A friend, J, whom I’ve known for some 4-5 years now recently dropped the M-bomb. She got married before any one of us knew she was with a guy.
J is a Japanese girl. She is also pretty attractive, has a great smile, and some would even call her hot. When I spoke with her recently, I learned that she wasn’t even attached to her current-husband before they decided to get married. That was intriguing to me. My curious mind felt the need to pick her brain and see what mechanism is going on in her mind to actually “propose” to a guy whom, by most people’s standards, she barely knew.
J actually knew the guy for some 6 years now. But they don’t constantly keep in contact and only meet once or twice a year, so they sorta have an idea about what the other party is like. At a conservative 4 hours per meet-up, that will only total to 48 hours. In other words, they’ve only really spent 2 full days together before they decided to get married.
J’s about my age (mid-30s, if you don’t already know how old I am). About year ago, J was with a guy whom she felt is the man she’s going to be married to. He’s smart, kind, and J said she didn’t think anyone else like him would ever come along again. But things eventually didn’t work out for them and they broke up. So it got to J that you spend time getting to know someone and then decide to be together as a couple. You continue to learn more about the person and eventually decide you want to marry them. Let’s say you do get married. You still continue to learn more about the other person possibly until death do you part. If somewhere along the road either of you felt like it’s not going to work, you get a divorce.
For her, she met a guy and spent time getting to know him. They got attached and eventually thought about marriage. What happened was things ended before they got to the marriage stage. It made her think, since you’re still going to learn more about the other person after marriage anyway and no matter how carefully you choose, you could still pick the “wrong person,” so might as well skip the cumbersome dating stage. At 34, J is tired of dating and playing the “does-he-like-me-or-does-he-not” game. To be honest, I’m pretty jaded about dating too. Whenever I meet someone new whom I think I want to get to know better, thinking about the whole process from Day 1 again makes me tired.
Some time ago when J met a group of friends for a meal including her current-husband, that topic on marriage somehow came up and J just turned to the guy and said, “How about we get married?” The guy, who’s almost 40, thought about it and said, “Why not?” And that’s how they ended up getting married.
Many may think about the what-ifs and ugly divorces but for J, at around 35 or 40, if you’re not married, you should be at least divorced once. Otherwise, people might think something must be wrong with you.
I’m not saying I agree or disagree with what she says, but being really worn out on dating, I kinda feel like it’s a viable option. If I find someone who thinks the same way, that is.
Hope the best for those two!
Kind of sad that people think like that though. “If you’re not married or haven’t divorced even once, there is something wrong with you.”
Yea, it’s funny. But I think it all depends on perspective.
One is that, if you haven’t been married by that age, maybe “there’s something wrong with you” that’s why no one wants to marry you. The other is that, if you have been divorced, maybe “there’s something wrong with you” that’s why your marriage didn’t work out.
For both the above situations, there could be a plethora of other reasons but J’s perspective happened to be the former. I’m not sure if that’s true of all Japanese people but at least it’s true for her. Even though she did state that it’s more understandable if you’re perhaps a career woman or something that is glaringly obvious for your single marital status. Well, it’s still a valid point of view no matter how much I agree or disagree.
The dating game. And going through cycles of it, without leading to anything. It can be quite tiresome after awhile.
But I believe with every person you date , he or she changes you a little, in minimal or even unnoticeable aspect of you. And by elimination method, you also learnt what you don’t want.
Of cos, what J did was admirable, to risk it all and see where it leads to.
It’s a bit like the olden days, you know a bit abt the person, like how the person look like, his or her occupation, age, and the rest you leave it to fate.
PS: if he/ she snores, it’s also fate.:/
Haha! Sorry, I’m not sure if that laugh was appropriate but the snoring comment was funny.
I do agree with your opinions though at 33, I’m not sure if I still want to date and be changed anymore. At the same time, I don’t think I have the courage to do what she did.
Interesting post! I agree with J’s decision. I would totally have done that, if there is a guy who is crazy enough to be my accomplice, hahaa. And its so true, that dating is tiring. Figuring somebody out, going through storming and norming… What are the odds that it will work out? Finding someone is hard, breaking up is harder, and staying married together happily is the hardest. tough life.
And of course I guess its not as wise for a guy to do such things because guys get bounded much more – thanks to Singapore’s women charter.
I guess playing the dating game is simply to reduce the odds of “picking the wrong guy” but she feels if she somewhat knows that person, spending time getting to know them “better” isn’t going to change until you actually get married to them. In a way, I feel that could be true because a person can behave differently before and after marriage. So even if you date for the next 100 years, they might still not reveal what they are actually like after marriage. I’m sure every one of us knows someone who broke up after 7-8 years of dating, and someone who got married within a year but are still happily together after over a decade. I sometimes do wish I have J’s courage.