2001-06-06 - 12:47 p.m.

Well, so much for taking the subject of matrimony lightly. Last nihgt, I had a pretty in-depth conversation with my friend Max on the subject: specifically on whether or not he should propose.

Background: Max is a CMU alum who currently resides in New Hampshire with his girlfriend. Both were working for Oracle, but Max, being the creative and writerly type that he is, was not fond of it. Two months ago yesterday he quit to pursue freelance writing, which isn't working out for him - yet.

Of course, it's easy for me to say that he hasn't given the thing time, that success can't happen overnight, and that the depression he is feeling is totally normal, and not an indication that he needs to go back to the 9-5 world - I've not been unemployed in a couple of years now, and when I was, I was a student, so money was never a large issue. But I'll stick to my conventions regardless, and keep advising Max to pursue what he really wants.

Max current dilemma is as followed: is he really ready to get married when he is at a place in his life where he can't afford an engagement ring and a house? A valid concern - one can scarcely cough up two month's salary when there IS no salary, though he knows it's ridiculous to assume that the kind of husband he would make has anything to do with the size of his paycheck. And there is the somewhat larger isse that unemployment is facing him with: who is he, what is his place in the universe, and what is his plan?

I wish I had the kind of knowledge/experience to give Max the sage advice that he needs right now, but the best I could do was talk to him about his priorities. While not knowing "who you are" is a perfectly valid reason not to get married, defining yourself by what you make is not the answer. I told Max that he was judging himself too harshly, and according to a very outdated standard of what a husband should be. Robyn has a job, and, in fact, threatened to leave if Max didn't quit at Oracle - he was just too miserable. So as long as he's with someone who's so crazy supportive, it's my hope that he'll just take his relationship for waht it's worth, and not make too many decisions based on the fact that he's no longer the breadwinner of the household.

And then of course there's the certainty issue: does he really want to do it? Does anyone REALLY want to do it? Or rather, is there ever, as he put it, "100% certaintly"? I said probably not, that the closest we can get is "100% certain that I will try my damnedest to make things work if they start to suck." Max said he has already been through the latter, and I'm glad. (Not that he's had less-than perfect times, but that he's approaching engagement with realistic standards and a lot of experience.) I know that, no matter what he decides, it's going to be the right decision, because he knows what he's doing. He's given everything a lot of thought, he's actually tried living with someone else, and in short, he's actually in a position to make this decision. I know a lot of engaged people who have no business getting married, even thought they are completely happy and in love - in fact, it's because they're completely happy and in love that their realtionships seem fragile - the question of how they will react when things start to get hard has yet to be answered. Max may be a slight pessimist, but I think he knows what he's doing.

And as far as outdated ideas about matrimony are concerned, I harbor some of my own, and it's a chronic struggle between the traditional gender roles I grew up with and my thoughts on my own personal intergrity.

My parents don't want me to get married so that some guy can support me. They've said I can move in with them after I graduate, if I don't have a job. They're willing to support my ass if I don't make good, even after they've spent obscne amounts on my education. And at first, my reaction was the typical, young adult, "Live with my parents? EW!"

But then it occurred to me. There was a time when I would have gotten engaged right after graduation. I would have worked at a lame part time job for a while, planned my wedding, and then adopted a career as a homemeker. (Never mind how I was going to pay for the lavish affair - I was young and stupid, please remember.) And nobody would have thought that was weird, gross, or dorky. They might have thought, correctly, that it was dumb, but I probably would not have been a joke. And that says something really perverse about our progressive society.

My parents raised me for 18 years, after my mother carried me around inside her for 9 months. They bought me everything I needed and just about everything I wanted, including tuition. I can still stay there whenever I want to, they still buy me stuff when I am low on cash and help me with my groceries and rent. They treat Gus like family and catsit when I am off being a world traveller. Granted, when I graduate, I should be an adult, but I don't see how getting married and living with a man who supported me would be any different than living with my parents. Food for thought, and something I'll revisit later.

On the lighter side, Hatbox and Stanley are getting a free DVD of "The Wedding planner" for registering at Bloomingdales. I'm sure the movie sucks, but it's a pretty sweet deal nonetheless.

What I'm wearing:

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What I'm doing after this: