Tag: #questions

Marriage

“Happiness is only real when shared.” – Jon Krakauer

Historically marriages happened for a lot of reasons, most of them cultural or financial. Sometimes the couple in question had a choice and sometimes they did not, but very seldom did it matter to anyone if they loved or even liked each other. It was expected that at a certain point in life you would fulfill the social contract and enter into the transaction known as marriage. 

Today in most western cultures marriage is seen as the ultimate sign of love for your partner. In many cases there are still legal, social, and economic benefits involved, such as enlarging your family, combining resources to purchase and maintain property, or having the financial support to stay home and raise children, but those are now seen as the benefits of finding someone who you love enough to marry rather than the reason for marriage itself. It is no longer an obligation; now it is a desire. Plus you get to have a big party with presents and cake, and who doesn’t want that, right? 

I have been in love a few times, and at least once in love enough that I did everything in my power to be with that person for the rest of my life. It didn’t work out, but even when it still looked like it would somehow the topic of marriage never came up. Not because I was waiting for him to bring it up, but because it never really crossed my mind as something we needed to consider. We chose each other every day, we made plans for the future, we were happy, and that was enough for me. What could marriage give me that I didn’t already have? 

Over the last couple years a few very close friends have gotten married. These marriages did not occur because my friends are planning to have children, need financial support, are particularly religious, or felt some kind of cultural obligation to tie the knot. They happened because they wanted to be married, not because they needed to be. Because they love each other, and because expressing that love through marriage was important to them.

I love my partner. The reasons I love him could fill a blog post of their own, so I won’t go into that here. Our relationship is the healthiest one I have every been in; we support each other when it’s necessary, make room for independence when it’s not, question and challenge each other to ensure we keep growing as people, plan for the future and accept our pasts, live and own property together, talk about everything, explore new things, and have a fantastic sex and social life. I genuinely can’t think of anything we are missing, and I feel like the very best version of myself when I am with him. Looking ahead I can imagine situations that will present us with challenges, but if we continue as we have been I can’t imagine anything we can’t get through if we try. 

Does all of this mean we should get married? I honestly don’t know. I find the idea of marriage intriguing in a way I never have before. In the past it looked like a trap blocking a person from experiencing new things with different people. Being polyamorous any marriage I entered into couldn’t fall into the standard rules marriages have traditionally followed, which I think on some level is why I have never really wanted it. But what if we could write our own definition of marriage, and make our own rules about what that looks like for us? Create something that makes us both feel protected, loved, and heard, that still involves choosing each other every day, and that leaves room for us to have experiences outside of the two of us. Definitions and rules that grow and change as we do, evolving as our relationship does, supporting and nurturing each other without limiting one another. 

I don’t know if it’s possible, or if it’s different in any way that what we are doing right now, but it sure is interesting to think about. 

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

The longer you date, the more you will notice that you keep getting asked the same questions over and over and over again. It doesn’t matter if it’s online during the messaging stage or in person when you meet. The same ones always seem to come up, and you can feel like a broken record on an endless loop, repeating yourself forever. It’s exhausting. At one point I was seriously considering starting up a document on my phone with the paragraphs all pre-written, so I could just copy and paste the answers in every time I was asked a question that felt like a rerun. I still might; sometimes I can be pretty lazy.

There’s a few important things to remember when you start to feel this way. First, if they are sending you questions then at least they are actually trying to get to know you. You could have just gotten a list of demands or a dick pick or an invitation to a hotel room or something. Second, you may have heard this question a hundred times, but they haven’t heard your answer at all. It’s old hat to you, but you are still new to them. Third, and possibly most important, consider this; if they ask you a question and you answer it, you get to ask it back with the reasonable expectation of a response. It might start an actual conversation. If you have been online dating for long you know how hard that can be.

If you are also considering setting up a few prepared answers, want a little preview into what you will inevitably be asked eventually, or need ideas for starting a conversation, here are the most asked questions I’ve received while online dating.

“How are you?” Generic. Boring. Uninspired. But at the same time, it is how most conversations with people you already know start, so it’s not entirely unfair. It even has the potential to show genuine care or concern. It most likely doesn’t, but the possibility is there at least. The biggest issue with this question is that in most cases you are going to get too short of an answer or too long of one. It’s not technically a closed question, but it is very easy to answer with just one word. Good. Fine. OK. Or if it goes the other way you might wind up with a 3-page diatribe about how they are feeling about something that happened at work or with an ex. Valuable information maybe, but not something you need right now.

“What’s up?” Or it’s backwoods cousin “Sup?” Similar to “How are you?”, this is a very common message, and a very lazy one. Let’s face it; if you were currently up to anything really interesting you wouldn’t be online answering your messages. Yet somehow something that used to be an actual exploratory question about why someone was contacting you has turned into an introduction designed to force the recipient to say something that entertains the sender.  

“What do you do for fun?” Depending on your dating platform this question is either good or lazy. If you are on something like Tinder that doesn’t allow you much space to write a profile then it is good, the person messaging you is trying to find out what you like, if you have any compatible interests, what kind of free time you have, etc. However, if you are on a site like Plenty of Fish and have completed your profile then this information should already be out there for them to see. By messaging you and asking you something they could see with just one mouse click they are telling you that they aren’t interested enough to do even that.

“What are you looking for?” This is a great question, if you know the answer. If you don’t, well, you are probably going to fumble a few times trying to give one. In general, it’s a good idea to know what you want before you go looking for it, but when it comes to dating, most people don’t. Answering this a few dozen times might actually help you figure that out.  

“Why are you single?” In my opinion this question is a little mean, even when asked in the most flattering way. First, it is very difficult to answer with any kind of positive spin. ‘I’m picky’, ‘I haven’t found what I’m looking for’, and ‘I am only recently single’ all have negative connotations that go along with them. And those are the easy answers. Second, a person who has been online dating for a while is probably already asking themselves that question. The realization that finding someone online isn’t fast or easy hits us all differently, but having someone else point out to you that you haven’t found someone yet and that they can’t see why is hard for anyone to hear. Particularly if they wind up being yet another person that isn’t for you.