I do!...right?

So I'm a twenty something year old girl who has just decided I never want to get married.  I'm not sure when I had this epiphany, or if I'll feel the same way over time, but my answer to marriage right now is a resounding NO.

This decision may have just resulted from the bias of a long-term bad relationship.  Maybe I'm giving other guys a pre-side eye because I've had a less than stellar "man." Turns out the more I try to rationalize my anti-marriage stance, the more I realize its been a long term development.  One of the most profound effects on my decision to not get married is witnessing the marriage of my own parents. Without the risk of sounding too much like a psychoanalyst, maybe I've suppressed some feelings after seeing my mom neglected by my dad, endure a long-term separation while raising two kids on her own, and reluctantly taking him back just to endure the same B.S. again--yea that's probably what did it.

So I took my marriage woes to the streets and asked some of my homegirls/boys what they thought.  I was a little surprised to hear my friends repeat the same feelings back to me, even the ones who have happily married parents that have been together for what seems like an eternity.  Although there many different reasons why people didn't want to get married there were a large number of people who felt the institution was obsolete (or maybe I just have like-minded friends...who knows?) .  After some more thinking I realized that trying to gauge the opinions on marriage from my friends wasn't exactly an accurate source.

Then one day, I was sitting on the Franklin avenue shuttle and two young girls, maybe high school age proceeded to discuss marriage. It went something like this:

Girl A: You wouldn't get married if Jim Jones proposed to you?

Girl B: Nope

Girl A: Ok, not even Trey Songz?

Girl B: Nope, I don't wanna get married to nobody

Girl A: Girl you crazy!

Girl B: What's the point of marrying him if he's just gonna cheat anyway?

Then some older women sitting nearby interrupted the convo and said " Don't worry you'll change your mind when you get older

But will she? This young lady had just blatantly and succinctly summed up my feelings on marriage and I think the trend is growing.  You hear of men having affairs for 5 years out of their 9 year marriage.  Recently, the high profile divorce of Kobe Bryant and wife Vanessa shocked everyone after miss "stand by my man" decided to finally take a seat. 

I know this is a VERY cynical stance...but people tend to do shitty things, and when they make these vows, they most likely will break them.  My theory is that there are good men, but there are a lot fewer of them then bad men, therefore, in terms of numbers, only a certain amount of women will actually end up marrying a good man,

Even if a man is faithful there is still the very real possibility that I will be working full time as well as be the primary caretaker of the house.  Statistics even show that married women are just about as happy as single women (married men fare way better than their single counterparts).  So after reviewing all of this...I'm really wondering if it's worth even getting married....

Get back to me in 10 years.