With regards to marriage and other such vile ideas

This is in response to a clever friend of mine who somehow thought it would be funny, and/or appropriate to append my beau's last name to mine in an email. I understand that this is a sensitive subject, in that the institution of marriage has recently "come under attack" in this country, but, I cannot hold my tongue.

I'm not getting married. Well, not now, but, foreseeably, I might never. I don't really see myself as the "marrying type." The older I get, the more apparent this becomes to me. I am tired of hearing people ask when I am getting married (for godssakes, I am 22!), telling me that I am getting married, appending or altering my name, or even joking about me getting married. You should all know that this causes me to hyperventilate. Severely. I don't go to jewelry stores and fantasize about engagement rings, I don't look at wedding dresses and imagine my day. I don't even imagine my wedding day. The most I can conjure up is the thought that I can't do anything with my hair on a normal day, so it's basically pointless to get married. Can't have bad hair at your own wedding.

I have friends who are married, and friends who are engaged, and while I can muster up excitement for them, I also imagine that they must be billions of times more mature than I am. ( that or someone slipped something into their hookahs...) I mean, I am still young enough and poor enough to get money from my parents... why would I trade that in for a spouse? Your money would be my money, so I'd be borrowing from myself (decidedly less fun). And after spending the last year discovering all the misery of being an adult, including income tax, personal property taxes, registration, insurance, co-payments, living check by check and never being able to make a dent in your credit card balance, I am decidedly against combining my own misery with anyone elses. Granted, I think just about everyone else makes more than $13,000 a year, before taxes.

Besides, I am a 22 year old black woman pursuing a PhD, which, by definition, means that I will be single until the sweet grim reaper takes me from this place. Let's be honest... Higher education for black women is like self selecting out of the gene pool. For example, I sit around and discuss how rational choice theory is tautological, and use words like synechdocical, simulacra, metonymy and other words that have no practical use. (if you know what those mean, you will also die alone). No one wants to come home at the end of the day, asking "Hi honey, how was your day?" and be diluged with words like that. Actually, I'm pretty sure that that is the root cause of spousal abuse. Seriously... So I am resigned to my post as "non-married, soon to be overeducated woman extraordinaire". As I slowly lose my ability to communicate effectively with the general population, my wonderful beau will tire of the old "smile and nod" routine, and start looking for perky college co-eds who don't make his brain hurt. Eventually, he will grow bored and get rid of me, (probably when I stop being able to afford to drug him...) and then I will begin my pathetic singular existence. Until then, stop with all the marriage talk. At least until I am 35...