Get Your First One Over With...

Yesterday someone I know mentioned that they were going to get married and I joked that they should ‘get their first one over with’, then I listened to him describe his reasons for getting married, and here it is the next day and I am still thinking about it.

He was the first person, for whom I have said my standard joke… “Get your first one over with” that has responded with good reasons for getting married. Good for him. It made me rethink why I even make the joke. Thus the ruminations.

I know why I make the joke, it is because it is my subtle way of getting my opinion across that first marriages fail so much, the odds are stacked against you,--thus you should get your first one over with. It dawned on me today that by saying all that, I am buying into the romantic idea of that ‘perfect someone-1’ with whom you will spend the rest of your life with and if you don’t then you have failed. And that is a very limiting thought and doesn’t coincide with the person I want to be. I’m all for freedom and knowledge of choices. Love and relationships can offer us interesting and complicated paths/choices about ourselves and who we are, that it doesn’t matter if you have 1 or 2 or 3 marriages. And when you get right down to it, it is how one lives their life that counts. How we love. Not how many marriages we have.

So, I will no longer be making that joke or offering that particular opinion. I’m not sure that ‘thank you’ is in order, but I offer him one anyway -Thank you


July 18, 2005	Get Your First One Over With... Yesterday someone I know mentioned that they were going to get married and I joked that they should ‘get their first one over with’, then I listened to him describe his reasons for getting married, and here it is the next day and I am still thinking about it. He was the first person, for whom I have said my standard joke… “Get your first one over with” that has responded with good reasons for getting married. Good for him. It made me rethink why I even make the joke. Thus the ruminations. I know why I make the joke, it is because it is my subtle way of getting my opinion across that first marriages fail so much, the odds are stacked against you,--thus you should get your first one over with. It dawned on me today that by saying all that, I am buying into the romantic idea of that ‘perfect someone-1’ with whom you will spend the rest of your life with and if you don’t then you have failed. And that is a very limiting thought and doesn’t coincide with the person I want to be. I’m all for freedom and knowledge of choices. Love and relationships can offer us interesting and complicated paths/choices about ourselves and who we are, that it doesn’t matter if you have 1 or 2 or 3 marriages. And when you get right down to it, it is how one lives their life that counts. How we love. Not how many marriages we have. So, I will no longer be making that joke or offering that particular opinion. I’m not sure that ‘thank you’ is in order, but I offer him one anyway -Thank you
	© 2005 JoyJoyCafe