...I now pronounce you...miserable.

So I have this big La-Ti-Da black tie wedding back home in NC coming up in a few months. It’s about that time that I kick my commitment level up a notch by making travel arrangements and finding a date. I’m still not sure whether I’ll go or not. I have a love-hate relationship with weddings. For me, weddings can be a 5-hour, in-your-face display of everything I can’t have.

Namely:

1. A Wedding, with a preacher who doesn’t double as a Shamen or lesbian high holy priestess.
2. A Family that isn’t relegated to living a fishbowl in “that house” on the corner.
3. A date that doesn’t have to overcompensate with his personality or comedic timing.
4. Well intentioned guests who are genuinely happy for the couple and who don’t have to check their moral and/or religions beliefs at the door.
5. A lifetime of normalcy.

For a long time, I avoided going to weddings because they prompted all sorts of uncomfortable questions about my personal life. When you’re not at the point where you’re 100% comfortable in your own skin, you don’t elect yourself into situations where questions get fired at you in rapid succession. Now that im older, wiser and generally don’t give-a-damn, I have no problems fielding questions from wedding audiences.

Questions like “When are you going to get married?” Now get answered this way:
“ Well, when the State I reside in starts treating me like a human being and gives me the legal right to marry another man and enjoy the same benefits married heterosexual couples enjoy”.

That usually shuts them down pretty quick.

On that topic, I’m not really sure how I feel about gay marriage. If I thought the gay men could, for one second, respect the sanctity of marriage, I might sign on to the concept. Unfortunately, we continue to revel in our hedonistic, no strings lifestyles. We all want the ‘benefits’ of marriage, but not the responsibilities or commitments. Gay men are entirely too selfish to suffer in silent desperation like our straight male married counterparts. I have had multiple conversations with my Str8 friends about the level of misery they are experiencing in their marriages. Im not at all surprised to hear about the lies and infidelities they are participating in to offset their bad situations.

Gays wouldn’t stand for that for one second. We enter and exit out of relationships with the speed of a Harry Winston platinum bullet. We all spent too much time early in our lives chained to situations we had no control over to ever self-select ourselves into a circumstance that’s similarly stifling. I applaud the gay couples I know who have made long term commitments but I also recognize the incredible odds they are fighting against. The concept of an “open relationship” often comes into play somewhere, which just throws all legitimacy out the window in my opinion.

I’ll probably go to the wedding after all. Im sure I can scrounge up a date somewhere. It wont be another guy though. That’s front-page material in my small town and frankly im not in good enough shape for that kind of exposure right now. I may call on one of my fabulous , Lilly Pulitzer, stand-in, show-your-momma girlfriends from Palm Beach. Their level of sophistication and intrigue will be just as out-of-place as any boyfriend would be. Mission accomplished.