E is for Engaged

Getting back to science blogging soon, I promise!

I got engaged last weekend. My girlfriend, now fiancee, proposed to me in a beautiful park near our home. I took the same ring she proposed to me with, got down on one knee, and proposed back to her. I was, and am, incredibly happy with this turn of events. But that’s not what this blog post is about.

I’m writing this blog post as a justification for why I want to get married to my girlfriend in the first place. I could talk endlessly about her good qualities as to why I want to get married to her specifically, but she’d get annoyed at me for doing so and I fear I’d spark jealousy among my readers. So let me talk more broadly about why I want to get married in general.

If you are interested in the details of this photo, I’d recommend this short article: Engagement Ring: Which Hand?

Marriage has been left in a peculiar cultural circumstance, recently. Most of the good things that people associate with marriage, like free sex, companionship, or financial support from a spouse can be obtained nowadays from hookups, dating, or sugar babying. The cultural stigma against being unmarried has largely disappeared, too. Most of my friends are not married and probably won’t get married anytime soon, regardless of whether they are in long-term relationships or not. My fiancee and I will be in the minority among our friend groups when we do get married.

The only concrete benefit that marriage holds is legal recognition of our bond, which is nice, but, to be honest, if that was the only reason to get married, we’d just wait until it was absolutely necessary and then do a quick courthouse marriage. Instead, we’re going to do the whole wedding, party, public vows thing. But why?

Well, I can’t speak for her. But I can speak for myself. Marriage, to me, is an ultimate closing of optionality. Millennials, my generation, are famously the generation of options. We never wanted to close any doors. We wanted to live forever in the hallway of eternity, gazing into each possible life, perhaps stepping a toe in, but never committing.

Then we got older and we found that the doors started closing behind us. Some of those were just the same doors that closed for almost everyone, regardless of their generation. If you aren’t a star gymnast by 15, you’re not going to be in the Olympics. If you didn’t dye your hair black when you were 15 in 2008, you can’t be emo (I still have regrets about this).

Some of those were doors that closed for just our generation and the ones after us. No doctor my age will ever get to run a private practice at the same age my mom did, because the regulations are too onerous now. No person in this age will ever get to live totally off-grid, given that even the most remote places on Earth are getting Internet now.

So all of us are in this hallway of eternity, and there are doors closing behind us, and we gaze in the long hallway in front of us with still open doors. And we can, of course, keep walking faster and faster, hoping to outpace the closing of the doors. We still have time to flit in and out of doorways, but we’re so conscious that the longer we tarry in any room the more doors close around us. And, like musical chairs, as doors close suddenly you’re not choosing rooms. You’re just scrambling to go in whatever room is left.

I don’t want to live my life like that. I don’t want to feel like I’m simply tarrying in a room, biding time. I don’t want to be forced into a room (like singledom) that I didn’t actively choose. And, most of all, I don’t want to be in a room where I’ve left the door cracked open, where I still haven’t fully committed, because I want the possibility of leaving at any time. Even if I never leave, I’ll still hear snatches of music and conversation from outside, tempting me to check out another room and another life.

Marriage, to me, is about choosing the room carefully, shutting the door, and deciding that this is how you will live your life. My fiancee is wonderful, and I think we will build a wonderful life together. I want to build that life with as much confidence, stability, and focus as I can, and not worry about other lives that I could lead. And that’s why I want to be joined with her in the bonds of marriage.

I love you, K.