m y . t h o u g h t s . o n . t h i n g s

11/25/03:
I originally wrote an essay on Love and Marriage 4 years ago as a freshman in college. The girls on my hall used to have a tradition of watching A Wedding Story together in someone’s dorm room every afternoon. After the usual wedding/marriage/love wishes we’d all express afterwards, I realized that I had a different take on love than most of the other girls and decided to write about it in a essay form and post it online.

Four years later, things aren’t really that different…yet they are. While I still cannot claim to have ever “been in love”, I have since gotten in and out of a relationship and allowed myself to have feelings for guys that I hadn’t had before my first writing. I’ve also gone through college and seen many boyfriends change to fiancés, many fiancés changes to husbands, and how friends have changed as they moved from girlfriend to fiancée to wife.

Before I was in the stage where I was still dreaming about “my guy” and now I’m in a stage hoping to eventually find “my guy” and make him a reality.

My views on love have not changed. I still think that love is more than sending flowers, holding hands, or any of those sweet things that look like love. Love, true love, is a commitment. It’s the continual putting up with one another and always looking for the best in them even when they are annoying you. It’s realizing that no one is ever going to be perfect, but not letting that bother you. It’s about loving a person for their imperfections as much as their good qualities.

My best friend recently got married and I’ve asked her the truth about married life. I’ve always known that it has to be hard – it’s giving up yourself and being another person too. But there also has to be some reward to it all as well. This is from an email about marriage from my best friend:

“i think that it is about choosing to keep the promise that you made when you got married and always trying to look for the things that made you fall in love with him. i guess the best way to define it is that your whole outlook on life gets reorganized. before- i did whatever the heck i wanted to and made out with whoever and so on. but now- [he] is a part of my life - and not in some ball and chain sort of way- but he is someone that i love. so that means that his feelings are important to me-

this isn't easy though and sometimes i just want to say f your feelings and leave. marriage makes you a different person though- not in a cheezy sort of way - but you have to grow up.

i really do like it-

i hope that i am not making it sound horrible. am i? i just don't think people know the truth.”

One huge thing that has changed in the past four years about my views of marriage is my comfortableness with my single status. Maybe because I’ve entered into this weird stage of life where everyone around me is getting married, but I have to admit that a large part of me would like to be soon getting to this stage myself. I want to feel that completion with having someone I love as (or more than) myself. I want to settle and put my time, energy, and devotion into one man. It sounds cheesy to say that I want to grow old with someone, but what I want is someone to brave the crazy adventures of life with. I know I’ve still got a lot of things about myself that I’m working on and can only expect the same from him, but I’m up for the challenge of figuring it all out together.

I don’t just want attention from a guy, I’ve discovered that while it may be fun to flirt and kiss, it’s incredibly empty if there’s not something behind it. I’m anxious to know a guy beyond those things so that every kiss and every touch become a shared expression of feelings instead of just a momentarily fun, but ultimately meaningless, action.

I also think that sex is along these lines. Not that I really know these things, seeing as how I’m a virgin, but I think that sex can be such an amazing thing. The ultimate intimacy. Not just the nakedness of being without clothes, but also the nakedness of having your inner self exposed. The willingness and vulnerability of putting forth all that you are, the unfaltering trust in your partner to give the same. I think there’s got to be the emotional behind all of it in order for the physical to really be as great as it can.

I really think that love and marriage is a great thing and that I understand the intensity and compromise that comes with it all. But at the same time, I don’t want to be foolish. I know that being single brings a great deal of advantages that I won’t be able to find when I fall in love and marry. I’ve got to appreciate what I’ve got now. But it’s hard. I never want to settle on a guy, but occasionally wonder how long I will have to wait to find one I won't have to sttle for.

As romantic as a girl wants to be, I don’t believe that there’s “the one”. I don’t believe that destiny is going to deliver my one and only soulmate into my lap. I believe that some guys are better for me than others, and I only believe that there are a few out there somewhere that I would consider perfect for me. I believe in soulmates, not soulmate. It’s finding one of those soulmates that’s the hard part.

I am anxious for love, but I’m also thankful for the singleness I have today. I look forward to finding a soulmate, and loving him with all that I am able. Though I may not know who he is now, part of me stills wants to be loyal to him. There are certain things that I’d like to share with him and save for him to know. I wonder if it’s possible for me to love him without even knowing him?

I’m not sure if idealize love and marriage, or if I’m very realistic about it. I just know that this is what I really think about it.

last updated:
5 /18/05