Yesterday I went out for lunch with two of my coworkers. I actually intended to go out with one of them, a good friend of mine, with whom I planned a private chat full of the most luscious details on topics that must remain strictly out of any record other than the fading memory cells. The third element trampled the plot, thus the talking went on other lines. This third element is a peculiar kind of individual, full of mess, talking even out of the elbows, elevated in "secrets" and esoteric/witchcraft things - far away from the actual witchcraft I have so profusely ducked into (through investigation!), thus strange for me - with an overbearing tendency to monopolize any kind of chat.
Now, before we go any further, allow me to place the characters into background kickoff. My trusted friend is a guy around my age, recently married and expecting his first child. Has a pleasing personality, proper of these generation's kids. Juggles around snipets of wisdom and propense to pseudo-philosophy. Like any guy of his "harvest" the topic of sex in it's many shades and notes occupy an important part of this interests. The third element is a woman at least 15 years older than us, separated, one son with populist tendencies, prone to partake in any sort of celebration and seeks to either make our of anything something extraordinaire or tell everybody about something extraordinaire. This doesn't make her a liar, but it's quite remarkable the force with which she pulls away from the plain.
The conversation somehow went tourning around gay people she has known, gay bars, gay habits, then a recount of her relationships that landed on the topic I despise the most: marriage&kids. Come on!
She was all about how much kids love her, how much she loves being with them, how she plays with them, blah, blah, blah. My friend - him in the treshold of fatherhood - asked her whether she wanted to have more kids. Well, of course she did, but life made it so that she missed her chance and thus she ended up only with one, and blah, blah, blah. I hope I had witnessed some of the inlayed hypocrisy my friend is growing a fame for, for I saw him glow at the topic. Fuck. A man wanting children, how perfectly horrid. It kinda cooled my intent to talk of any other topics with him, related with free spiriting and other ethereal elevations. Could it be he was seeking to plunge into the topic, drench in the pouring emotion of that woman, and cloak himself in it to live his next life-phase?
Their giggling and elated conversation couldn't be any more alien, any more disturbing for me. I don't want an explanation about what the fuck is good in marriage and children or any of these impositions alone. I have heard many sale-lines and I know they are all smoke and mirrors. It was kinda "unpleasant" to be asked AGAIN about my position on the matter to spit out "kids disgust me" and "I value my freedom too much to trade it for a false acceptation insurance". Sadly this won't be the last time I have to blurt out replies to this sort of moronic questioning. People simply don't want to aknowledge any alternative thinking or anything that doesn't agree with their little Disney Box.
However life itself proved to be just as acid and ironic as I am. That same day the strangest confessions were made to me by married people with kids. I have often heard the phrase "you stay single! I would if I were you", but I've never heard "kids put more strain on the relationship than you'd guess. They can actually take it apart". I have heard "I'm actually staying in this for the kids only", which I often consider bullshit, but I have never heard before "you are lucky. Kids are like chains that tie you to the father of them, whether you two are still together or not". There's the bond of paper (marriage) and the bond of blood (children). So on one hand we have the third element talking about how she can get into a fight with her son, but how much she loves kids, and selling the kids-are-delightful line to my friend, who is beyond eager for it, and on the other hand I have these acquintances and friends of mine, who regret ever getting into this. And though the stop short from wishing back the birth of their children - some even make ammends, by praising them - and call the whole package a sort of inescapable life sentence that tortures away their life, their future, which can't be stopped, no matter what.
Freedom, independence are huge gifts, shall we really part from them?
No comments:
Post a Comment