I just found this quote on somebody else's blog, and it

[Stealth Pam]

Thanks, Pam--you're right, I am vastly lucky in my spouse, whom I love with all my heart, untrimmed toenails and all.
I hope you get lucky too, and soon!

I know ya love the guy, Hil. Mine used to come to bed unshaved and he was, well, Robin Williams face. I would end up with razor burn after a good night kiss. But I miss that, strangely enough. Along with the valentines, the walks holding hands...etc., etc., etc. I had a fun fella for 11 years and he's still a good friend (we still celebrate our anniversary, how's that for friendship?), but he's planning on getting married again and I feel funky about it. Oh, poor me. But he loses his job on a regular basis, and his girlfriend just lost hers at Wal-Mart in Oregon where she owes about $60,000 in child support to the government for four kids she abandoned...uh...this is going to be an interesting relationship...I believe in "in sickness and in health", not in "in debt and on welfare forever" being a marriage vow.

My problem is I'm looking for someone that likes to stay employed on a regular basis. So much for marrying an actor, heheheh. I'm kidding! I figure someday I'll hoodwink some poor guy into believing he can't live without me, but for now, I enjoy life, my friends, my family, and read a lot of romance novels...watch a lot of Jason movies.... Nat... Chris...collecting the whole set! :?

Pam

[eternal student]

I read the lists of Hilary & Marie, and thought "nothing here I miss". And I don't feel that 'getting lucky' means finding a man.

I like being single. If I want popcorn for supper, I have popcorn. If I want to stay at the office until 9pm (very necessary when I was working on the dissertation), there's no problem. I decorate my home the way I want--if I want big pink bows & cabbage roses in the bedroom, that's OK. I don't have to fight for bedcovers, pick up wet towels or dirty, sweating running clothes off the floor, or fight for the remote control (any dial spinning is done by me!).

I don't feel lonely (I have cats to keep me company). I don't particularly like to eat alone in restaurants, but I'm not huge on eating out, anyway (I like to cook!). Don't mind going by myself to movies or concerts or anywhere.

So for me, too, Jason is the perfect man--he ain't here! :

[catloveyes]

Ain't that the truth Jason, perfect fantasy man, definitely kitties to
cuddle( soon, very soon) and popcorn and more of Jason's movies





Love Always,

Kate

[Sarah]

I don't ever want to get married. I'm willing to accept that my ideas on things might change if I come across some perfect specimen of manhood, but I doubt it sincerely.

I enjoy the way I do things so much that I have a hard time settling on less efficient methods if I know better. Maybe a super-geek would do well for me. But he's have to be tall (I'm 5'10").

Too many men look for their mother in a partner, and I want a partner, not a child.

And I also don't feel the need to have a piece of paper to validate the intensity of my relationship, or define what level its on, or supposed to be on. If I want to be with someone long term I don't have to worry about hiring a lawyer to free myself from a man who's developed into a psychotic slothenly beast over the course of a relationship. The bond is so much stronger if you have the option to leave easily and don't-- when you make a personal decision from the depths of your soul to make things right. You're with someone because you want to be, not because you have to be. And people change so much, that you can't always expect to feel the same way about a partner's hypothetical personality 5, 10, 20 years down the road.

But marriage works for a lot of people who move and change in the same direction. I need my own identity in a relationship; Izzy would copy me, and it would drive me nuts. Even over little stuff--ordering the same frieken' entre at a restaurant, buying the same color car, etc. Having been recently removed from a 4.5 year relationship, I find myself savoring every moment of solitude, every tid-bit of me that I'm recovering. And I'm nowhere near as angry as I used to be.

I'm sure if we talked to Emma there would be ten thousand things that she could tell us about Jason that would cast him in a not-so-appealing light. I think its so great that they've been together so long, and started a family together without formal marriage. That speaks volumes about the strength of their relationship.

Well, I'm off to catch the shuttle home. Great thread guys.

--Sarah

[Marie]

For all his faults that I joke about - I would really miss Ken a lot if anything happened to him. Marriage has brought me a more finacially stable lifestyle and a really wonderful companion. It also brings the necessity to compromise. I think I could live just fine on my own - but I think I am happier with Ken. I don't look on the finding the right companion as having to make sacrifices - kind of more like 1+1=3! I don't fault people who don't want to be in a relationship - if they are more comfortable with the single lifestyle - than that is good too. The most important thing is to make the best of your situtation - if you are unhappy with a situation - then do your best to change it. Life is to short to be unhappy!

[Hilary the Touched]

'Tis the gift to be simple,
'Tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,
to bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed
To turn, turn, will be our delight,
'Til by turning, turning, we come round right.

--here's to being lucky enough to find the valley of love and delight, wherever and however that may be for each of us.

[Stealth Pam]

I agree with everyone...it's fun to be married, and it's fun to be single... and it's better that you live life now, not in the future looking for the perfect man, or in the past thinking about what you coulda, shoulda, oughta have done. Ironically, I wouldn't change a thing about my past, even though I'm divorced, because I married the man I fell in love with, and still have as a friend.

I don't worry anymore about the future, because so far I've been taken very good care of by those poor spiritual beings who are watching over me (my guardian angel has to take Tylenol every night), and by the dear ones I still have here in the earth plane. And I have nice fellas here at the office that think of me as "Mom" and come to me with their problems...yeah, even the ones my age, ha! I actually like my job, and my boss is one of my best friends.

And I've Jason to look at along with a couple of other handsome British gents in films...books to read...hey, life's pretty darn good.

[Sarah]

Amen.