you must prefer a double-hit of Belgrade desire
I watched Anchorman last week. I can say without hesitation that it’s the sort of movie that would have been a better show with more people in the room. I watched it during a rare night when the apartment was empty and I was bored. As it was, it was amusing (the weatherman is a hoot), but not uproariously funny. At one point during the movie there’s a sort of gang war between the various news teams from the local stations, and the scene features cameos from several other comedic actors, among them Luke Wilson and Ben Stiller. The lead anchor from the public television station showed up, though, and I couldn’t figure out for the life of me who it was. He was wearing a curly blond wig and looked initially like a tall version of Flea (from the RHCP). Then he looked sort of like Kelsey Grammer, and then I finally realized it was Tim Robbins. The wig made him all but unrecognizable.
Friday night was occupied by a friend’s wedding. It was held at the Forest Theatre in Chapel Hill, an outside stone theater, something most of us thought was a bad idea at the beginning of January, but as it turned out the evening was quite temperate and nice. I had been commissioned earlier in the week to burn several cds of music to play during the reception: background music for the social part, and more upbeat stuff for the dancing. I don’t really have much (read: any) in the way of background music (think Sinatra or Armstrong or Nat King Cole or the like), so Stephen had to come through for me with his computer reserves of music of that genre. As for the dance-y stuff, I lucked out when I realized my mom (in conjunction with my brothers) had burned me a couple of cds of Motown hits–always crowd-pleasers–so I just used those. All I can say is that if anybody in that crowd is coming to my future wedding (as I’m sure some will), they’d better enjoy their oldies while they can, ’cause they’re probably not going to find much they recognize when it comes time to dance. Muahahaha.
The bride and groom, Hannah and Michael, had known each other for about 7 or 8 months, I think, and had been engaged for the better part of that. I don’t know if I could do that. I don’t think I have hard and fast limitations on the amount of time I should know someone before we get engaged, but I’m fairly certain it’s longer than that. How long should you have known/date/be engaged to someone before getting married? Does it matter?
we were engaged 3 months before we got married.
BUT, we had known each other (best friends) the previous 5 years :)
it varies from couple to couple, i imagine.
I don’t really have much of an opinion on the matter… I think it’s sort of a case to case thing? Not that I view love/marriage/partnerships as a CASE, I just think there are lots of different factors. My parents dated each other less than a month before they were engaged.
my brother knew his wife for 3 weeks before he proposed, and 3 months later had their civil ceremony (just had the church wedding this past summer, a year later). granted, the civil was to help with the whole immigration thing, but his explanation was “when you meet the right person, you just know.”
my parents didn’t know eachother long, either…
well, you know Des and I have known each other for 6 or so years. Official b/f, g/f for 6 months and I’m getting ready to propose. Uh oh.. hope she doesn’t read this. haha.
Just from watching people…
I think it is a case by case basis, and it’s hard to say a straightforward ‘timeline’ for anyone –
To me, although it depends on each individual person, I consider marriage a one-chance deal… Divorce isn’t an option. For me, that means my fiance and I had a nearly two year dating relationship (starting when I was 19).
For me, that worked – and I think for most people in their early 20s it makes sense. Very few of my friends in their early 20s, unless they’ve known a person for years (or are already married), really know what they want to do in life, or what they really even want in a life partner.
In general, the older a person gets, the more they settle on things that are really important in someone they want to marry – the list gets more specific, and so when they find that ‘right one’ – it’s easier to pick them out, and they’re ready and (hopefully) prepared for that kind of committment.
This is all very generalized, of course – I know a 35 year old guy who definately isn’t mature enough to marry anyone, but that’s currently his whole purpose in life, to find someone to marry – and I know a 20 year old who is VERY secure in what she wants out of a relationship – and how to have one.
(My new job is leaving me lots of random spurts of down-time, heh, this one just happened to be a bit longer.. ;) Sorry for the excess rambling!)
I think that you can get lucky when they push the traditional timeline of spending multiple years preparing to marry someone, but you’re really taking a chance, marrying someone you’ve only known for weeks/months.
My brother did this, and it turns out the woman that he married after knowing her for two months has serious mental illness issues. Of course, they’re both committed to marriage, so in that sense, it will probably “work” but I think he’d have been happier in some ways with someone else.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that the younger one is, the more time one should spend getting to know someone, b/c characters/personalities are still forming. A 35 y.o. is much more settled/established in terms of both character and lifestyle than a 23 y.o., etc., and might thus have a firmer idea of what s/he wants. I’d argue, though, that knowing what you want isn’t enough if you don’t thoroughly know the other person. My brother thought he’d met his dream woman, and on paper she was perfect. In six weeks of dating she was perfect. The cracks and insecurities didn’t start to show for a while.
Again, it’s anecdotal, but there you have my opinion.
As someone who is almost certainly predisposed to avoid pre-marital sex, it puts you in a bit of a bind–how to get to know someone well and accurately and let a solid relationship build slowly while avoiding the inevitable temptation to shag? I’m guessing that this was a serious problem with Erin, and I wish there were an easy answer (one other than the “I kissed dating goodbye” extreme)
(more than you bargained for, probably!)
I’d tend to agree with the thought expressed in the first part of your third paragraph, in relation to personalities being more settled as we get older shortening (at least in most cases) the necessary courtship time.
As for the last part of your response, I’ll say yes, it is very difficult to avoid the inevitable temptation, and there’s definitely not a universal solution. But I certainly know that you can get to know someone very well and build a solid relationship without giving in to that temptation.
Good insights, and I agree with all of them. It’s definitely dependent on the person, though there are generalities surrounding typical age/maturity levels (otherwise we wouldn’t have a legal drinking age, heh).
The paradox comes from your fourth paragraph–yes, as people get older the list of attributes gets more specific, which should in theory shorten courtship time, but it would also seem like it would be harder to find that individual in the first place, since one’s feelers are out for someone so specific. But so it is.
Did they know each other long before they started dating?
My dad didn’t know my mom at all until he asked her out on a date. He actually intended for it just to be a sort of “summer romance,” as it were, but they ended up dating for two years or so, and then got engaged. So my natural predisposition is to date for a good long while before proposing…but anything can happen, I suppose.
According to my mother, they met in July (he came into the bookstore her family owned). Some Sunday in August he asked her out on a date, and they went on several dates throughout the week, and on Saturday he proposed. Perhaps I should have said less than a week. They married in January… so this month is their 25th anniversary.
Because I’ve seen a relationship between two people who didn’t know each other for an extended period of time before they married work out very well, I’m biased and think that can happen for anyone. And yes, the previous sentence is poorly worded, but I think you can make sense of it.
Hope you’re having a lovely day so far. What’s the weather like there? It’s really nice here… but soon I’ll be back in BR.
Your parents’ courtship is a bit reminiscent of the one that preceded the wedding I went to last Friday. Bodes well for them :)
And I can make sense of your sentence. It’s amazing how the examples we come into contact with shape our view of the institution and process.
It’s a little chilly here, but nothing unbearable. Have a safe trip back. Talk to you soon :)
Re: Just from watching people…
I think it’s true that as people get older they tend to know what they want. That was part of the reason why Hannah and Michael’s wedding was so, um, unsettling for some of us…i think they’re both twenty and i know that Hannah, for one, wasnt really “looking around” for someone to marry…it just happened. They’re not exactly the most mature people i know, nor practical, but i think they’ll be ok. They’re in for some tough times, though, and i cant say i’ll feel very sorry for ’em. ;-P
Oh, and Matt, they pretty much met each other for the first time at our wedding, the last day of July. So that’s what…5 months? I wrote more, but on second thought i think i’ll just delete it and stop my raving right here. It’s just difficult to see people you love take the easy way out when you know there’s so much more for them that they’ve just skipped right over and may never find in the same way again…
Gotta run to class now. Have a great day, Matt.
They’ll be okay, I’m sure. They both look like them come from good stock (Hannah I know does). I didn’t know either of them very well so I wasn’t aware of their individual temperaments and outlooks. But I’ll definitely be praying for them.
Do you really think their marriage was “the easy way out” and not just that they had really found the person they were meant to be with? What do you feel they’ve “skipped over?” I’m saying they haven’t–I just want to hear from the perspective someone who followed what I would consider to be pretty much my ideal dating/engagement timeline.
*not saying they haven’t…
Correction to above.