| December 4, 2003 Excerpt from my book American Virgin (work in progress) from chapter entitled “Marriage for Idiots” Down deep, I believe the goal/aspiration/expectation of marriage is a selfish one. Now before I’m attacked with hate mail reponses such as these: Dear Keith, Your theory that the instituation of marriage is a gross misinterpretation of a union you obviously know nothing about. Marriage is such a selfless and loving relationship between a man and women and despite problems that do arise because of individual selfishness, the idea of marriage is as pure as snow. Disgruntled at your candor, Beth Albuquerque, N.M. or Keith, I can’t believe you have the balls (or maybe your superiority bluntness is trying to compensate for something?) to say marriage is a selfish thing to do?! I’ve been happily married for 18 years and resent the fact that I got married to the man I love for selfish reasons. I love him more than life itself and would never do anything to hurt or harm him. Your opinions are wrong and you do a diservice to all those that try to maintain the sacredness of marriage. You call yourself a Republican, but you’re just a liberal Democrat in sheep’s clothing! Boo on you. Not Sincerely, Cathy Darlington, S.C. Ah, good ol’ Beth and Cathy, two of my favorite phantom perturbed readers. But before you gals get your panties all tied up in pretzels, let me explain my theory that the goal/aspiration/expectation of marriage is a selfish one. Did you catch the key words there? Goal, aspiration, and expectation in this context all refer to future engagements in the world of marital relationships. You girls sound like my dad, all inferring stuff before I even said anything about the subject at hand in the present sense. So annoyed readers aside, let me explain my platform in a civilized, hopefully respected though maybe not agreed with, manner. The reason I insinuate that the goal, aspiration, expectation, even desire for future marriage comes from selfish reasoning is because that desire is currently devoid of any personal or intimate selfless attachment. Many people claim their desires of marriage are out of such chivalrous qualities (I love how Faramir {David Wenham} says “quality” in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers movie) as selflessness, altruism, and tenderness, but I pose a question to you. How can you be selflessly be in love with an Amanda if Amanda has yet to exist in your sphere of influence? How can you be intimate with Tom if he’s yet to meet you? That’s why I refer to a dearth of personal or intimate selfless attachment. If you don’t have someone real and specific to love, your goal/aspiration/expectation of marriage is a selfish one for the simple fact that currently that desire only involves you and satisfying your own desires. This book is entitled “American Virgin”. Not “American Married Guy” for the simple fact I’ve yet to get to that point. All my experiences are derived from being single and I can only project, though making what I believe to be social and emotional educated guesses and theories, what and how a person’s actions while single will affect a potential future marriage. I think our goal/aspirations/expectations are selfish when it comes to marriage whilst we're still single and "looking". We, for some false reason, think we deserve to be married someday. We think it will be another step towards “completion” or "fulfilment". Though people passionately object to that allegation, their social actions to “find” a mate during their youth speak volumes about what’s really going on in that heart of theirs. So what’s so bad about admitting the truth that we’re insecure individuals, that we don’t like being alone, and that we selfishly desire a mate? Heck, I’d rather admit that than go around saying my desires and aspirations to get married are totally from a pure origin. For guys and girls it’s slightly different too. Guys have that whole “sex” thing to selfishly look forward to in a marriage (though we’ve, both guys and girls, have managed pretty good to botch up the whole “purity till marriage” thing) and girls have that whole “security blanket” thing to insecurely look forward to in a marriage. And to stop the bleeding, I will admit that when we do actually meet, greet, and marry someone, those insecurity complexes and selfish desires do somehow morph into selfless ones because we finally do have someone show that benevolence to. We finally have someone else to worry about than ourselves. We finally have someone else’s welfare to care about other than our own. So in a strange sort of paradox, our priorities change from remedying our own loneliness to satisfying our new partner’s needs, ergo a selfless marital relationship as Beth and Cathy so kindly aforementioned. You see, you don’t need a doctorate in psychology or be an accredited expert in marriage counseling to see these correlations. Growing up a purposed virgin in today’s America will open your eyes up much wider than a Dr. Phil text could ever do. But I stand behind that theory that our goals/aspriations/expectations for marriage are founded in our personal benefit to satisfy our own personal desires. Yet we’re only human, and that seems to be the human condition; to want things for ourselves and to not worry about others. Remember, when you go to nursery full of 2 and 3 year olds, you don’t have teach them how to be selfish with Super Action Elmo, they do it pretty good naturally. What have I learned from all this? That we’re a flawed race, but that marriage is one of those unique life situations/relationships that has the uncanny capacity to open our eyes to those glitches in our character and also works as a natural tool that allows us to refine ourselves to better combat our selfish nature. A paradoxical union indeed. |