SGSGG! - Too Soon or Not Soon Enough?
A friend of mine recently got engaged after dating for only two weeks. I tell people this and they get this horrified look. “Isn’t that… well… a bit hasty?”
My response is always, “When you know, you know.” Besides, I’m certainly not one to judge.
Look at it this way. Life is terribly short. You may life to be a hundred and smoke cigars and eat nothing but plantains fried in bacon fat. Or you could get hit by a car in an hour and die on the street. When you find “The One,” you want to spend the rest of your life with that person. You can’t imagine life without the other. So what the hell are you waiting for? Grab hold and fill each day with new found joy!
Of course, there’s that other side of you, that practical side, that will want to put on the brakes. You’ve probably been hurt before. Badly. It’s always bad. You probably gave your all to someone who really didn’t appreciate you. And you probably felt like an idiot when they tossed your heart aside like so much junk. You want to give your all to your new beloved, but you can’t help that nagging feeling that if it all goes to hell, it’s going to hurt terribly, maybe even worse than before. Besides, statistically, marriage in America is a crap shoot. 50% of our marriages fall to the scourge of divorce. And there’s no perfect formula for a happy and stable marriage. It’s a risk that your practical side may not want to take.
Your heart or your mind. Which side do you listen to? Your heart says NOW! Your mind says wait.
I say go with your heart. Your mind can rationalize all sorts of very practical and sensible reasons why you shouldn’t just jump in head first and get engaged after only two weeks. But at the end of the day, love is a matter of the heart.
Listen to your heart. Sure, you might get burned and things may go horribly wrong. And you’ll get through all that and come out much stronger and wiser. Things will work out one way or another. And if you made the right choice and things go better than you expected, you will have a rich fulfilling future to look forward to! You’ll always regret not trying. You’ll never regret jumping in like a fool, even if it ends poorly.
Good luck and may you all experience geeky love in the new year!
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January 4th, 2008 at 11:34 am
The divorce rate is only %50 now? It’s certainly gone down from the last time I checked.
January 4th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
My aunt’s friend did the arranged marriage thing - didn’t initially want to, dated around, but her mother brought the guy to a family party once and encouraged her to “just go meet him”. She walked back into the room five minutes later and said “he’ll do” - they’re apparently one of the happiest couples my aunt knows.
When you know, you know.
January 4th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Everyone is different, and some people click better/sooner than others. So I am by no means saying that my own experiences apply to everyone, or that what everyone has said so far is wrong.
I thought I “knew” with my last girlfriend, though thankfully we never rushed off and tied the knot. Once the lust died down, we found that we were a terrible match, and we fought constantly. Just because the sex is great, doesn’t mean a marriage will be.
I tend towards the wait and see attitude, and I am a firm believer in living together before getting hitched. Real personalities come out when you are with each other constantly or you both come home from work tired and stressed, and you still have to do chores and make dinner. If you can make living together work, you can definitely make a marriage work.
But I’ll have to wait and see what happens after my fiancee and I get married this October.