- Hey everybody, happy Thursday!
Today is another episode of
Coffee and a Chat with Kati, oh yeah!
Also, it's like 3:00pm
and this is cold coffee, but it's delicious.
Beggars can't be choosers.
But today I wanna talk about something that I
personally have experienced,
I know a lot of my friends have experienced,
and I wanna talk to all you wonderful people about it.
This is not a data-driven, research-based
mental health chat, but I think it's an important topic to
have a conversation about and to
talk about in the comments with one another,
because no one openly talks about it, I find.
And that is the pressure to get married.
I've heard from many of my friends,
I've heard from a lot of my friends in the LGBT community,
when marriage became legal in California,
a lot of my friends who've been in
long-term relationships with someone
all of a sudden felt the pressure to get married,
some of that being good, some of that being bad.
Let's talk about it.
So, the reason that I wanted to talk about this is
I read an article in Glamour Magazine,
probably two months ago, maybe farther back.
I actually looked for it in my magazine rack,
and I think, in my cleanliness habit, I threw it out.
But, what the story was, and if I find it,
I'll link it in the description,
so you all can read it.
But the woman wrote an article, she is 33 or 34,
and she does not want to get married.
And she feels like every family event,
every group party event,
she's always bombarded with questions about,
"When are you gonna get married,
"how come you haven't gotten married?"
And one of her best friends is a gay man
that she goes on vacation with.
That's the only person she vacations with.
He's just her BFF, and she likes to hang out with him.
And so one time, they decided to
pretend that they were getting married.
Now, everybody knows that he's gay,
and everybody knows she straight,
and everybody knows that she doesn't wanna get married,
however, people totally bought it.
They posted a fake phony ring of him
pretending to propose.
It was all staged.
And they went on their annual vacation
pretending it was their honeymoon.
And she did it as a way to study how people responded,
and it almost disgusted her with the fact that
a lot of people, even people in her life,
felt like they understood her now,
like it all made sense, and they were just in love,
and now they're getting married.
And she was like, "We get all this free shit,
"and as a singleton, we don't get any of that,"
and the frustration ensues.
And so, I thought it was a really interesting topic,
and I wanna share a little bit about my story about it,
and then I want you all to talk
in the comments about it as well.
And so, I remember when I was probably,
and I grew up in a really small town, okay?
I'm just throwing that out there.
A lot of my friends got married
at like 18, 19 years old.
I mean, no judgment, to each their own.
It's all about what your priorities are
and where you are in your stage of life,
but so, by the time I was 23, 24,
a lot of people back home were like,
"So, time's a-ticking, you're not getting any younger.
"When are you getting married?"
And my response is always "Never."
Or, if I find somebody that I can tolerate,
I'll think about it.
Or, because I'm pretty abrasive sometimes
when I feel attacked, I'll be like,
"Just shut the hell up, leave me alone.
"Are you me?
"No, so why don't you care?"
And so, people just learn to not talk to me about it,
but when I met Sean, and I actually liked him,
then loved him, and brought him home,
which I had never done before.
I'd never brought a boy back home
to Washington State to visit my family before.
Then it got really, really intense.
A lot of questions about, like,
"When are you gonna get married?
"Don't you wanna get married?
"How long have you guys been together?"
Now, mind you, by the time we got married,
we had dated for five years,
so it had gotten just so fucking frustrating,
I'll just be honest.
Because what if I didn't care to get married ever?
I've heard from a lot of people
that there's no pressure.
They don't actually know if they want to get married.
They enjoy living by themselves,
they enjoy going out with friends,
they enjoy single life.
And maybe they'll date somebody here or there,
but they don't feel the need to get married.
Maybe they'll date somebody forever
and never get married,
and just be dating that person
because they choose to be with them.
I read an article after reading the one in Glamour where
a man was talking about how he had enjoyed
being boyfriends with his boyfriend for 10 years,
and even though marriage was legal,
felt no need to get married to prove to him or the world
that they wanted to be together forever.
He thought that was kind of old, and too traditional,
and you know, just not necessary anymore.
But there are complications to that,
and things with regard to, you know,
legal stuff that can get in the way if you're not married.
And so, I just wanted to have a chat with you about it,
because I think that people
should stay out of your business,
'cause I'm just gonna be truthful too,
once Sean and I got married,
the questions just changed from
not "When are you gonna get married?"
to "When are you gonna have kids?"
Now, we don't plan on having children.
I don't think I've ever talked to you guys about that,
but we don't plan on having children.
Not that we hate kids or anything,
'cause I get that response a lot.
"Oh, you must hate kids."
It's just a choice.
I feel like so many things in life
can be a great choice, and allow us to have that choice.
Do you agree, do you disagree?
Let me know.
Do you think that marriage needs to happen?
Do you think people have to get married?
What's the proper age?
What if we don't find somebody
that we want to get married to?
Then is that something that we have to do?
I don't think we do, and I think that
the forcefulness and the societal pressure
that we feel to get married
is why so many of them end in divorce,
because I've had friends, who will remain unnamed,
who have said things to me like,
"Well, I'm getting older, and I always thought
"I'd be married by 30, and now I'm 33,
"and what the hell am I gonna do?"
And they have this pressure,
and then I'll find them find someone
that maybe's not the best fit,
and try to get married quickly,
and it never works out.
And so, I think that that's something that
we should talk about more.
People should be more open about it.
Maybe you don't ever wanna get married.
Let us know why.
And let's not be hurtful or judgmental in the comments.
Let's just have a conversation.
That's what I love about our community
is we can just talk about things.
I think this is an important topic to talk about,
and the societal pressure that we can feel
to get married, to feel more understood or settled down,
when maybe that's not something that we actually want,
and that doesn't make us a bad person, am I right?
That may mean that we're just more thoughtful,
we're slower to come into it,
maybe wanna think about it before we make
a life-changing decision.
What do you think?
Let me know, let's talk about it.
I'm gonna be in the comments chatting.
I would love it if you would share your thoughts on this,
because it really got my wheels a-turning,
and I think it's important to think about.
Okay, I love you all, and I will see you on Monday.
Bye!