The Project - Day 3

February 27, 2010

The Project - Day 3

A old friend of mine has been going humorously public with her life as a single woman just past the threshold of forty. She’s one of those women other people can’t believe is single. She’s gorgeous, smart, successful, creative, you’d look at her and think, good lord, how stupid are men these days that they let this one roam about untagged? Unfortunately being smart, successful and creative is sometimes a liability, especially when your age group includes men who are looking for looking for arm candy to build their ego as they slink into their next stage of life. Or maybe it isn’t an age group thing, considering my husband came home from teaching and reported a conversation between the girls in his class talking about how smart boys liked dumb girls so they could feel smarter. The girls were saying they actually liked having stupid boyfriends, one even confessed “my boyfriend is too dumb to even figure out that I’m way smarter than he is!” Perhaps this is the new frontier? Himbos for the clever girls? I suppose it’s an option, but having gone the “sweet and stupid” route a couple times, I ended up marrying “smart as heck but a pain in my ass”, so I guess that makes my preference clear.

It has brought up a lot of memories, reading my friend’s posts about the trials and tribulations of online dating in the new millennium. I vividly remember my days of “dating practice”. My roommate came up with this name for our online dating adventures, since this was our practice for being social, going out, getting a dinner or a drink so that when the time came for “real” dating, we would feel like old pros. I’m not sure it really worked out that way. I had a few horrific dates, some rather blah ones, a couple of horrific relationships and then the guy I married.  That might seem like zero to 60 and in a way it was. We met online in January, first date a few weeks later, in April I met his family, in June we moved in together, July he met my family and proposed and by November we were married. This should be all the more amazing when you consider I can take up to 20 minutes deciding on a flavor of ice cream. It is nearly impossible for me to pull the trigger on any decision and yet I got engaged in approximately two seconds.

Friends who hopefully troll the online ads want to know the secret, how did I go from personal ads to happily ever after, and I’m not sure how to tell them the truth. The truth is, there is no happily ever after. Marriage is ridiculously hard work, especially when you’ve spent most of your life being a selfish single bitch who never had to concern herself with a damn thing other than her own whims. Forget that upturned toilet seat, just having to share your space with another individual is enough to make your skin crawl at times. Of course, I am an introvert with a capital “I” so this perhaps does not describe every late bloomer, but for me, the first year of marriage was a massive adjustment.

Is it worth it? I think so. I love my husband, I love my son, and while there are sacrifices I selfishly wish I didn’t have to make, there are certainly no regrets. More later. I’ve hit my page and the ball and chain is wondering why I’m not in bed.