It seems I have a kindred spirit, a female counterpart if you will. Jessica Ravitz has a column on CNN titled "Why I'm Not Married," defending her matrimony-less self. It seems she takes offense to a Huffington Post column with the basic thesis that if you’re a woman, and you aren't married, it’s your own damn fault. Confused yet? Me too… I can't keep up with all this cattiness.
Anyway, I applaud Ravitz for standing up against the societal pressure to marry, but I was disappointed by the reasoning. To me, it seemed more like rationalizing than defending a position. Here’s Ravitz on her life as an unmarried 41 year old woman:
I'm happy. Really, I am. I skipped to my desk, dammit.
Selling it a bit hard aren't you Jessica? I’m sure this is intentionally lounge-in-cheek, but it seems a little too real to me.
And to my disappointment, I learned it’s not that she’s decided not to marry, just that she hasn't gotten around to it yet:
Of course I'd love to meet and marry that one and only, but in the meantime I'm living my life, and I'm taking everything that's been given me on the journey.
She continues to talk about her childhood stepfather and resulting lack of faith in men, the one that got away, er, cheated on her, and a broken engagement… yikes TMI.
In the end the article has the vibe of yes I’d rather be married, but I’m ok with being unmarried… for now. I would have preferred a little more marriage is an outdated institution and I am not married because I choose not to be.
Oh well, one step at a time. Maybe I just got too excited by the title and was expecting too much. Now I’m thinking I would have had more fun with the original post, so I’m going to treat that in a separate entry.
