Marriage

  On 9/24/2014 at 3:37 PM, A/D said:

Agreed, we had a $2k "wedding", no ceremony, just a bunch of food in the park, with about 40 people. Married in a courthouse. The worst Mexican brass band in the world played a quinceañera next to us. It was awesome.

Do you live in a portlandia sketch?

my wedding would just be a well organised, well fed and watered party for all my pals, and ive never even seen portlandia. also its unlikely anyone would want to legally tie themselves to me so il just have to grow to love crying myself to sleep every night. its all good.

@ Xyrofen

according to psychology having a child is the women's substitute for penis so pls sympathize with them

cats just won't do

  On 9/25/2014 at 5:10 PM, apriorion said:

Always skipped this thread because I hate this topic, but I'm glad I checked it out today. Quality laughs had this morning. Thanks.

 

  On 8/1/2012 at 7:53 AM, Xyrofen said:

Please don't contribute another wreck of a child to this world. If anything, go get sterilized, we don't need more people.

 

QFT. I don't get this drive people have to populate the world with copies of themselves. "Oh, it's so wonderful to see the world through their eyes." Well, that's fucking selfish. Condemning another soul to this wretched earthly life because you want to watch sesame street? Adopt a fucking cat, make it wear people clothes, and go fuck yourself.

sterilize your cat too. if there is one thing we need less than more humans, it's more cats for people who are too selfish to conceive and have such a shitty negative view of the human race, people who actually think having a cat is similar in any way to having a child, people who think their cats are actually more important than other people's children, people who have refused to truly examine themselves for so long that they persist in using the term "adopt" regarding animals when there are tens of thousands of children who are much more deserving of your love and dedication.

  On 9/24/2014 at 2:43 PM, A/D said:

Marriage is great because it's like "Yo I wanna be with you for a really long time. I care enough to let the government know that I wanna be with you. I wanna put a piece of metal on my hand that says 'step off other potential mates, mate number one has already been thru and he/she is a badass.' " It says, "I am willing to not fake being my best around you, but to actually try and fix my shit enough so that this is sustainable." It maybe says "I am aware of the indignities of raising a child and I could go through them with you." It says "You got what I need, and you say he's just a friend, and I will have appropriate recourse if that is found not to be the case."

 

It's not that you can't say that stuff outside of marriage. I was pretty iffy on the issue until I did it. But it rules. More than I can convey. And that has more to do with us than with the institution of marriage - as it should, imo. It's just the official paperwork on top of a deep vein of awesome.

 

Looking forward to some taxx brak$$ as well yo.

lol I love you man, words to live by

I'd argue having kids, and picking a life partner (whether married or not), is an affirmation of life. An acknowledgment that you yourself are a part of the circle of life. Can't keep a cynical distance forever.

Definitely having kids, and to a lesser extent getting married, were the best things I ever did. It gives me an emotional bedrock, so that my entire ego is not propped up on my career, income, or something else.

but I should probably add a hasty edit, my wife is very feminine in her outlook, meaning she doesn't challenge me all the time on shit, she just sulks and gets grumpy if she's mad at me. I've always felt there was something weird about the western feminist idea that women have to be the same as men. I like my women feminine. I can't stand arguing, my guilt reflex is enough, if I'm a jerk my wife's ice queen treatment will bring me back down to earth without a bunch of pointless posturing and shouting.

I'd probably be plotting to kill my wife if she were like 70% of the women I met as an undergrad in the US, heh

head for the hills

  On 9/25/2014 at 5:10 PM, apriorion said:

this wretched earthly life

  On 9/24/2014 at 7:48 PM, patternoverlap said:

 

  On 9/24/2014 at 7:45 PM, westhead said:

I was dead against the idea of marriage until I met my wife. I don't think it's for everyone, but it is for me. In conclusion, if it feels right, do it - otherwise run like the wind.

 

this

 

Yeah, this. People are different when it comes to relationships. I have friends who know they'll never get married or settle down with one partner. I know awesome people and couples who will never have kids, and sometimes I'm like "but you need to spread your genes for the future of humanity!" but hey, that's their choice. In my case, I'm married to my best friend. We're extraordinarily close. To reference Vonnegut, we're a duprass.

I don't know if it's been said earlier, but more people need to live together first. I'm always amazed by happily married couples who haven't lived together or haven't sleep together before marriage. I really think it's the exception more than the rule. There's far too much pressure to get married in U.S. culture - that's why divorce is so high. It's not necessarily that people are less loyal or more naive now, it's that in the past a large majority of marriages were unhappy, or worse, full of abuse and domestic strife. Romantic marriage is a very recent novelty. Claims that "traditional marriage" was a fundamental part of society is historic revisionism. It's become such a delusional and arbitrary necessity to so many people that shitty marriages are often formed out of peer pressure from families and communities. The same backward places where sex ed is nonexistant are the ones with the highest rates of teen pregnancies and young, often flawed marriages. There's no way to quantify that in a percentage of marriages, but I know firsthand it's something that exists in a lot of American communities, particularly conservative and religious ones. We need a society where people can be honest about who they want to share their life with, whether it's legally official or not.

  On 9/25/2014 at 11:01 PM, lumpenprol said:

but I should probably add a hasty edit, my wife is very feminine in her outlook, meaning she doesn't challenge me all the time on shit, she just sulks and gets grumpy if she's mad at me. I've always felt there was something weird about the western feminist idea that women have to be the same as men. I like my women feminine. I can't stand arguing, my guilt reflex is enough, if I'm a jerk my wife's ice queen treatment will bring me back down to earth without a bunch of pointless posturing and shouting.

 

I'd probably be plotting to kill my wife if she were like 70% of the women I met as an undergrad in the US, heh

*reported to Caitlin Moran*

Marriage is definitely trending downward in the US:

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/12/14/barely-half-of-u-s-adults-are-married-a-record-low/

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/09/24/record-share-of-americans-have-never-married/

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/09/24/chapter-1-public-views-on-marriage/

it's because everyone's parents got divorced

  On 9/25/2014 at 10:18 PM, sheatheman said:

 

  On 9/25/2014 at 5:10 PM, apriorion said:

Always skipped this thread because I hate this topic, but I'm glad I checked it out today. Quality laughs had this morning. Thanks.

 

  On 8/1/2012 at 7:53 AM, Xyrofen said:

Please don't contribute another wreck of a child to this world. If anything, go get sterilized, we don't need more people.

 

QFT. I don't get this drive people have to populate the world with copies of themselves. "Oh, it's so wonderful to see the world through their eyes." Well, that's fucking selfish. Condemning another soul to this wretched earthly life because you want to watch sesame street? Adopt a fucking cat, make it wear people clothes, and go fuck yourself.

 

sterilize your cat too. if there is one thing we need less than more humans, it's more cats for people who are too selfish to conceive and have such a shitty negative view of the human race, people who actually think having a cat is similar in any way to having a child, people who think their cats are actually more important than other people's children, people who have refused to truly examine themselves for so long that they persist in using the term "adopt" regarding animals when there are tens of thousands of children who are much more deserving of your love and dedication.

 

Oh, don't get me wrong: you can go fuck a cat, too. I don't give a shit about them, either. And I don't have a shitty view of the human race, per se. I have a shitty view of embodied, flawed existence. We're all condemned here; let's make the best of it and not sentence more people to this shitty world. It's because I care so much about people that I would recommend against forcing them to this place. Get it? Now go fuck your cat.

I wrote a long ass reply to that but nobody needs to waste their time reading it, so instead: You're wrong, the world is amazing, life is a gift.

I'm getting married next year probably :)

Congratulations

I´m always surprised and somehow sad during weddings because of the amount of people .

If I´m going to marry my girlfriend there are going to be about 4 people from my part there: My mum, my grandmother, My Dog, maybe 1 Friend

and my girl will have around 40-60 people .

  On 9/26/2014 at 7:28 AM, Gocab said:

I wrote a long ass reply to that but nobody needs to waste their time reading it, so instead: You're wrong, the world is amazing, life is a gift.

Fair enough. To be honest, I very violently shift between your view and the one I'm defending in this thread. But to make things very clear before anyone tries to attack me personally again on the basis of words I write on the Internet (because I used a word "adopt", whatever): I actually have a son, whom I adopted. He's older now (basically, he's an adult), and I'm relatively old. My time for kids is pretty much done. But it was a very conscious decision on my part to not introduce a person to this world, especially when there are kids who could use a supportive home but who don't have that. But here are reasons to not have kids:

--the world is going to hell: the environment is only going to get worse

--if overpopulation is not a problem now, it will be soon enough

--governments are gaining more an more power over their people: NSA, data-mining, etc.

--nuclear weapons are still a real issue; I'm surprised that people think this was only a fear in the 70s and 80s

--corporations hoard all the money, and they will continue to do so (self-interest, etc.)

--related: the gap between the rich and the poor is disturbingly increasing, with no hope of this changing in the future

--the story of complex life is a story of strife and intense suffering: sure, some organisms propagate their genetic material successfully, but to get to this point, it's war, plain and simple; this will never change

--social pressures tend to favor ignorant, oppressive masses: so either your kid will be virtuous-but-shit-upon by everyone else or just another one of the people-from-walmart; but who doesn't hope that their child grows up to embody virtue?

What are the reasons to introduce a new person into this world?

--sometimes we have fun

--occassionally there are moments of brilliance that we can share

--there is a slim probability that you and your offspring can "fight the good fight" and actually (ahem) make the world a better place; seriously, good luck

Is that about it? I'm not trying to commit a straw man here, so if you've got some others, please help me out. So far, the reasons against seem to heavily outweigh the reasons for having children, and not just because of the numbers, but because each item on the "against" side are much heavier. That is why, actually, I completely agree with sheatheman: you should try to make the best of the situation we have here and adopt a kid who has already been brought into the world. That's already happened, but you have a choice here between needlessly populating the world with half-copies of yourself, or helping someone who already needs all the help they can get in this fucked-up place. A Sisyphean task, to be sure, but that's life.

Oh, and one more personal tidbit: I don't own any fucking cats. Or dogs. If I ever owned an organism, it would be an octopus, and that's it.

gratz BCM - bet you still havent proposed yet tho!

lol thanks! i proposed in june and she said yes :)

Ah that's sweet. Tbh to me marriage is a lot like bungee jumping. It's fine for other people to do it if that's how they want to live their lives, but I can't think if any reason why I should do it.

true love man, true love

  On 9/26/2014 at 4:32 PM, MadameChaos said:

Ah that's sweet. Tbh to me marriage is a lot like bungee jumping. It's fine for other people to do it if that's how they want to live their lives, but I can't think if any reason why I should do it.

You used that excuse when I asked you for anal too.

We planned our wedding nearly 2yrs in advance, to give people maximum opportunity to guests to plan for expensive transcontinental visits.

Consequently, next month will be our "minus-one" wedding anniversary. Not quite sure how to celebrate one of those