$%#*!

I JUST DON'T GET IT!

despite (or maybe because of?) my ambivalence towards marriage in my own life, the engagement of my boyfriend's good friend (to his girlfriend of a year) is bringing up some odd and unexpected mixed feelings.

i am all for the presence of marriage in the lives of my friends who want to get married; however, in the last few years i've experienced an inner backlash against it in my own.

a few ideas that i've been pondering:
-in this country, marriage is clearly an institution of privilege reserved only for heterosexuals. i don't want to support that.
-sometimes the idea of being so completely committed to one person, ready to "stand by your man" no matter what, sounds like a terrifying trap.
-with divorce so frequent, what does marriage really mean? why choose marriage over long-term cohabitation? in the worst case scenario, isn't it better to live together and break up than get married and divorced? (i was born "out of wedlock." what impacted me 100x more than my parents being unmarried was the idea that they weren't together and the absence of my dad.)

my general attitude is, if it happens, it happens. i'm not going to live my life in mad pursuit of a husband. i'd like to live a happy and well-rounded life with love and family as integral components, but i don't want marriage and children to be my ultimate goals. (where do you go from there?)

so back to the matter at hand...why all the weirdness? whenever i receive news of an engagement (e.g. good friends or family members), my usual response is extreme happiness and sincere excitement for the couple's bright future together. maybe it's messed up, but this time, i didn't feel that way. i saw it coming, so i wasn't surprised. i think they will be happy together, and i'm happy for them (despite the past minor conflicts i've had with the bride-to-be), but i guess somehow the announcement raised some buried feelings of inadequacy or insecurity. i began having thoughts like, "how did he know in only a year when ----- and i have been dating for a few...what does that say about me?" or "will ----- ever propose?" etc. you know what i mean, right? WEIRD! especially for someone so decidedly not interested in marriage right now.

is it time to confront the jealous 15 year-old girl within? (why won't she leave me alone already?) or do i unconsciously aspire to an age-old tradition without even realizing it? despite my clear objections to certain aspects of the institution, am i still secretly "wedded" to the idea of marriage or what? sigh.