Last summer, my mentor from Roche, Doug, told me horror stories about the married life — specifically with regards to having kids. He said to me, “I used to have hobbies… then I got married… and there went a few, and then I started having kids… and now, I don’t really have much of a life.” Doug described to me in agonizing detail how little time he has to talk to his wife one-on-one, how little sleep he got (he’s had three children in four years, one of whom had just started her terrible two’s while I was at Roche), etc. Granted, I’m only telling one side of the story (although … he never really mentioned the upsides…), but … I’m definitely going to hold off on children for the foreseeable future …
Flash forward to this summer: I mentioned before that the postdoc I’m working with recently got engaged. From him, a grad student who got engaged earlier this year, and a grad student who got married last year, I am hearing a great deal about the “joys” of wedding planning.
And by “joy”, I mean “agony.” Painful, throw-salt-on-my-wounds, kick-me-in-the-groin agony.
Not only does it seem that you have to deal with your fiancee, who almost invariably wants this to be some sort of royal ball from her girlhood fantasies (despite the Bill Gates himself would probably go bankrupt from the ceremony she has planned), you have to deal with her parents (who want to invite all humans three degrees removed from them), you have to deal with endless lines of photographers who all seem to shoot the same way but are desperately trying to convince you that they’re better than their competitors, you have to deal with innumerable overpriced caterers, droves of crappy bands, AND — worse of all — you can’t say a word about any of that or you’re sleeping on the couch. In fact, you have to pretend to enjoy it — and you have to pretend that you had a say in it (even though you don’t — b/c you don’t give a damn about these details).
And of course, your fiancee is still going to cry about every little thing. Her parents are going to be insulted at how you’re restricting the invite list to less than 10000 people. Your fiancee is going to bitch about how you don’t care about xyz little detail (and face it, you don’t). Your friends are going to wonder why your face goes sour whenever the topic of the wedding comes up.
Ben (my postdoc)’s advice to me: “Ben, don’t get married. Trust me. It’s not worth it.”
Now… I hope his fiancee doesn’t read this…
