out and find the missing piece, or in this case, the missing pieces. And I do very much see that if I should be in a situation where I would be dating again, that dating might seem like a necessary evil one most go through in order to find a new spouse. If finding that special someone is a priority, then you might have to put some actual work into it, and not just date once in a while when it is fun.

Monday Morons--7-7-07

A bunch of people got married Saturday. I think that some of them are a bit weird.

Don't misunderstand. I wish them well anyway. I just think it's weird to pick your wedding day because of the way that the numbers line up. Some of the people were extra weird and decided to get married at seven o'clock.

But some of them got to do cool things. A bunch of them got married at Six Flags on a roller-coaster. If your dream wedding involved getting married on a roller-coaster, Saturday was definitely the right day for you. I'm sure that sort of thing is normally very expensive, but these people probably got to do it for the normal price of admission. Good for them.

Anyway, I didn't realize this was going to be a big deal until Friday. I saw something about it on the news. 7-7-07. Lucky day. Must be time to get married.

Okay, the first I heard about someone getting married on that day was a bit before Christmas. N, sister of one of my friends from the club, had met someone online. So that was already weird, at least to me. After what happened to me, I don't think much of people who have online relationships. I don't see how you can really get to know someone that way. I can see meeting someone online and then having regular dates and falling in love afterward, but I can't understand picking "the one" online and agreeing to marry someone that you've never even met.

And I think N meeting someone online is a bit weird anyway. N is really something to see. She really looks good. I mainly only know her from the Halloween Party. She looks good in everything. All the guys are dying to go out with her. Looks like she'd be too busy with real dates to bother with the online stuff anyway.

N apparently has a type. She dates men who have certain jobs and are about ten years older. Maybe she decided to get married while she was still young enough to get a good-looking guy who was her type. Anyway, this guy is not quite that much older than she is, and he's a firefighter in California someplace.

Her parents are really worried about this. I can't see that I really get what they are worried about. Are firemen not nice guys? She's always getting involved with older men, and so far nothing really bad has happened. The relationships usually don't work out, but I haven't heard of anyone beating her or anything like that. So she goes off with some guy and it doesn't work out, and she moves back home for a bit while she's looking for an apartment, and maybe she meets another guy before she gets the apartment and it all starts over again. Maybe not so great, but I don't get what is so different about this guy. If it's the usual pattern, it won't work out and she'll move back home for a few weeks. I don't get why they even think this time is different.

Anyway, he came here for a visit, and N's parents didn't get a good vibe from him. A month later she moved to California to live with him. They were supposed to get married on 7-7-07. I haven't heard yet if she actually got married or not.

But here's what she said about the date. They were going to get married on 7-7-07 because it was God's day.

Not lucky number seven day. God's day.

Don't misunderstand. I am all for God and having God in your life and having God in your marriage. But Saturday wasn't God's day anymore than any other day. If God is in your life and in your future spouse's life, you can get married on 6-6-06 or 1-13-13 and God will still be there.

If she cares so much about God in her marriage, is she doing the stuff that God really cares about? Did she live with all these other guys and not have sex with them? Did she live with this guy for the last six months and not have sex with him?

Don't get me wrong. If you can live six months with the person you plan to marry and NOT have sex, I think that's wonderful. That would be a good test of the relationship. You could find out if can live together and work through your problems. You could find out if you can get over all of your little disagreements without having sex to smooth things over afterwards.

It's really a great idea, but I doubt many people do that. And I don't think that N has spent the last six months in California being celibate.

Okay. So I wish N and the firefighter well, and I hope N's parents are wrong and everything is fine with them.

But God's day? Whatever.