Whether it was because Jenn\’s comment last week \”Why haven\’t you finished yet\” or reading all this you-can-be-okay-the-way-you-are stuff, I became overly incensed when chwong asked me about getting married.
\”Are you married yet?\” he asked online.
What usually I would have interpreted as just friendly conversation and how I would brush it off, I took it personally this time. Ever since I got furious a few years ago when an aunt asked me the same question, it made me bewildered and then angry. It\’s as if there\’s so much loaded in that question.
The fact that I wasn\’t like everything else. That I was supposed to be a certain way. That if I wasn\’t then I wasn\’t the best. Inferior almost. It\’s as if I have to be married in order to be a normal person. That\’s what bugged me.
So initially, I gave back a witty response including a link to the recent post that I found inspiring. About a girl who was only 26 who was unmarried, single, and career-less. Some may say that she is acting entitled. But really, it\’s all that stuff about fulfillment. We can\’t find in everyone\’s ideal. So then why is it that people keep asking if we have reached it.
So I asked specifically to ask about other things. But then I discover that we barely have anything to talk about. Beyond relationship and kids. And I found it annoying. It\’s as if I am supposed to be everything that is ideal. So I tried to suggest the dinner, but then it didn\’t matter anyway.
He asked for an email address of a potential candidate, but I completely blew the question off. I was not interested in helping him simply because he had crossed into a boundary that I didn\’t want to enter.
And so I fumed. And so I also realized that we barely spoke anyway. So what was the point of salvaging this friendship. The last time that we spoke was that weird awkward dinner that lasted less than an hour several years ago in Walnut Creek. Then that awkward interview moment at that place of Comcast.
I tried. He\’s one of those suburban fathers. The kind that always wanted to be that. And whatever. That\’s not what I wanted. I choose my lifestyle here and it\’s too bad that I have trouble relating to anybody else that\’s too different.