Modern Dating.
The older I get the more my perspective expands.
The further I get from my last serious relationship the more comfortable I get merely going on dates with different women. The longer I have been single the less I seem to find myself wanting something serious like I use to want as a kid.
Growing up I always wanted that wife. I viewed a wedding ring as a trophy, a badge of honor to display that I have a wife and I love her so much. I idolized and envisioned my married life. I imagined the fun we would have, grocery shopping together, date nights, vacations, cooking together, getting ready in the morning bathroom together, all of that naïve idealistic romantic stuff.
But as my sample size of friends and acquaintances who are married has increased my understanding of reality has also increased. I have only found 1 marriage I envy...one...well two if I count the Obamas but I don't know them personally so I don't count it.
The more dates I go on and the more I get to know the women I go on dates with, the more I am awaken to the reality of the situation.
Why do we humans get married?
What is the benefit to marriage?
I've even seen enough split parent children in the schools I've worked to realize that children aren't even a good reason for marriage. I've seen so many loving and supporting families raise a child or children while living in different homes and even having different partners.
I'm becoming more and more content with the temporary variety of meeting women learning about them, possibly sharing intimacy with them and then parting ways to continue on our own individual paths. The desire to ask a woman to exclude herself and for myself to be submitted to a monogamous relationship until death sounds possessive, and archaic. Almost as if it stems from some insecurity.
Marriage in the past make sense to me. It takes all damn day to hunt or gather the food and it takes all day to prepare it so you'd have to be in two places at once doing two different things. It makes sense to divorce someone would be a death sentence, to starve them out essentially. But today the grocery store and the oven have both eliminated the needs for a husband and a wife. Perhaps it's what our ancestors had in mind as they innovated and worked endlessly in the name of progress suffering through an unhappy marriage in the hope that their descendants would one day have the luxury and freedom to live single and spend life continuously exploring both the exterior world and the interior of the individual.
Who can say.
Even reflecting on my backpacking trip in the Smokies imagine if I was with someone how much more different would that have been.
I'm not sure how I feel about marriage but I think the point of this rambling is my slow coming to terms with the contentment I find in the freedom, adventure and variety both being single and dating has to offer my life.
I think I would very much like to be a father, but a husband... I'm not so sure about that.
Unless I find a woman who feels like home, a woman who understand me, a woman who pushes, encourages, and inspires me I think I am enjoying very much this season of being single.
Out of the women in my contact list I have yet to find such a woman. I have however found more and more of myself and I have enjoyed this immensely. I have also learned to enjoy the journey of dating. Where before I was simply out to find a woman who moved my heart enough to marry now I simply learn and enjoy the stories of the women I meet we impact, giving and taking from each other, and we continue on our separate paths of life.
Recently I've been seeing an aunt of one of the children at the early childhood center. Her niece is one of my favorites, she's confident and independent, she's gorgeous and she's got a body like a Parisian runway model...but marriage...but forever...I don't know...
What about when I want to take one of my summers after teaching to travel through Africa or South America for two months and she doesn't have that much PTO? What about if I want to through hike the AT?
Are their such things as soulmates?
How do you know when you've found yours?
What happens when yours gets cancer or a car accident before or after you've found one another?
Are we suppose to pick and stick with one person?
What if my person wants to not be my person? So we just stick together because of duty?
What if I don't want my person to be my person anymore? Do I stay to "protect" them?
I suppose there will always be that hopeless romantic heart inside of me that dreams of this unrealistic fantasy marriage. I suppose I will also have that piece but as with everything, the older I get the more I see just how grey the world is. Nothing, and I mean nothing is black and white. And so with that I add a new dichotomy to my mind to wrestle back and forth with through this temporary sole life...single or married.
Modern Dating.
Tomoya Naka - Rainy Song