My little man.

What follows was inspired by Wayne’s post, which was a nice discussion on why dating for kicks is untenable, at least for some. That would include me. I’m a serial monogamist. In nearly every relationship I’ve had, the topic of marriage was broached fairly early on. In retrospect, many of these conversations were out and out ludicrous, and the others were fatally flawed from the start. But at the time, of course, it seemed like a sensible thing to do. I think this had a lot to do with my formative views on sex; i.e., if you’re going to fuck someone, it’d be nice if that person was someone that you intend to marry. This vein of thought is hard to reconcile with the, “I’ve bought you dinner a couple of times and it’s obvious that we’re into each other—so let’s remove our pants,” culture of permissiveness that we’ve come of age in. In the end, I’ve spent my twenties wanting to marry a series of women, all of whom did not work out. What a waste of time. I’m going to marry Claire though, whether she likes it or not. I’m planning on spending the next year and a half figuring out the most obtuse way to ask her to marry me, and then I’m going to do it. When backed into a corner, Claire will probably respond with a mealy-mouthed, “I guess,” and then I’ll laugh my ass off at how emotionally uncomfortable I’ve just made her feel because she’s a commitment-phobic little man at heart. Then I’ll put the ring on her finger and laugh some more. Good times. This all depends, however, on Claire and her west-coast study buddy having a falling out between now and then. We will see.