“A full and meaningful life belongs to us all, no wedding required.” I love this so much. | Marriage Is Just Another Overhyped Nightclub https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/style/modern-love-when-marriage-is-just-another-overhyped-nightclub.html?smid=tw-share

One of the things (among many) that resonated for me with this was the bewilderment of that question: "But don't you want/need someone to take care of you?" Underlying THAT is the assumption that we, as a society, don't actually take care of one another. That's the family's job.

I just. Look. Am I lonely? Yes. Would I like to be partnered up? Yes. Should I get out more, leaving the COVID question out of it? Probably. But there are also things I really like abt my life. Things that feel like accomplishments to me but so rarely seem to translate that way.

This persistent fascination with marriage and being partnered is just so toxic. It is especially toxic when it is dressed in well-meaning concern. You want to see someone partnered because you--what? Don't think they can take care of themselves? Come on.

I have spent the entirety--and I mean, THE ENTIRETY--of my adult life taking care of myself. No steady relationships. Taking care of myself is, in fact, the thing I know how to do best. Why is that always looked at with pity? Why isn't it celebrated as an accomplishment?

Like. Good for you, feeding and clothing yourself and wrestling a life from a million jobs and getting yourself a dog and travelling on your own and writing books? Why does none of that feel like enough when people inevitably ask me, "So...are you seeing anybody?" Ugh.

I understand that people are curious & want happiness for others & ABSOLUTELY, understand, I would welcome that particular happiness for myself when & if it comes. But. We treat marriage like the happy end of a long journey when it is only the beginning of s/thing else.

Anyway. I am now going to go take the dog for a walk and visit a friend and I will probably get ice cream on the way because these are exactly the kind of tiny delightful decisions that I get to make for myself every day. Yay freedom! (For serious.)

(Also feel I should thank several individuals who I've had the grace to spend time with over these past few years, just not in conventional, steady-relationship ways. You know who you are. )