Sunday, February 10, 2008

Something Like a Phenomenon, Baby

I've been thinking this for a long time...LDS women are NOT the only ones trying to figure this whole dating, settling, man thing out. It's a societal trend. Thank you to the ever watchful TODAY show for making it clear.

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx/?mkt=en-us&fg=rss&vid=c5c10e25-5dd1-462a-8202-e8165c95fb48&from=im_f_25-34&wa=wsignin1.0

2 comments:

lenalou said...

Yes! I think LDS women just start earlier. I've never really GOT the concept of 'settling,' though. When the adequate guy says "will you marry me," do you sigh and say "sure. Fine. Whatever."? And later, do you tell your kids stories of how you met and fell in... er, learned to tolerate each other? It reminds me of Charlotte Lucas marrying Mr. Collins.

Skye said...

Wow. I just kind of wanted to slap those girls in the video. I wanted to shout through the screen, "get real! You really want to find your soulmate in a nursing home? Yeah, that sounds like a barrel of fun." (I'll save my rant about "soulmates" for another day) And that matchmaker girl! I wanted to be like, "yeah, if you're gorgeous and successful, as you clearly are, I'm sure it does seem like you can have anything you want."

Which, I guess, goes to show what I think about this. I've been thinking about the concept of "settling" a lot lately, since I have people close to me who grapple with it. The word "settling" has taken on a negative connotation that I think is unnecessary and maybe even damaging. People who are married don't want to say that they "settled" because their friends wouldn't respect them for it. But the truth is that, in some sense, everybody settles in some way. That's what "settling down" is. You can realize it before the wedding or after, but the person you marry will not be Mr. Perfect. And he will also change as time goes on (just as women do) and not do all the romantic things he did while you were dating. Anyway, of course no one would suggest that people should marry any old bum that comes along, or marry someone they have serious reservations about, but as the nice lady said, (something to the effect of) "I think I passed up a lot of wonderful guys because I was looking for an ideal." I wish there were a way to explain the experience to people who haven't been through it (most of my married girlfriends laugh about this, because we all get it, but it's impossible to explain), but it's not like I "settled" in the negative sense of the word, but I think I had to be willing to settle in order to be open to the idea of Jared, who turned out to be absolutely wonderful and perfect for me. A year before, I wouldn't have been interested. And there was a change of heart, a willingness to look beyond certain things and just find someone real, a humility that opened my heart to a different idea, and I thank my lucky stars every day.

I guess this rant is just to say that I wish people would stop using the term "settle" as a negative thing. It shouldn't be. There are some compromises one shouldn't make, but there are some that one should.