Views From An Inbetweener
A stark difference between two of my closest girlfriends has got me thinking a lot recently about relationships.
The first friend has just returned from honeymoon. She was twenty-one in August and has been going out with the boy who is now her husband since we were about fourteen. The second friend has a simple, thin black band tattooed on her ‘ring’ finger to symbolise her lack of desire to marry.
These two friends of mine will probably never meet each other. Namely this is to do with distance. First friend is from ‘home’, we grew up together and have been friends for years. Second friend is equally someone who I have grown up with except I have only known her for the last two years that I have been at uni. The growing up that we have done together is less to do with getting older and more to do with life lessons.
The other reason they will probably never meet is because I won’t introduce them. They won’t like each other. They are so inherently different that they could never be friends and if they were then they would disagree about everything, all of the time.
If I am honest I had reservations about both of the girls’ decisions. It is rare for people of my generation to be married so young. Even my Nan who was married and had three babies by my age says that we are too young to be thinking about settling down.
She says girls today want more than a husband. They want a career first (she’s a big fan of sweeping generalisations). And as for second friend’s tattoo, it took me several occasions of stroking the simple but obtrusive ‘ring’ around her finger before I could accept it. Not because I am an advocate of marriage or anything but because we are young and her statement is going to be there forever. Same with my first friend’s marriage certificate.
The weight of both of their decisions left me questioning my own frivolous and young choices. I can’t think of anything I want forever. Yesterday I wanted a puppy, today I don’t. Just an hour ago I saw a cute baby on the bus and thought I could have one of them if I wanted and then got back to my flat and couldn’t even commit to the night out I was supposed to go on.
I even trailed off the baby story just then. I like to change my mind. Neither of my friend’s decisions allow for that in any immediate way. That is why I didn’t make them. Not to say that I think they are wrong, I trust each girl’s commitment and support their choices whole heartedly.
I loved my friend’s wedding, I was proud and pleased to see her so content. I also adore her husband and I wish them every happiness. Equally, I admire my other friend’s strength in her convictions and her confidence at displaying a still controversial opinion so outwardly. Even in a modern and liberal environment like a tattooist’s she struggled to find anyone willing to ink her decision permanently.
I guess in terms of distance between the two I am currently residing in the middle ground. In July I moved in with my boyfriend of three years. The fierce independent in me wants to justify this decision but I won’t because it isn’t necessary. We just did it and as much as I am in love with him the contract is only for twelve months, when that is over we can renew it and I am in no doubt that we will but twelve months is a long enough time for me to be seriously committed to a decision. I like knowing that I could change my mind.
I read a lot of women’s writing, absorbing their opinions and forming my own. I love a web of girly support made up of close friends and I’m always keen to hear of other ways to live or think. I am a huge supporter of women of all varieties. The contrasts in our lives are everywhere but there is always a recurring theme of pressure when I talk to my friends and family or read another woman’s view. The pressure I am talking about is anything from trying to fit in with your friendship group’s ideas about relationships to the dreams you have that don’t fit into your man’s life plan:
I have a friend of a friend who dumped a guy she loved to pursue a dream work placement and a friend who took back a cheating boyfriend but can’t talk too much about him to her best friend because she disapproves. I know girls who want a wedding but not a marriage and a girl whose parents will choose her a husband. Isn’t there enough outside pressure from career aspirations and family’s expectations, religious commitments, societal norms and women’s magazines without putting more onto each other?
I overheard two business women on the train make a sly dig at a sleeping girl’s engagement ring the other week. “I’d want a bigger rock than that if I was giving everything up at her age,” one stage-whispered to her friend. But relationships in my experience shouldn’t be about giving anything up apart from the wrong guy. If it’s right it’s right — no matter what your friends or catty women on the train think. It is so easy to form opinions on other people’s lives. I’m guilty of it, I’m aware of it around me all the time and when I moved in with Darren I was super-conscious of others doing it.
We cannot always change each other’s mind but we can appreciate them. How else would we learn what we want without dismissing what we don’t or aspiring to what we aren’t? I respect every one of my friends’ decisions, no matter how opposite they are to my own views, and I value their support of mine.
I want to get married one day, I hope it will be to Darren and (contrary to popular belief) it will not stop me from doing anything else I fancy along the way because why should it?
That is my decision, it is vague and subject to change but today I want to always be open to persuasion, sometimes misguided and idealistic but always happy.
How about you?
Image: 'Marriage' by Jo Christian Oterhals
2 Comments – Post a comment
CLICdan
Commented 19 months ago - 14th October 2010 - 18:12pm
Shell, this is definitely my favourite piece out of everything I've read by you. You're definitely progressing as a writer, and the unabashed honesty in this article makes it a truly fantastic piece. Well done.
Jack_Alex
Commented 19 months ago - 14th October 2010 - 18:48pm
A really well written and interesting article, I enjoyed reading it and definitely agree with the sentiment. I guess when the time is right, and more importantly, the person is right, you'll know to settle down.