Better to be Young and Married or Young and Free?
Had a dinner/coding hangout with a two of my classmates two days ago for our Stats 141 class. I haven't done many study hangouts since being married, so I've only recently discovered that when you're married, scheduling time with others are not as easy as it used to be.
Sure, I am still a student and my schedule is supposedly "flexible" if I am taking the same classes as my peers, but when they asked me to dinner at 7pm and then to study after, I couldn't just say "yes" right away like I used to. My first instinct was to text John and asked him what time he'd be back from work and what he wanted to do with dinner plans if I was going to hang out with them. You see, when you're single, eating dinner is just a matter of nourishing yourself. Nowadays, it's more of a bonding and "How's your day been?" affair. Since John really likes home-cooked food, it's also a way for me to express my love to him when I make "fancy" meals. If I went out with them, does that mean I should make dinner for one and have him eat alone? Or should he just go grab something on his own? Or should I invite him to the dinner portion of the hangout? And what about the chicken we said we'd cook for dinner tonight? So many lingering questions because of one invitation.
I ended up taking John with me and introducing him to my friends. After John left, the girls started talking about relationships (one of the topics when John was still around was about our relationship, not surprising of course, lol). They were talking about potential boyfriends, the risk of ruining a friendship if someone asks the other out, how "cute" a certain someone is at the restaurants (even commenting on TA's and encouraging each other to ask TA's out, mind you, they're seniors, so around 22? But still kinda weird to me).
You can guess that I felt pretty left out for the majority of the conversation. Like what I was I supposed to do? Comment on how handsome the TA's are? Sorry hor, but I happen to think my husband is way cuter? Lol. And the only "men" I am comfortable fawning over are fictional/animated characters from movies and books, wtf. LOL. I am so hard to get along with, I know.
I must admit that at some point I thought how nice it must be to be able to be all starry-eyed with all these selection of men on the market. Oh oops, I just made it sound like finding boyfriends is like shopping. Hahaha. But you get the drift. It's like these girls are infatuated with new or potential romances, and it's all so dreamy-like. At this point in our lives, John and I have a pretty stable relationship. Sure, we are still kinda in la-la land mode since it's our first year of marriage, but it's nothing dreamy or fantasy. More like a sense of happiness and awe that we get to see each other everyday and make life decisions together (yeah, I know in 10 years or so I'd probably whine about this hahaha). So watching them made me feel kind of envious and sort of detached.
Is this what getting married young is like? Missing out on these kinda of "bonding" moments between peers? Being left out of a lot of conversations, because let's admit it, most people at this age mainly talk about who they're seeing or what their relationship struggle/progress are. If you're married and try to join such a convo, they're just going to be all "What do you know? MRS. Lee?" LOL. Oh, and let's not forget the scheduling complications I was talking about. In a sense, you can sometimes feel a little left out and sad.
Then they started lamenting about how difficult it is to read men, or to find good men in general. All of sudden the convo took a turn into how hard it is to approach men, when and how you should confess, how to judge if the other person feels the same way, how to flirt without embarrassing yourself or facing immediate rejection, lol.
In the end, I went home feeling super happy. One, because I got work done (Lol, you'd think no work was done with all that "girl talk", but I wasn't particularly involved so I actually got a significant amount of work done), and two, because I had a husband to return home to. What does it matter if I didn't get to talk about men or connect with these girls on a "deeper" level? I already have someone I can talk to about anything and everything under the sun on a level deeper than any relationships I'll have in life. Also, THANK GOODNESS I don't have to go through all that "guessing" and "who asks who out first", or "at what point or what age is it not awkward to ask someone out on a date right away?" situations anymore. At the end of the day, I have someone by my side to go through funner or tougher things together. It's not about "Should I ask her out today?" but "Let's go to [insert fun place] together this weekend! Yeah!" As an introvert, I think this is a huge win. I wouldn't wanna go through that kind of "guessing game" obstacle again. I guess I never really had to play it with John cuz we're both so direct about certain things. #win
It's so nice to be married, especially when your husband is a nice and fun guy ^_^
Better it is to worry about what to do about scheduling than to worry if the man you're interested in likes you back or something complicated along those lines.
Two more months and it'll be a year together!!
Sure, I am still a student and my schedule is supposedly "flexible" if I am taking the same classes as my peers, but when they asked me to dinner at 7pm and then to study after, I couldn't just say "yes" right away like I used to. My first instinct was to text John and asked him what time he'd be back from work and what he wanted to do with dinner plans if I was going to hang out with them. You see, when you're single, eating dinner is just a matter of nourishing yourself. Nowadays, it's more of a bonding and "How's your day been?" affair. Since John really likes home-cooked food, it's also a way for me to express my love to him when I make "fancy" meals. If I went out with them, does that mean I should make dinner for one and have him eat alone? Or should he just go grab something on his own? Or should I invite him to the dinner portion of the hangout? And what about the chicken we said we'd cook for dinner tonight? So many lingering questions because of one invitation.
I ended up taking John with me and introducing him to my friends. After John left, the girls started talking about relationships (one of the topics when John was still around was about our relationship, not surprising of course, lol). They were talking about potential boyfriends, the risk of ruining a friendship if someone asks the other out, how "cute" a certain someone is at the restaurants (even commenting on TA's and encouraging each other to ask TA's out, mind you, they're seniors, so around 22? But still kinda weird to me).
You can guess that I felt pretty left out for the majority of the conversation. Like what I was I supposed to do? Comment on how handsome the TA's are? Sorry hor, but I happen to think my husband is way cuter? Lol. And the only "men" I am comfortable fawning over are fictional/animated characters from movies and books, wtf. LOL. I am so hard to get along with, I know.
I must admit that at some point I thought how nice it must be to be able to be all starry-eyed with all these selection of men on the market. Oh oops, I just made it sound like finding boyfriends is like shopping. Hahaha. But you get the drift. It's like these girls are infatuated with new or potential romances, and it's all so dreamy-like. At this point in our lives, John and I have a pretty stable relationship. Sure, we are still kinda in la-la land mode since it's our first year of marriage, but it's nothing dreamy or fantasy. More like a sense of happiness and awe that we get to see each other everyday and make life decisions together (yeah, I know in 10 years or so I'd probably whine about this hahaha). So watching them made me feel kind of envious and sort of detached.
Is this what getting married young is like? Missing out on these kinda of "bonding" moments between peers? Being left out of a lot of conversations, because let's admit it, most people at this age mainly talk about who they're seeing or what their relationship struggle/progress are. If you're married and try to join such a convo, they're just going to be all "What do you know? MRS. Lee?" LOL. Oh, and let's not forget the scheduling complications I was talking about. In a sense, you can sometimes feel a little left out and sad.
Then they started lamenting about how difficult it is to read men, or to find good men in general. All of sudden the convo took a turn into how hard it is to approach men, when and how you should confess, how to judge if the other person feels the same way, how to flirt without embarrassing yourself or facing immediate rejection, lol.
In the end, I went home feeling super happy. One, because I got work done (Lol, you'd think no work was done with all that "girl talk", but I wasn't particularly involved so I actually got a significant amount of work done), and two, because I had a husband to return home to. What does it matter if I didn't get to talk about men or connect with these girls on a "deeper" level? I already have someone I can talk to about anything and everything under the sun on a level deeper than any relationships I'll have in life. Also, THANK GOODNESS I don't have to go through all that "guessing" and "who asks who out first", or "at what point or what age is it not awkward to ask someone out on a date right away?" situations anymore. At the end of the day, I have someone by my side to go through funner or tougher things together. It's not about "Should I ask her out today?" but "Let's go to [insert fun place] together this weekend! Yeah!" As an introvert, I think this is a huge win. I wouldn't wanna go through that kind of "guessing game" obstacle again. I guess I never really had to play it with John cuz we're both so direct about certain things. #win
It's so nice to be married, especially when your husband is a nice and fun guy ^_^
Better it is to worry about what to do about scheduling than to worry if the man you're interested in likes you back or something complicated along those lines.
Two more months and it'll be a year together!!
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