Girls girls girls...

Girls girls girls... there are so many different kinds. So many interesting variations, but lately, I feel like there is a common theme running through almost all the females I have encountered recently. About 99% of them desperately want a boyfriend/husband/babies/suburban-cookie-cutter-lifestyle, straight out of a JCREW catalog.

Why didn't anybody inform me the 1950's were back?

I realize that “women wanting to get married” isn't exactly a SHOCKING revelation, but the recent onslaught of biological clocks, ticking in such close proxy to myself, has inadvertently got me thinking about why the perception of “happily-ever-after,” always seems to include a mortgage, babies, and 'until death do us part?'

Now, I'm by no means opposed to marriage, spawn, or property ownership. But I am opposed to the belief that those intangible variables, are the barometer by which anyone's self-worth, or happiness in life, should be measured. Yet, I keep meeting people, the female demographic mostly, who base so much of who they are, and what they're worth, on the men folk, and their potential distance from the alter.

I went to a BBQ in San Jose this weekend with one of my best girl friends, to visit her family for her birthday. It was nice to meet all the people she had grown-up with, but at the same time, it was a complete culture shock. Granted, San Jose isn't exactly a “far” drive from SF, but it's just far enough to teleport the junction of “ moral-values” back about 50 years.

Sitting in the backyard with a bunch of girls in their late 20's, the talk centered around men. Who had a man, who didn't, and who wanted one. My friend's mother, who had met my ex-boyfriend at a Christmas party last year, asked how he was. I told her that we broke up in the spring, but that I'm sure he's doing well. She frowned at me, and looked surprisingly sad about the whole thing, especially considering the fact, that she didn't even remember his name.

I awkwardly laughed and said, “It's okay, he's a good guy, but he just wasn't the guy for me.”

At this point, several of the girls looked at me, and my friend's mom responded with, “Well, I wouldn't worry about it, I know you'll find somebody to be with.”

With the audience of female spectators growing, I looked at her, puzzlement gleaning from my dimples, and wondered if she was serious. I chuckled under my breathe, and re-butted with every once of honesty I could drum into my larynx, “I don't plan on worrying about it all. Boys are a dime a dozen anyway. Finding a boyfriend isn't difficult. Finding someone you really connect with, and can grow with; that's the hard part.”

My female spectators gawked at me like I had just announced Satan as my personal savior, while simultaneously wetting my pants. I figured it was time to make an exit, so, in normal Bridgette fashion, I awkwardly mumbled something about needing a carrot stick, and shuffled over to the snack table.

Did that really just happen?

Maybe I've finally entered the age bracket where the obsession to 'settle down' and 'have a family,' has finally set in, and bulldozed its way onto the playing field.

There isn't anything wrong with that either. My contradiction with the “happily-ever-after” bullshit, isn't that it's a negative desire, or goal, but that it's set up as a plot-point in all our lives, as a meter in which the level of our success and/or happiness is somehow measured . And if we never reach that “goal,” or rather, choose not to travel in that particular direction, something is “wrong” with us, and we're somehow “less,” somehow “not as good” as those who get their “happily-ever-after.”

Why aren't we enough?

Don't get me wrong. I love being in love. I love being with someone who makes me want to lay in bed all day just to be with them. I love all the things that come in and out of relationships, good and bad, painful and wonderful; the whole nine yards.

BUT... when I don't have that, I am not worth any less.

I have a hard time understanding how so many girls stay with men that treat them like utter shit. I don't understand how being with someone like that, is better than being alone? I would rather be alone for the rest of my life, than put up with a man who treated me like something he bought at a used diaper auction.

I don't know how to relay the message that no one deserves to be treated less than human. I suppose the relay of that message has been transmitted in many different facets, and it's contents is still falling on deaf ears. I just wish everybody knew how amazing they all really are. I wish that we would all stop settling for less than we deserve... and when push comes to shove, we deserve to get what we want when our hearts are on the line.

Because I don't know about you, but I want to be with someone who is above and beyond everything, my friend. I want to be with someone who makes me laugh, at myself, at the world, and everything in between. I don't want a ring, or a contract that legally binds someone to my heart. I simply want to be with someone who makes me better just for knowing them, and if that happens not to include “happily-ever-after,” it doesn't make it any less worthy, any less amazing, or anything less, than love.