Journal, Diary, & Blogging / Rantings, Ravings and the Truth About Fairy-Tale-Poisoning
Now dedicated readers, assuming that there are some of you out there, I have spent great efforts to try and be philosophical about the lessons life has slammed, jammed, punched, socked, hurled, kicked, reamed, clobbered, stabbed, belted and jabbed at me, on me, to me or near me. But this morning, I’m going to rant, kicking and screaming like a slobbering toddler. I know its not becoming and what’s about to spew forth is small-minded and callous, but allow me my moment and I will beg your pardon later.
Staring at my 30th birthday like I’m staring down the barrel of a loaded pistol, I can tell you that I’ve seen enough in this life that there is little that rattles me and most of life’s little “quibbles,” I’m able to swallow with a grain of salt. But for me, and I know I am not alone, I would sooner take a fork in my eyeball than have to endure the joyous, tear-full exaltations of another newly-engaged woman.
According to the laws of decency and the moral teachings of every great religion other than Satanism, I should be happy for all of my sisters about to venture forth into wedded bliss. And somewhere beneath all the burning hatred and biting jealousy, I am… I think. But when a co-worker comes in first thing in the morning, so awash in heavenly happiness that she’s balling like a baby, and tells me that she and the man she’s been dating for three months just got engaged, all I want to do is light her on fire.
I know where this rage comes from. It comes from the knowledge that I’ve spent the majority of my dating career bouncing from one “bite in the ass” to another. And it comes from the desire to know why it is that I’ve poured my heart and soul into one love-sucking loser after another with no result and she gets to be happy after three months when she’s a bit of a “bite in the ass,” herself. The knowledge and the questions have combined under my skin to brew like the perfect storm.
Why don’t guys deal with this jealousy? Two reasons: fairy tales and romantic comedies. They are two of the cruelest plights known to female-dom and guys didn’t grow up reading them and guys generally don’t watch them unless they’re gay or forced to. Why are they so destructive? Because they paint pretty pictures that we hold our lives up to in comparison and no matter how happy we are or how hard we try, our lives will always seem less. But remember one thing girls: they never show you what happens after the princess gets carried off into the sunset by her knight in shining armor on his great white steed. That’s because that’s usually where the fairy tale ends and real life begins and there is nothing romantic about a knight that gains 20 pounds and brags about his “tool shed,” farts in his sleep, hits on the milk maids, leaves his armor on the floor all over the castle, drips pee on the floor next to the throne and refuses to take out the trash. That’s real life.
Real life is the perfect antidote to the fairy-tale-poisoning that I’ve been suffering from for the past 30 years. And the best place to find a dose of real life: the mall. The mall, teeming with people like a human ant farm, is an excellent place to people-watch. It’s also a great place to make a list of all the reasons that a girl would never want to be married. If you doubt me, try it. Find yourself a seat (or if you really want to make it a fully-faceted experience, find yourself one of those massage chairs) and just observe. Like a scientist going through the motions of a grand experiment, try to be objective in your observations and just watch. The results are always overwhelming.
There is nothing more heart-wrenching than watching a couple that has grown tired of each other, the only thing holding them together is the quarter-inch band of gold encircling each of their fingers. Their eyes are lusterless and they can hardly look at one another. Obviously, that’s not how the relationship started. They probably started off about twenty pounds lighter and giddy with the idea of each other. But not anymore. Funny how things change with time.
Or how about the couple that got married only because the girl gave her now-husband an ultimatum? Or the couple that got married because she got pregnant with the first of their now four kids and it seemed like the right thing to do? Or the couple that got married because it seemed wild and spontaneous, but one has been cheating on the other since three months after the wedding? Or the couple that never sees each other because one of them is always working? The list goes on and on and on…
But then you see that couple… the one that celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary five years ago. They’re best friends and they still hold hands. They are the needles in the human haystack. They are literally one in a million.
So, where is all of this going, you may find yourself asking? Its going is here: there are no guarantees. Just because a girl gets a rock tossed at her doesn’t mean “she’s arrived.” The journey’s only beginning and there is no guarantee of happiness. If anything, accepting that rock is in essence saying, “I love you enough to try and construct a life with you.” I don’t believe that there’s any harder work in the world other than parenthood. And all those miserable couples out there are made up of people who just gave up or got wrapped up in the busy, mundane details of life and forgot. And it happens all the time. It’s like hundreds of hatchling turtles racing toward the sea. Only a very few have the luck or the tenacity to make it. The rest are simply devoured or are too weak to survive.
It’s a big, scary world for a hatchling marriage. And thinking about it now, as much as I envy her wide-eyed happiness, there is a lot about my co-worker’s life to come that I do not envy. All I wonder is how long it will take before she wants to set me alight for cooing about being single?
The grass is always greener, right?
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This is going to be one useless albeit gushing review, so consider yourself warned.
After you described the perfevid happiness being squirted all over your workplace courtesy of a newly engagement woman, i was asking “What about the distinct possibility that this young lady will end up rueing the day she signed up for all the happiness?”’
And you answered that question perfectly, and humorously to be sure, with the rest of your blog/journal/diary.
As with any good piece of writing, i’m left wondering if such a talented, insightful writer can move on and comment on other innane social practices along the way, so i guess that’s my only criticism, though not really a criticism at all.
I’ll be looking forward to more interesting, mistake-free writing in the future.
Cheers
Travis
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