I have been working on a particular blog idea for most of the week, and seeing as I am sick in bed, now seems like a perfect opportunity to create it.
It all started when I was forced to take a cab home (I choose my wording so that I don't feel any responsibility for spending the extra money that I am not supposed to be spending.) Anyway, I was FORCED to take a cab home from work because I had been waiting 35 minutes for a streetcar and there were still none in sight. I was in a pretty pleasant mood, so I started to chat with the cabby. He was talking about how before he was married he lived a completely different lifestyle and worked for different freelance companies, etc, but he is now getting his engineering degree and working as a cab driver in the meantime. It was in this moment that I was very interested in knowing more about Marvin's life (he had also told me his name was Marvin) so I asked how he and his wife had met. He told me that they had an arranged marriage, which of course released an entire avalanche of questions from me.
The story is Marvin and Paulina were set up by their parents as an option for an arranged marriage. They would have the ability to meet and then say yes or no to the arrangement. So, they met in a park for three hours and talked, and after that time, Marvin decided that he wanted her to be his wife. When I asked Marvin how he came to that decision he told me 3 things. One: She was pretty. Two: They seemed to have enough things in common. Three: You never really know anyone, no matter how long you have known them for, so he just thought, why not her.They have now been married for ten years.
I of course find this unbelievably fascinating given how different it is from my way of thinking, but in some ways I understand Marvin's attitude. Now, I should mention I am not completely sold on the whole thing. In fact, Marvin went on to say that they way he makes it work is by never telling his wife when he is unhappy with her. Instead, if he is upset that they are out of cooking oil he will say "I'm so happy that whenever you go shopping you remember the cooking oil." and then she will apologize. I don't know about you, but I could NOT handle living with someone that passive aggressive.
In any case, the whole thing made me think about my perspective on being single. For the most part, I am a pretty confident person, and I am comfortable with myself, and being on my own and independent, however, we all have those "days." On my "days" I feel embarrassed for being single for such a long period of time in a row, and feel the loss of that hope that I will find a good partner. I decided that it might be a good project to ask more people about how they have met their partners, and bring that hope back up.
Now in terms of conducting this project, I realized right away that I would have to be a bit careful asking strangers about how they met their partners if I didn't want to offend someone, or bring up bad memories, so I decided the rule was I could only ask people if they were wearing a wedding ring. That day I spent an hour and a half (to and from one of my jobs) scouring the subway cars, looking for rings. I have to tell you, there were not as many as I had expected! This is on one hand comforting, given that I started to realize I am not completely alone in my single-hood... but also didn't really help the level of hope that I was trying to develop. Although my roomy did have a good point saying that many of them could have been in relationships just not marriages, there are way more common law marriages now, less people wearing rings, and some cultures where they have necklaces in place of rings, so who knows!
I tried one younger-looking woman who really did not want to talk, so I had to move on. I did manage to find one older lady who was willing to answer my question, and she told me she had met her husband at work, they worked in the same department.
It's interesting, because from all of my research through asking friends, family and acquaintances, there seem to be 3 common themes: Met at work, met at school, or were friends of a friend. Of course there are variations on this theme, but for the most part it holds true. One example I love is from a friend from work who said his best friend was dating her best friend, so they just ended up hanging out all of the time. When I asked him if there was a moment when he just "knew" he said little things kept happening time and time again, that solidified the fact.
Now, I'm a weird mix of romantic and realist. I love stories of romantic meetings and "just knowing you are meant to be with someone" but that is not to say I am not practical about marriage in general. I know from everyone I have ever talked to in a marriage that it is work. It doesn't just happen. I also know that sometimes people just grow apart.
My favorite story of meetings is my parents. (And I am not AT ALL biased ;) ) My father, originally from Thunderbay Ontario, had moved to Winnipeg to go to University, was playing piano on a river boat in Winnipeg called "the river rouge" as one of his many gigs. My mother was also not originally from Winnipeg, but had moved there when she was younger as my grandfather had gotten a job at the same University my father was attending. One night my mother and my aunt decided to go see their friend play in a band on the river rouge. (Just a side note: My mother still has the ticket from this boat ride and it says "find your true love" on the ticket... pretty cute.) Anyway, they met as my mother's friend introduced her to my father... and he asked her out on a date very shortly after.
when I ask my mother how she "knew" she explains that she had been dating a man shortly before this encounter and it wasn't working. She explained it to him that in order for a relationship to work, they needed to be like two pillars working together to hold up a building. She still has no idea where that analogy came from. Anyway, the first present that my father gave my mother was a book of poetry, and in that book of poetry there was a poem about two pillars working together to hold up a building. She knew. It was my mother who asked my father to marry her, and they were engaged almost five months after meeting. They have been married for 32 years, and have 3 children. It has been, and will continue to be work and compromise to make it work. My mother says she is lucky that when they grew up and made changes in their lives, they did it together, at the same time. If they had not, it never would have worked, but they did, and it did.
So, I do have hope.
Someone posted this on their facebook page today, and I feel it is pretty on theme, so enjoy! (Just ignore the coca cola advertisement....haha!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px2fjhliA8s
Love and kindness all.
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