My Thoughts on Love and Marriage and Other Trivial Things

This is something I wrote in an email, and thought I would share with you lovely people.

You know, the concept of arranged marriage has its high points. However, it all depends on how much you trust your parents. I trust my mom pretty well--she knows me, she knows what kind of person I am, and she believes that I deserve the best. To a certain degree, I don't trust myself. I'm really good at reading other people except when it comes to how they interact with me. Then I'm too trusting. I've told my triplet sister, Shelby, that she's picking out my husband for me.

But that's not the point. A person has to want to know the other person on a very deep level. I believe in being best friends with whoever you marry, because love does have its ups and downs. I adore the lovey dovey gooiness of novels myself, but the honest truth is that nobody is one hundred percent constant. When the love fades for a bit, the only thing keeping you in the marriage is the simple fact that you married your best friend. My parents divorced when I was eleven, and it had a profound impact on my life. I face dating and marriage very seriously, (I would never date anyone I couldn't see myself marrying) because I've determined two things.

A.) I will never marry anyone unless I get the fairy tale. No settling, no second bests. Full blown white horse.

B.) I will NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES get a divorce, which means that that prince had better have a darn good sense of humor and a gentle heart for the days when he gets pissed off at me, which he will. Even fairy tales aren't perfect, and I know that I'm certainly no lady-fair-damsel-in-distress, as much as I'd like to kid myself into believing otherwise. I'm all too aware of my faults, and I don't expect the prince not to have some of his own. Hence the best friends part.But marriage is so much more than free sex and love and kisses--it's a uniting of souls. It's a blending of lives, for better or for worse. That's why I want to marry somebody who has seen me sick as a dog with a cold and dressed up to head out for dancing. THAT'S for better or for worse. I'll never have to put up a front or wear a mask in front of that person. They'll know me for me, and that's all I want.

My apologies for the rant. Just some things I've been thinking a lot about lately.