First of all, I probably need to mention that I am not anti-love, I am not anti-romance, and I am emphatically not anti-wedding. As some of my posts would indicate, nothing could be further from the truth. At heart, I am nothing more than a hopeless romantic.
Still, something has recently come to my attention. Specifically, the quality of our weddings. Specifically, the quality of our wedding receptions. Specifically, the quality of wedding receptions organized and put on by very close friends of my family.
I can't believe it needs to be said, in this country, in this day and age, that your music sucks. Your music sucks beyond words. Your music sucks so much, so hard, that it wouldn't be out of place in your local red light district.
Or, specifically, the music at wedding receptions sucks. Or, more specifically, the music put on by very close "family friends" of mine at their wedding receptions sucks.
I'm supposed to almost be an adult now. I believe I fall into that much-sought demographic known as the young adult. So I should be able to get past the thought of my aunts and uncles, my grand-parents, my mom, and both of my dads, some nice old ladies from church, all rushing to the dance floor and shaking their "thangs" to Def Leppard or Toby Keith or "Play That Funky Music White Boy," and then getting to talk with other "friends of the family" for about four hours while I sit around texting some friends, and then they try to talk me into getting off the phone with my friends and dancing with grandma for maybe one or two songs, and at the end of the night they're all drunk and I end up the designated driver.
Somehow, though, I can't get past that. It might be a generational thing, or it might just be I'm not a family man. Or, for that matter, much of a man at all.
A lot of my general resentment with weddings comes from just not being the life of the party. See, even at wedding receptions, there are bound to be some chicas there (not that I resent the title of a one-woman man, but still). The problem is that there's a certain social dissonance with trying to pick up chicks while Mom and Pop are about two feet away. Not that one should be going to weddings with the express intent of trying to pick up chicks (I'm look at you two tools), but if such an opportunity were to present itself, having to worry about the approval of Mommy dearest makes it that much harder.
It's not rocket science, really. It's just...well, it's more like brain surgery, I guess. Possibly the brain surgery of one social animal Homo sapien. Specifically, one very obtuse and stubborn Homo sapien who is still caught between a rock and a hard place.
This really doesn't have anything to do with my relationship woes. It's more like me feeling like a fish out of water at a very recent wedding reception. It was for someone at my church. She has just married someone I used to have classes with in high school. And I'm happy for both of them. They're both very nice people, and they seem right for each other. The groom gave me a Swiss Army Knife as a gift for helping out with the ceremony. (I did some ushering. I wasn't really an "usher," but I helped direct the flow of guests in and out, and I videotaped, so I guess it counts.) It'll be nice when I travel to the south side of Chicago this weekend.
Weddings are a beautiful thing. It shows the joining of two souls who have vowed to love and nurture each other for the rest of their lives. There is nothing so sacred and so meaningful as giving one's heart to someone they truly cherish.
It's just. The receptions. Always. Suuuuuck.
Just a word of advice: If you should ever get married (and I hope you do), avoid country music. And whatever "white boy" plays that funky music. And ninety-percent of the stuff from the eighties (Queen is still more than acceptable though). And, as a rule of thumb, anything that's been playing way too much on your local radio station.
And if you go to a party like that, bring at least one or two friends you wouldn't be embarrassed to start dancing in front of.
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