Ready,Set, Pick a Mate

By Roberta Durra

There’s a game I play when I’m standing in a long line at the post office. I pretend that I have to choose someone to marry from the bunch of guys standing in line. If it’s slim pickings’, and it usually is, it’s too bad for me. I’ve still got to choose someone.

Today for example, I stood in line behind a short, well-groomed man who was a strong contender in my game. Suddenly he turned towards me and made a contorted face. Thinking it was in response to the ruckus at the stamp counter, I nodded in agreement.  Then he made the same face again and again and I realized he had a severe facial tic. Then I looked at a guy who had a gigantic stomach hanging to his knees with shirt buttons popping off in all directions. Behind him was a guy with bird’s nest hair, arguing with himself.

Finally my eyes settled on the best of the bunch, a nerdy looking guy with squinty eyes, no visible upper lip, and a Bob Hope nose. The one redeeming quality was the gold band on his left finger. If someone else thought he was good enough to marry, why not me?

We go to great lengths finding our perfect mate. We spend precious time getting dolled-up and going out to restaurants, nightclubs and bars, looking for “Mr. Right”. And when we think we’ve found him our investigation really begins. We spend countless hours deciding if he’s “the one” by becoming our own private gumshoe and picking apart the poor guy’s life. We check medical records looking for anything unusual. We scan his dental charts making sure he’s not loaded with mercury fillings and in the early stages of gingivitis. And then we evaluate our information using the opinion of others. Finally, we put our prospective husband through the ultimate water torture and present him to our family and friends. If by now he hasn’t picked his teeth at the dinner table or shown an inclination towards public farting, we decide to change our last name to his. Let’s remember that fifty percent of the time we marry Mr. Right and eventually he becomes Mr. Late On Alimony! So why be so picky?

Marriage is only going to work because you’re hell-bent on making it work. It doesn’t matter how you meet someone, how well you know him, or how long you dated before you tied the knot. Look at childhood sweethearts, loving each other through grade school and acne doesn’t give them the edge on happily ever after.

The minute you marry your spouse, he automatically changes. Quirks we never knew existed suddenly appear, and your perfect mate looks more like the perfect mistake. But that’s fine, because a good marriage isn’t about being with the perfect mate. There is no perfect mate! A good marriage starts with picking someone…anyone, and deciding you’re not going anywhere. It’s about making a decision to view your tangled crab grass as fine quality sod. It’s about ignoring the clicking noise your spouse makes when he gets to the bottom of his cereal bowl. It’s not about picking the right guy! You could marry a greyhound and make it work if you wanted to.

 

Couples who marry for love aren’t any better off. Even if your spouse was a hot stud before you married, one day you’ll pick up his dirty socks and ask yourself why you married him. It wont matter whether you say, “Because I loved him”, or “Because he was #5 in line at the post office”. His socks will still stink.

I’ve come to believe there’s something right about picking a spouse from a line at the post office. If you’re not sold on this quick-pick idea, remember that just by being at the same post office at the same time, you’ve got a few important things in common. You probably live near each other, you both need stamps, and neither one is currently in jail. It’s a nice start.

So don’t sweat the small stuff like thinking you need to find the perfect mate. Next time you need stamps, park in the ten minute only zone, run into the post office and pick up five dollars worth of stamps and a husband.