Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Next time maybe I’ll go with ‘self love’



Things are going OK with The Lovely Mrs. Taylor. But I’ve been married four times before and I know from bitter experience our plans don’t always work out the way we think they’re going to.
Someone cheats. Someone turns out to be gay (not me, though I am a snappy dresser). Someone empties out the apartment and moves in with a fat guy that services electronic dart machines. If these “for instances” seem a bit specific, it’s because I’m drawing from personal experience here.
Yes, Mrs. Taylor and I are currently just fine and I have no reason to think we won’t remain that way. However, in the unlikely event I find myself single again, I now have a new option with regard to marital status (other than single, married, divorced or hiding in another city under an assumed name).
I can marry myself.
Yup. People are actually doing this now and by “people” I mean “women.” So far, it’s only women who have taken part in the “sologamy” ceremony, a non-legal, but theoretically emotionally binding event in which an individual buys a white dress or rents a tux, hires a caterer and finds a rent-a-preacher with an open mind and a willingness to perform pretty much anything for fifty bucks.
So far, it’s a feminist thing; women deciding (publicly) to put their career ahead of a husband and family.
Yeah, it’s kinda nuts and narcissistic, but no more so than a lot of stuff going on in the world. Who am I to judge?
In fact, when I recently read an article about sologamy, my first thought was, “Well, that would cut down on the nagging.”
And it would. Think of it; nobody to tell you how to fold the towels, when to water the plants, how to properly load the dishwasher (this, apparently, is a task second in complexity only to prepping a space shuttle mission, to hear Mrs. T explain it).
There’s just one problem: I don’t want to marry myself. I mean, I’m not against the idea of sologamy, I just don’t want to marry ME. I’m not sure why anyone would. Were I someone else – someone easier to get along with – I might go for it. But marry me? Uh-uh. Not on a bet.
There are four previous wives who are undoubtedly nodding their collective heads right now and thinking, “Boy you got that right, buddy! ANYBODY but you!”
They have a point. I’m not particularly easy to live with. Oh, I try to be good. I fold the towels before putting them back on the rack (usually), I don’t put giant bowls in the bottom rack of the dishwasher thereby preventing water from reaching the coffee mugs (sometimes), I don’t leave my shoes in the middle of the living room floor (yes, I do).
Point is, despite my best efforts, about 50 percent of everything I do or say is pure nightmare fuel for most women. I know this because my last wife (the one before The Lovely Mrs. Taylor) once told me, “About 50 percent of everything you do or say is pure nightmare fuel,” after which she threw a spatula at me and left.
I took it as a sign that there was room for improvement.
In the years since then, I’ve tried to better myself, but in all honestly, I’ve probably only reduced that whole nightmare fuel thing by maybe two percent.
Even at my best, marrying myself seems just as unpalatable to me as it does to all those exes.
Still, if the worst should happen and things don’t work out for Mrs. T and yours truly, sologamy could be a last-ditch solution. A marriage takes work sometimes. I dunno, maybe me and myself could see a counselor or something.
Maybe get the two-for-one rate.


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