To All the Boys I've Loved Before: I'm Glad We Are Not Married

Going through my dating Rolodex has shown me that maybe I’m better off.

This was originally published by the Institute for Family Studies. You can read it here.

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Ever since I was a little girl, my biggest goal in life was to get married. Even in my era of telling people that I wouldn’t get married until I finished school and started a career (because of the ick of being a too-young bride!), I was still secretly buying wedding magazines, doodling wedding dress designs in my notebook, and looking at engagement rings online after my roommates had gone to bed. I even once bought $500 of ivory Alençon lace on a whim with the hope I would be making my dream dress within the year.

Alençon lace is pricey, guys.

It wasn’t just the idea of a gorgeous wedding that I loved. I was in love with the idea of sharing my life with someone. Not having to make all my decisions alone. Not having to pay all my bills alone. Having my own family. Offering the love in my heart to a worthy companion. (And maybe having the occasional excuse to get out of social events I did not want to attend.)

The years have passed, and there is still no ring on my finger. Instead, I have a dog, a business, and a yet-unfilled prescription for egg-retrieval medications. I’m not miserable — I have friends and family and plenty of social and creative outlets — but I don’t have the thing I actually want.

It feels like almost everyone else is, or was, married. I feel pangs of jealousy for even those whose marriages fell apart in spectacular fashion. They were able to accomplish something I couldn’t despite my ambition and diligence in all other areas of my life: They somehow managed to make themselves marriageable.

I, on the other hand, have managed to be professionally single most of my adult life. On those lonely nights when I want to drive myself particularly crazy, I’ll often ask myself why I am still not partnered up.

I realize I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, but I have lots of friends, so I doubt I’m unlikable.

I’m more of “ha ha!” crazy, not “oh brother…” crazy.

I’ve struggled with my weight in recent years, but if just about any episode of My 600 Pound Life or the cat calls I get while walking down the street are any indication, it’s certainly not the sole problem.

Despite being significantly hotter several years ago, I still couldn’t get a date.

I could have gone to more parties in my 20s and quit an overly demanding job earlier.

I could have been more intentional about who I dated.

Perhaps I was a little too opinionated for some men, but I wouldn’t want to be with someone who wasn’t opinionated himself.

Maybe I’m weird, but if Love On The Spectrum has shown us anything, even extreme awkwardness is no match for true love.

Ugly? Even with my magnificently low self-esteem, I know that’s not true.

Stupid? I’ll let you be the judge of that.

It’s almost harder to accept that I’m not the one solely at fault for this because the alternative means that I drew a bad hand of cards and have no control over my life (and maybe I should just give up). In a world where I could control my fate, I could just lose a couple of pounds, go to more parties, and suppress my pathological need to discuss the most depressing aspects of the news cycle, and I would have men lining up around the block for the opportunity to date me.

On other lonely nights when I want to drive myself less insane than usual, I’ll take a mental walk through my Rolodex of ex-boyfriends and crushes. And then it will hit me — I may have had the good fortune to dodge a few bullets.

While scrolling Facebook, I recently came across a post from a guy I adored. We went to church together — he was a hard worker, smart, kind, gentle and a spiritual giant. While we didn’t have much chemistry, I still would think, “Maybe I can convince Dave to marry me someday.” But now I was looking at a post that shocked me. Since we had lost contact, he had become cynical, critical, angry, and ideological.

I began to go through the catalog of former loves and found qualities and attributes that would have resulted in less-than-happy marriages: Stints in prison, high-conflict personalities, one who is dead, several who are gay, struggles with alcoholism, those who became rabid ideologues, controlling behavior, and those who could just not permit anyone to love them.

This isn’t to say I only ever dated terrible people. In better scenarios, I also dated emotionally-mature men who perhaps lacked a little ambition, had different life goals, or I simply didn’t have enough in common with them. Many went on to marry someone else. In at least one case, my crush married a good friend, and I can happily say I’m glad he did because they are a perfect match.

I’m glad I’m not married — at least not to any of the men I loved before. There’s a sense of relief knowing that — even in the best-case scenario — I’m not hitched to a man with whom I would have been unhappy.

Hopefully, my soulmate is just around the corner. I still have that expensive lace, just in case.