I first decided to write a dating blog after several conversations with the infamous Holly Lynn. Her blog "if i were really skinny..." was the inspiration for my blog, even though our blogs have almost nothing in common (hers is about fashion and pop culture and diet coke - mine is about my dating escapades). I was there when Holly Lynn got a boyfriend (well, not physically there, man that would have been awkward - just heard about it from her soon after the fact) and I was there when I found out Holly Lynn got engaged (I wasn't there when she got married, even though I had promised her a quilt with something about her husband's nickname "de la rocca - conservative" embroidered on it, sorry about that Holly Lynn, I am not sure you really would want a quilt like that anyway, if you were just going to throw it away, it doesn't really make sense for me to have it made, does it?). Since then, Holly's blog posts have become fewer and farther apart.
After I began blogging, my good friend Lorelei from law school read my blog and decided to start her own dating blog "Date Lorelei" which was a much better put-together blog than this one. Now that Lorelei has become engaged, she has stopped posting on her blog. Although I certainly wish her well, when a friend that is a girl gets married, the dynamic of the friendship changes. I just don't feel as comfortable chatting with married women. So I feel as if I am losing Lorelei as a friend in much the same way I lost Holly Lynn as a friend and the way I lost Chanel many years ago as a friend. Another one of my good friends from law school got engaged a few weeks ago. It has me reflecting quite a bit on my position in life and dating.
Maybe I subconsciously don't want to get married. When my friends have gotten married, most of them have deserted me. I will admit that I have a lot of bad feelings towards marriage. Besides the fact that many (if not most, depending on who you ask) married couples are unhappy, there is also the huge chance that the marriage will not be successful (no matter what you do, you cannot control the actions of another person and marriage always involves two people (well, at least two)). Could I be sabotaging potential relationships to ensure that I keep my single life? After all, every year that I remain single, I get to live how I want, buy what I want and do what I want. Being married would be a major life change for me. I would have to develop a budget (which I make fun of my friend Crack for nearly every day). I would have to go to bed at a regular time every day. I would have to spend my saturdays helping in-laws that I can't stand move from one crappy apartment to another cause they are too cheap to hire someone. I would have to learn to accept the kooky holiday traditions of my in-laws. Maybe I am not ready for marriage.
Beneficial Use Of Casters
5 years ago
I'm still your friend, Tripp. And hey, I posted yesterday!
ReplyDeleteLove,
Holly Lynn
You said it buddy. Your probably not sabotaging, but have high expectations and won't settle for the average marriage. I'd rather never get married than marry someone I wasn't completely confidant in marrying. That is just me though.
ReplyDeleteall true. you dont marry a person, you marry a family. it can suck, thats for sure, but there is value in it. when you find the right person, just being with them makes all that stupid stuff worth it.
ReplyDeletepretty optimistic coming from a forty something divorcee on a dating hiatus, huh?
i do believe that, but i also believe that quality opportunities to meet someone are so rare. mormons in general will marry just about anyone. the older we get, the less choosy we become and it creates just a bunch of bad marriages. who wants to be stuck in that crap? not me.
some men i have dated have taken that as too high of expectations. gee, buddy- i met you on a lds dating sight, my profile clearly states that i have a temple rec and you think its too much to expect the guy i marry to follow the word of wisdom and keep it zipped up til the wedding night?
ranting again. sorry.
maybe you arent ready. i came kind of late to your blog-so forgive me if you have already written about it. have you ever been engaged? do you pray about getting married? what has been the response to your prayers?
big kiss(minus lip gloss) :)
I think you are being extreme! You are looking at all of the bad things about a marriage and none of the good. The good definitely outweighs the bad. And your list of bad things are an exaggeration (except for maybe the in-law part)! I think that if you find the right person all of those things aren't so bad because you have each other. You must have bad role models that have horrible marriages! I hope you don't feel like I'm one of them! Sure, marriage brings new challenges, but it is all worth it because you have someone you are in love with!
ReplyDeletesabotaging? I bet so... I do it all the time. I call it "I test guys until they fail"...
ReplyDeleteMaybe you have a similar situation... you have conditioned your self to react a certain way when you get to a "realationship level/point"...
Dear Holly Lynn:
ReplyDeleteOf course you are still my friend. I just can't joke with you as much now for fear of upsetting de la rocha (conservative). Good job on the post, although this particular one was not something I could relate to.
Love Tripp
Dear Rachel:
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. You are right, I don't want to settle for an average relationship. A life of solitary virginity still sounds better than an unhappy marriage. I don't think that is unreasonable at all.
Love Tripp
Dear singlemormonchick:
ReplyDeleteKeep it zipped up until the wedding night? Ha ha ha. Nice visual. I started my blog one year ago today. I have never been engaged. I have prayed about getting married every night for the past 4 years (minus the occasional night where I leave it out cause I am really upset about dating). The response to those prayers? Well, I didn't wake up the next morning knowing who I was supposed to marry. I just woke up the next morning. That's kinda how life (and praying) seems to work. Not saying I have lost faith, just that I don't typically receive blaring answers to questions asked.
Love Tripp
Dear The Newton's:
ReplyDeleteMy list is not an exaggeration! Marriage is rough and I know it. I have friends that married girls are unhappy with it. I agree that it will all be worth it IF I fall in love with someone. But you always seem to knock me down when I say I am not falling in love with a girl. You say it takes time. It leads me to believe that maybe what you view as love and what I view as love are two different things. I am sure you have a great marriage but lots of people don't. And I don't want to be one of them.
Love Tripp
Dear Liz:
ReplyDeleteI don't think I test girls until they fail. I definitely get scared from time to time. But there are times when I have not gotten scared. I use those times as a litmus test for current relationships. And current relationships ARE'T measuring up. Did you buy a car yet?
Love Tripp
"am not ready for"... or "are too selfish for" ? .... Just sayin.
ReplyDeleteDear Skin.Head.Sheena:
ReplyDeleteSo you are saying that you perceive me as too selfish to enter into a relationship? Can you provide some additional explanation? How can I become less selfish?
Love Tripp
No wonder you haven't talked to me in over a month! Sorry I missed your chat last week. I don't remember what I was doing, but I wasn't anywhere near my laptop.
ReplyDeletexoxo Lorelei
"After all, every year that I remain single, I get to live how I want, buy what I want and do what I want. Being married would be a major life change for me. I would have to develop a budget (which I make fun of my friend Crack for nearly every day). I would have to go to bed at a regular time every day. I would have to spend my saturdays helping in-laws that I can't stand move from one crappy apartment to another cause they are too cheap to hire someone. I would have to learn to accept the kooky holiday traditions of my in-laws."
ReplyDeleteThis says quite alot on it's own. I thoroughly enjoy the work behind combining incomes, and developing budgets. Creating plans, and sketching out projects are beautiful bonding things for people to do together. Talking about whether or not you want trees, or rock, or grass in your yard. Making up silly rules like no yard flags are allowed. Even if you do make more money in your relationship, your commitment to a person in marriage is to take care of them. That doesn't mean you have to spend alot of money on them, depending the girl you choose. If you're not willing to "budget" then don't go on dates with girls that have high financial expectations, and high maintenance lifestyles. If you don't want to have to deal with silly traditions, or help your in-laws move (which actually does seem like an extremely childish thing to complain about. If I was dating someone with such a snobby attitude towards my parents asking him for help, I'd be dying with embarrassment) then make sure you know her family very well, and you'll soon learn what to expect of them in your marriage. If you don't want to "go to bed at a regular time" marry a night person. When I've dated boys in the past where we practically lived together and sometimes when we're both exhausted on weeknights we go to bed at 10:30, but on the weekends we're pushing 3 am. Maybe your views aren't selfish, perhaps thats too harsh of a term, but they are much too pessimistic. With the attitude, skepticism, and relentless criticism you've got with your dates, I don't see marriage in your near future either. But hell, I still love you as a friend, so don't worry, we can still go get sushi together. <3
-Skin.Head.Sheena
Dear Skin.Head.Sheena:
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your comment. I really do. I think if it had come from someone else it might have hurt my feelings a little bit. But you get extra slack cause you have street cred. Ha ha. In all honesty, that statement alone could make me look bad. However, the context of it was more or less tongue in cheek. I mean, yeah, it will be hard for me to budget at first. It is going to be hard to deal with my time not belonging to myself and myself alone. Because in a relationship, your time does belong to the other person. Maybe not all of it but certainly a significant portion of it. And it will definitely be hard to adjust to having in-laws. But, I wrote those things to sort of mockingly point out the bad things about a relationship (if you could even call them bad) and then use it suggest those are the reasons I am staying single. I think knowning me (or reading this blog) should provide a fair amount of evidence that those reasons mean nothing to me. I have wanted a relationship for a long time. I am not perfect and I don't expect the person I am dating to be perfect. But I have been in love before and those were the happiest times in my entire life. And I would gladly trade whatever freedoms I have obtained for that happiness again. I understand that a relationship is a work in progress but I also firmly believe that love is something real and that without it, entering into a relationship is pointless. I would not trade those freedoms that I have obtained for sex and security with someone I am not in love with.
As you well know, this blog is a chance for me to post my true feelings in a semi-anonymous forum. At times, it is quite pessimistic. But, some of that pessimism is justified. Littlebrother reads this blog and from time to time sends me a text saying he mostly just feels like this blog is sad. He feels bad for me. Maybe some of the pain is self inflicted. I don't know. But, dare I suggest that I am more mature than most mormon boys when they get married? Fresh off a mission with no education and a blind faith that things will work out is great for some but does that make them more deserving of a fulfilling relationship than me?
Love Tripp